190 THE LAWS OF ORGANIC 



every department of medical science, except on 

 the subject of animal heat in relation to disease. 

 While chemists have been contending about the 

 quantity of oxygen consumed in a given time, 

 or about the proportions of carbonic acid and 

 vapour formed by the changes in the lungs ; 

 physiologists have been equally busy, but less 

 beneficially occupied, in endeavouring to prove 

 the efficiency of the nervous system in the gene- 

 ration of heat, in attempting to show that galva- 

 nism and the nervous fluid are the same or in 

 labouring to demonstrate that animal heat is 

 nothing but a secretion. If these opinions were 

 to be tested by their contributions to practice, or 

 by the extent of their suggestions to the same, I 

 fear they would be found like many other views, 

 whose only support is the ingenuity of their au- 

 thors. 



CCXII. To these causes we are to attribute the 

 routine practice of the profession -the adherence 

 to what is old, or the avidity for what is new. 



CCXIII. If we take into consideration that 

 the greater number of diseases arise from causes 

 that over-excite the respiratory and sangui- 

 ferous functions, or from causes that diminish 

 their energy, it is certainly important to know 

 in what way these agents influence the sys- 

 tem. In all local and acute inflammations the 

 temperature is augmented, the pulse is more fre- 

 quent, full, or bounding, the sensorial powers are 

 more or less disturbed, and the secretions are also 



