^48 ^^' OPIUM. 



Effects of He maintained the existence of a principle in the animated 



©pium on the body, which he denominated excitability; That this priii- 



Jmng system. . /' , , •' ' 1' .\ 



ciple was characteristic of lifej that action was the 



consequence of the operation of certain powers upon this 



principle, health the consequence of the due and proper 



operation of these powers, and disease the effect of the 



abundant or deficient action of these powers. 



In this state of things the very accurate and most philoso- 

 phical thesis of Dr. Goodwin, upon the cause of death 

 from suspension and submersion, made its appearance, in 

 which he plainly proved the existence of a primary change 

 in the condition of the blood; that this condition was 

 sufficient, and indeed necessary to occasion death. About 

 this period also the experiments of the celebrated Italian 

 philosopher, Fontana, attracted considerable attention and 

 became the subject of much discussion. He contended 

 from numerous experiments, that opium was a power, 

 which exerted a direct influence upon the blood, or that 

 the blood was a necessary agent to communicate its opera- 

 tion to the living and irritable fibre, and without the cir- 

 culation of which, the usual eftects of opium could not take 

 place. His experiments, which excluded the agency of the. 

 nerves altogether in producing the general effects, resulting 

 from the exhibition of opium, afforded considerable support 

 to those who maintained some new doctrines of irritability*. 



This 



* These physiologists rejecting the nosology and practice of Dr. 

 Brown as incompatible with his fundamental principles, but 

 adopting these, and using the borrowed term of irritability instead 

 of excitability, attempted to establish a new hypothesis, by ex- 

 plaining all the changes, which the body underwent in a state of 

 health and disease, upon an alteration in this principle. The ex- 

 periments of Fontana, wiiich went to deny the influence of the 

 nerves, coinciding with tliis new hypothesis were eagerly em- 

 braced by them. 



The manner in which these physiologists explained the con-: 

 sumption of irritability upon the application of a stimulus, without 

 the agency of the nerves was somewhat curious. 'Jhey supposed 

 the principle of irritability was Uke the matter of heal, dilifusible 

 over every part of a body endowed with it, tliat when any portion 

 of it w»9 destroyed by the action of a power applied to any part, 



the 



