GENERAL OBSERVATIONS. 11 



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reach their acme and decline. Physical laws and proper- 

 ties exist unimpaired as long as matter remains. 



Q. Are sympathies found in living or inert bodies? 



#. Exclusively in the living. If a stone be bruised or 

 broken, the parts do not suffer; but if a living body be in- 

 jured in a part, the whole may or does sympathize. 



Q. What are sympathies? 



/?. Unnatural vital forces indirectly excited by remote 

 impressions.* 



Q. What properties belong to vegetable life? 



*ft. Organic sensibility and insensible organic contrac- 

 tility. 



Q. What vital properties do animals possess beyond 

 those of vegetables? 



t#. Besides organic sensibility and insensible organic 

 contractility, in animals you find animal sensibility, ani- 

 mal contractility, and sensible organic contractility. 



Q. What are the diseases of vegetables? 



Jl. They have not the nervous affections, nor fevers 

 which arise from exalted animal sensibility, and sensible 

 organic contractility; but they have tumours, exhalations 

 and affections which result from their vital properties 

 above named. 



Q. Zoophytes manifest a vital property beyond those 

 of vegetables; pray what is it? 



e/?. Sensible organic contractility. 



Q. What are the gradations of properties assigned by 

 Bichat to the three kingdoms? 



* Bichat does not include in this definition healthy sympathies; these 

 were formerly denominated by many physiologists, synergies. The 

 term sympathy, however, as at present employed, comprises both these 

 classes of phenomena healthy and morbid sympathies. 



