Medicine. 245 



Haller, in the former part of the century, to 

 ascertain the fundamental laws of the animal eco- 

 nomy, it would be improper not to add those lately 

 undertaken for the same purpose by the Abbe 

 -Font AN A. By a series of experiments, in which 

 accuracy and industry are eminently conspicuous, 

 the Abbe has proved, beyond the possibility of 

 doubt, the existence of a principle in the animal 

 fibre, independent of nervous energy, from which 

 result, on the application of certain exciting powers, 

 the various actions suited to the support of animal 

 life. This principle, which with Haller he de- 

 nominates irritability, has been since proved by a 

 great variety of facts to be susceptible of two re- 

 markable changes in the living fibre, viz. increase 

 and diminution, depending upon the abstraction 

 or accumulation of stimulant powers. In support 

 of this general principle, which is supposed uni- 

 versally to belong to animated nature, the aid of 

 many facts, derived from the vegetable kingdom, 

 has been recently added. As the functions of 

 the animal economy, viz. sensation and volun- 

 tary motion, to which the nerves seem alone to be 

 necessary, are never satisfactorily observed in the 

 vegetable kingdom, it is presumed that the ab- 

 sence of nerves in this kingdom can in no degree 

 diminish the analogy which is attempted to be 

 established between these two grand divisions of 

 created nature. It is contended by these physi- 

 ologists that there is a principle of action common 

 to both kingdoms, upon which their respective 

 functions chiefly depend, and which is believed to 

 be governed by the same laws as are laid down 

 for the regulation of the irritability of the animal 

 fibre. By the term irritability, nothing more is 

 here m.eant than merely to express a fact; which 

 fact is this, that certain parts of animals and vege- 

 tables are possessed of a property, by which, upon 



