THOMAS ANDREW KNIGHT, ESQ. 55 



have been early visible, have, in a great variety of instances, 

 continued to improve ; but the possessors of these were not 

 early subjected to more labour than they could bear ; and the 

 ordinary labours of education were not in any degree oppres- 

 sive to them. 



" I also believe Dr. Caldwell's opinion, that dyspeptic cases 

 are to a great extent brain cases, to be well founded. He has 

 not mentioned the singular discovery of Dr. Wilson Philip, that 

 if the eighth pair of nerves be divided, and the divided ends be 

 made to point in somewhat different directions, and the nervous 

 communication be thus intercepted, digestion is immediately 

 suspended totally ; but that it may be made to go on perfectly 

 well by causing a current of galvanic fluid to pass down from 

 the neck to the stomach. Your late illustrious countryman, 

 and my fellow-collegian and friend, Dr. Baillie, entertained pre- 

 viously, I believe, somewhat similar opinions respecting the 

 influence of the operation of the brain upon the stomach. Soon 

 after my opinions respecting the creations and motions of the 

 fluids of plants and other matters connected with vegetable 

 physiology were made public, and when, with the exception of 

 Sir Joseph Banks, I had no supporter, my time and mind were 

 laboriously occupied in a great variety of experiments, I became 

 unwell, my stomach ceased to act, and I thought myself fast 

 approaching to the termination of my labours. I then con- 

 sulted Dr. Baillie, who gave me an extraordinary prescription : 

 ' Take no more medicine ; walk more, and think less.' 



" I entertain very nearly as exalted an opinion of the ignorance 

 of a large portion of our legislators as you do : either they can- 

 not, or they will not think. The Mayor of Worcester some 

 years ago, when George III. addressed him, said, ' Please your 

 majesty, Lord Coventry speaks for me.' Many of our legis- 

 lators might say, ' and thinks for me.' As sagacity in the brute 

 creation certainly becomes hereditary when exercised through 

 successive generations, stupidity, I believe, becomes hereditary 

 also ; and, according to Dr. Caldwell's theory, the injurious 

 effects of too early labour of the infant brain, must operate here- 



