94 NERVOUS SYSTEM. 



#. Spasm, convulsion, palsy, somnolency, .torpor, de- 

 rangement of the intellectual functions; in a word, every 

 thing which tends, in disease, to interrupt our relations with 

 surrounding bodies; these belong to alterations of animal 

 sensibility and contractility. 



Q. Does proneness to inflammation depend on the num- 

 ber of nerves in a part? 



A. Those parts which have the greatest number of 

 nerves are not most liable to inflammation. 



Q. What do you understand by sympathy? 



*#. It is an impression in health or disease, not arising 

 from a natural connexion of functional operation ; the im- 

 pression is conveyed from an organ to the nervous sys- 

 tem, or a portion thereof. 



Q. How do the nerves sympathize in disease? 



ft. There is a sympathy between two nerves of the 

 same pair; as when one optic nerve induces the other to 

 sympathy. Again, two nerves of the same side, but not 

 of the same trunk, sympathize, as when blindness results 

 from the injury of the frontal nerve. Again, two branches 

 of one trunk sympathize with each other; and nerves 

 sympathize actively and passively with other organs. 



Q. What is the rationale of nervous sympathy on re- 

 mote parts ? 



*ft. Nervous sympathy operates on the predominant 

 vital properties of the parts engaged; increasing animal 

 sensibility in pain of the head; or animal contractility 

 in sympathetic convulsions; or sensible organic contrac- 

 tility in the action of the heart, or in contractions of the sto- 

 mach in vomiting. These, in different cases and persons, 

 are excited by irritation of a nerve. 



Q. What have been considered the media of sympathy ? 



