EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY MEDICINE 



of which are of no importance whatever ; but three, at 

 least, that came into existence and disappeared during 

 the century are worthy of fuller notice. One of these, 

 the Animists, had for its chief exponent Georg Ernst 

 Stahl of "phlogiston" fame; another, the Vitalists, 

 was championed by Paul Joseph Barthez (1734-1806) ; 

 and the third was the Organicists. This last, while 

 agreeing with the other two that vital activity cannot 

 be explained by the laws of physics and chemistry, 

 differed in not believing that life "was due to some 

 spiritual entity/' but rather to the structure of the 

 body itself. 



The Animists taught that the soul performed func- 

 tions of ordinary life in man, while the life of lower 

 animals was controlled by ordinary mechanical prin- 

 ciples. Stahl supported this theory ardently, some- 

 times violently, at times declaring that there were 

 "no longer any doctors, only mechanics and chem- 

 ists." He denied that chemistry had anything to do 

 with medicine, and, in the main, discarded anatomy 

 as useless to the medical man. The soul, he thought, 

 was the source of all vital movement; and the im- 

 mediate cause of death was not disease but the direct 

 action of the soul. When through some lesion, or be- 

 cause the machinery of the body has become unwork- 

 able, as in old age, the soul leaves the body and death 

 is produced. The soul ordinarily selects the channels 

 of the circulation, and the contractile parts, as the route 

 for influencing the body. Hence in fever the pulse is 

 quickened, due to the increased activity of the soul, 

 and convulsions and spasmodic movements in disease 

 are due to the same cause. Stagnation of the blood 



