544 Medicine, [Chap. IV. 



which, according to the degree of accumulation of 

 the sensorial power of association, and the force of 

 stimuli applied to it, will produce various effects. 

 Hence various kinds of intermittent fevers. Or these 

 increased actions may be in such degree as to pro- 

 duce sensation, and thereby occasion inflammatory 

 fevers: or, lastly, such increased actions may, in 

 consequence of their violence, produce a smaller, 

 4Dr greater, or complete exhaustion of sensorial 

 power in some part essential to life. Hence various 

 kinds of continued fevers with arterial debility, or 

 even death. 



On this extensive scale of sympathy and associa- 

 tion, Dr. Darwin endeavours to account for a great 

 number of the phenomena of diseases, and espe- 

 cially for those of fever. From the same doctrine 

 he deduces the indications of cure, and explains 

 the operations of the remedies by which these indi- 

 cations are fulfilled*. 



The extensive and accurate observations of the 

 laws of organic life, the sagacious conjectures and 

 profound reflexions, which abound in the Zoonomia, 

 must be greatly admired. The most competent 

 judges seem to concur in pronouncing it the ablest 

 medical work of the eighteenth century. In col- 

 lecting and arranging the facts belonging to animal 



* The number of compartments which belong to the system of 

 medical philosophy delivered in Zoonomia, the cycles and epi' 

 cycles, and the variety and intricacy of the relations they bear to 

 each other, render it difficult to comprise, within a short compass, 

 such an abstract as can do justice to the ingenuity and learning of 

 the celebrated r.uthor. If this attempt should be found unsuc- 

 cessful, tlie difficulty of con>bining clearness and brevity in 

 sketches of such a kind ought not to. be forgotten. 



