1072 RECAPITULATION OF THE 



I have demonstrated that so long as the blood is 

 in a condition to combine with the solids and 

 maintain the various secretions, there can be no 

 preternatural temperature of the body ; because 

 the vital heat is transferred to the several tissues, 

 and expended in preserving their activity, as fast 

 as it is obtained by respiration ; and that all con- 

 stitutional diseases are invariably attended with 

 more or less fever, except when respiration is too 

 far diminished to produce reaction, as in cholera, 

 cold plague, the worst forms of typhus, tetanus, 

 hydrophobia, and other low diseases. 



But all the predisposing and exciting causes of 

 disease tend to diminish the process of respiration 

 by which the blood is generated, and that of the 

 emunctories by which it is depurated, until it is 



derangement of the chylopoietic organs. So long as the brain 

 and nerves are freely supplied with rich arterial blood, there can 

 be no stupor, delirium, head-ache, apoplexy, hemiplegia, local 

 paralysis, neuralgia, loss of sensibility, nor any important disorder 

 of the sensorial functions, if we except monomania, which, in an 

 endless variety of ways, has been supposed by some to afflict a 

 large proportion of the human race, including poets, many dis- 

 tinguished philosophers, and founders of systems. At the same 

 time, I am inclined to believe with Hippocrates, that nothing 

 contributes more to a sound state of mind than good blood. 

 " Opinor autem inter omnia quse in corpore sunt, nihil magis ad 

 prudentiam conferre quam sanguinam." (De Flatibus, sect, xx.) 

 There is a real foundation in reason for the importance attached 

 to good blood, in a moral and intellectual as well as a merely 

 physical point of view. The want of it begets ill temper and 

 selfishness in persons who at other times are amiable and benevo- 

 lent. 



