366 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1788. 



jected all communication by the application, or stimulus, being carried by the 

 blood-vessels, or any other way whatever, to the part. I have also rejected any 

 motion, or communication of any kind whatever by the brain and nerves to the 

 part. I conceive that when any stimulus or application whatever is made 

 in any part, so as to produce any action in a distant part, that that 

 medicine or application, without having any operation whatever on the 

 intermediate parts, gives a power to the particles of the moving part of 

 greater attraction. I shall illustrate this idea by supposing that there is a 

 machine moving by various powers, either original or communicated; and that 

 in this machine there are 2 magnets, which by their attractive power have come 

 to a given distance from one another, but have been prevented from coming 

 nearer by some power endeavouring to draw them back. A much stronger mag- 

 net applied to a part of the machine, in a certain manner, so as not to touch 

 either of the 2 already there, nor to affect any other part, may increase their 

 power of attraction, so as to make them overcome the resistance, and come 

 nearer one another*. In the same manner I apprehend that an application made 

 to the skin of the abdomen may, and often does, occasion the action of the in- 

 testines to take place, without any effect whatever on the intermediate parts; but 

 that it simply excites the attraction of the particles of the moving parts of the 

 intestines; certainly a part of the matter through which the influence is to pass, 

 viz. the mucus and scarf skin, is actually inanimate matter. 



In certain cases of original motion there is attraction, or the coming nearer of 

 particles only. In others there is not only attraction, but opposite repulsion; the 

 cases of which are unnecessary to enumerate to this society. In the attraction 

 of life there is no opposite repulsion ; all the motions of the body are produced 

 entirely by the force of particles coming nearer one another. When this force 

 diminishes, or the action goes off, and leaves the part entirely to its tone, the 

 particles of the moving part are by no means repulsed from one another, but 

 are left to be drawn asunder by their elasticity, weight, or the weight of the 

 surrounding parts, or any other accidental power: yet there are applications 

 which may be made to distant parts of the body, which may, and do, take off 

 the attraction which occasions the action of the moving part; and all those rea- 

 sonings which I have already applied to applications which excite action, and 

 which are called stimuli, are equally applicable to those applications which make 

 action cease, and which we call sedatives. The great ground on which I have 

 attempted to make these observations, is the foundation of certain maxims in 

 the practice of medicine, which I shall now proceed to sketch out to the society, 



* I do not mean to insinuate, in the smallest degree, that the powers of the body at all depend on, 

 or have any thing to do with, magnetism.— Orig. 



