1076 PRIMARY SEAT OF FEVER. 



(which has been recently represented as the centre 

 of vitality,) the stomach and bowels, Peyers 

 glands, nor in any particular organ, but in all 

 parts of the body, and especially in the blood, 

 which is the life of the solids, (as maintained 

 by Moses, Hippocrates, and Harvey,) the alpha 

 and omega of health. The physician who is 

 ignorant of this, has yet to learn the grammar 

 or first elements of the great science which he 

 professes. 



The whole theory of medicine must be founded 

 on a knowledge of the mode in which the ani- 

 mating principle operates in health, and of all 

 the physical agents that diminish, augment, or 

 in any way modify the functions of respiration, 

 sanguification, secretion, nutrition, sensation, and 

 muscular motion. I would therefore repeat what 

 was said in a previous chapter, that if anything 

 deserves the name of universal remedy, it is the 

 principle of life itself, which converts food into 

 blood, fashions every part of the body as if by a 

 divine intelligence, renews its composition when 

 tvasted by illness, heals wounds, ulcers, and abscesses, 

 expels ivhatever is superfluous or injurious, connects 

 all the organs into one harmonious system, and 

 maintains it in a state of health : that the cele- 

 brated vis medicatrix naturce is only another name 

 for the vis caloris, a perfect knowledge of which 

 would give to mankind a more effectual and 

 certain method of curing, or rather of preventing 



