THE VIS MED1CATR1X NATURAE. 1067 



and chemical physicians, the anima of Stahl, the 

 nervous fluid of Willis, Hoffman, Baglivi, Boer- 

 haave, Barthez, and Cullen, like the celebrated 

 vis medicatrix natures, were only different names 

 for what Hippocrates termed Otppov, Trvcujua, and 

 0wie, which they never identified with any known 

 principle capable of scientific demonstration. It 

 is therefore not surprising that none of their 

 theories have been found capable of explaining 

 any of the vital functions in either health or 

 disease. 



It must be admitted, that without the assistance 

 of nature, or what has been termed the vis medi- 

 catrix natures, the physician could perform no 

 cures, any more than the farmer could raise corn 

 and grass without the heating power of the sun. 

 But this doctrine was carried to a vicious and 

 dangerous extent by many of the older prac- 

 titioners, who were in the habit of treating fever 

 by hot applications, to the exclusion of fresh air, 

 cooling drinks and ablutions. Even at the pre- 

 sent day, it is maintained by Parry and some 

 other pathologists, that not only fever and in- 

 flammation, but coma, convulsions, apoplexy, 

 epilepsy, paralysis, chorea, dropsy, dysentery, 

 diarrhoea, and the formation of tubercles, are 

 efforts of nature to counteract the influence of 

 some morbific agent. 



So far is this from being true, that all diseases 

 are attended with a diminution of the vis medica- 



