AND ANIMAL LIFE. 295 



short statement, it must be obvious, that, sooner 

 or later, an accumulation of blood, highly venous, 

 must take place in the arterial system; and 

 whenever this proceeds a certain length, we are 

 prepared to understand why the body feels weak ; 

 why the pulse flutters and the heart vibrates ; 

 why the vital functions are nearly arrested ; and 

 why the person expresses the greatest anxiety 

 and oppression in the chest, referrible in part to 

 the presence of venous blood in the left side of 

 the heart, but occasioned equally by the consent 

 which obtains between this organ and the lungs. 

 Such is a general explanation of the cause of the 

 occurrence of a paroxysm."* " Let me next 

 observe," he says, " that whatever renders the 

 circulation irregular accelerates the accession of 

 a fit, as then, from the increased frequency of 

 the vascular contractions, blood comes to be more 

 rapidly transmitted through the heart, and thus 

 venous blood is poured more frequently into the 

 arterial system ; inducing thus, in a shorter time, 

 the train of symptoms which would inevitably 

 have followed, though at a somewhat more re- 

 mote period." 



CCCXXIII. It is difficult to conceive how 

 one so acute and original as BURNS should have 

 been so illogical in his reasoning on the preced- 

 ing phenomena. In the first place, he observes, 



* Observations, or View of the most frequent and impoir 

 ,tant Diseases of the Heart; by ALLAN BURNS. 



