AND ANIMAL LIFE. * 301 



of Syncope, is chiefly referrible to two causes : 

 Our ignorance of the independent actions of the ner 

 vous and sanguiferous systems, and of the reciprocal 

 and necessary influence which unites the one to the 

 other. When passions or external objects have 

 occasioned Syncope, it has generally been con- 

 sidered that the motions of the heart have been 

 stopped or impeded by the direct influence of the 

 brain upon the moving powers of the blood : 

 when such consequences followed depletion or 

 the removal of an hydropic fluid, inequality in 

 the circulation was regarded as the cause. If we 

 had taken into consideration, that the heart is 

 proved to be independent of the direct agency of 

 the brain ; and, still further, if we had reflected 

 that the symptoms are invariably the same, whe- 

 ther they be referred to sensation or mechanical 

 alterations, we should probably have exercised 

 our faculties to discover the intermediate link 

 which apparently connects the mental antecedent 

 to the corporeal sequence in the production of 

 Syncope. 



CCCXXX. There is not any other derange- 

 ment of the body that shows, equally with this 

 affection, the reciprocal influence of the two great 

 systems of the constitution, viz. the nervous and 

 sanguiferous ; and, without having recourse to 

 the flow or suppression of a nervous fluid, and 

 without bringing forward any gratuitous assump- 

 tions, it is not difficult to demonstrate the sim- 



