232 



ON SYMPATHY AND FASCINATION. 



according to the nature of the endowments that are called into action ; but 

 their influence, in perhaps every case, commences before such bodies are in 

 a state of contact, and in many cases while they are at a considerable dis- 

 tance from each other. 



From lifeless and inorganic matter these peculiar and mysterious affections 

 ascend to vegetable life, and display to us germs, molecules, and fibrils, 

 uniting not at random with germs, molecules, and fibrils, but each selecting 

 the other, and occasionally attracting them from remote situations, the female 

 male, and the male female rudiments ; and this with the nicest discrimination 

 of their various powers of crassitude or tenuity, and, consequently, of reci- 

 procal adaptation, without which no vital entity would ensue. Perhaps one of 

 the most extraordinary instances of this kind we are acquainted with exists 

 in the valisneria spiralis, an aquatic and dioecous plant, or one belonging to 

 that class in which the male and the female are distinct individuals. The 

 male has a long spiral stem, by which its flower is enabled at all times to 

 adapt itself to the surface of the water, from the bottom of which the plant 

 shoots forth, and to float in the middle of tide-streams of almost every varia- 

 tion of ascent. The stem of the female is straight, and much shorter ; and 

 is hence only found in shallow waters, or on shores, where the tide exerts but 

 little influence. Thus differently formed and remotely situated, how is that 

 union to take place, without which there could be no increment, and the valisneria 

 would be blotted out of the book of vegetable life. The whole process is won- 

 derful ; a part of it is obvious, but the rest is concealed. As soon as the 

 male flower is become perfected, the spriral stem dries away, and the flower 

 separates itself from it, and sails gallantly over the water in pursuit of the 

 female, for the most part driven, indeed, by a current of the wind or of the 

 stream; yet as soon as it arrives within a certain range of the female, it 

 obeys a new influence, and is attracted towards it in various instances even in 

 opposition to wind and tide, the powers that have hitherto directed it. What, 

 now, is this stupendous influence that thus operates at a distance, and gives 

 to the male flower a new direction ? It may possibly be a peculiar kind of 

 odour or aroma; and, perhaps, this is the most philosophical way of account- 

 ing for the fact : but however philosophical, it is altogether hypothetical, for 

 we are incapable of ascertaining, and know nothing of the existence of any 

 such exhalation ; and could we detect it, we should be still totally ignorant 

 of its mode of operation. 



The same curious phenomena seem not unfrequently to take place in the 

 animal system : for here also we can truly afflrm that bodies appear to act 

 where they are not, and where we can trace no communicating medium. A 

 small laceration on one of the fingers, sometimes in our own country, but far 

 more frequently in warmer climates, will produce, if unattended to, the disease 

 of a locked jaw ; and an inflammation or abscess of the liver a severe pain in 

 the left shoulder. Yet in both these cases we are not distinctly acquainted 

 with any closer connexion subsisting between the finger and the jaw, or the 

 liver and the left shoulder, than there is between these different organs and 

 any other part of the system. We may theorize upon the nature of the 

 communication, but we have no certain knowledge. 



The same fact is strikingly exemplified in the different operations of differ- 

 ent poisons when introduced into the stomach. Thus it has been observed 

 by Mr. Brodie, in a valuable and ingenious paper, published in the Philosophical 

 Transactions for 1811, that the infusion of tobacco, applied to any part of the 

 alimentary canal, almost instantaneously, and apparently by some other means 

 than that of the circulation of the blood, destroys the action of the heart, 

 and consequently stops the pulsation, while the brain and the other muscles 

 of the system, besides the heart, are comparatively but little affected : and 

 that alcohol, on the contrary, the essential oil of almonds, and the juice 

 of aconite, destroy as rapidly the action of the brain, and throw the animal 

 into violent convulsions, laborious respiration, and deadly stupor, while the 

 heart continues its usual or nearly its usual pulsation, not only during the 

 whole of the symptoms, but for some minutes after death has actually taken 



