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other actions with the utmost precision, when you come to distribute 

 the action amongst the many muscles that have produced it, you find 

 it impossible to separate and give to each muscle its part, so as to ob- 

 tain the true coefficient of muscular exertion. You will only, by such 

 processes, obtain empirical results informing you what strength animals 

 or men could exert when performing certain actions, but you cannot work 

 back and get the coefficient which science demands, the precise force 

 per unit of cross-section which these muscles exert. Again, measure- 

 ments of the muscles made after death presented difficulties, to which I 

 shall presently call attention, much greater than any but an anatomist 

 would suppose. In making my observations on the force exerted by 

 the muscles during life, I often found (as medical men are well aware) 

 that in several forms of disease phenomena will be presented bear- 

 ing upon muscular forces that solve problems in animal mechanics that 

 no voluntary effort on the part of the sufferer could possibly produce. 

 Contortions of the body will be produced by the agonising spasms of 

 cholera, of lock-jaw, or, as I have seen in cases of poisoning by 

 strychnia, which, while they are dreadful to behold, are yet, to the in- 

 telligent observer, of most extreme importance. While you are helping 

 a sufferer on his bed of pain there is nothing to prevent your catching 

 the solution of your problem for the coefficient of animal mechanics. 

 You need not be less kind or hearty in your zeal to help the sufferer 

 because you are at the same time taking scientific note of a curious 

 combination of muscles of which he is entirely unconscious, and that no 

 voluntary effort on his part or on the part of any other man would en- 

 able you to obtain. Partly for this cause, and partly I hope from higher 

 motives, I became personally and intimately acquainted with all the 

 phenomena of cholera. In cholera, hydrophobia, lock-jaw, and for the 

 study of the muscle of the heart in fever, it is absolutely necessary to 

 come into contact with these diseases, to study them at the bedside, 

 and so to become acquainted, as I did through twelve years of hard 

 work with a most interesting class, concerning whom it will be wrong 

 for me to proceed in my lecture without bearing my humble testimony. 

 I am not acquainted much with the poor of England, though I doubt 

 not their qualities are as estimable and as excellent as those of my own 

 country ; but I may be permitted to bear my humble testimony to the 

 qualities which I have observed myself amongst our Irish poor when in 

 sickness and in trouble. Their devotion to their friends and neighbours 

 in time of trouble is most extraordinary. Those who have quarreled 

 in prosperity forgive each other in times of sickness. Their impulsive 

 nature and their heartfelt gratitude, even unto death, for a hearty word 

 of sympathy and kindness from those who visit them, and their brave 

 cheerfulness in facing death, cannot be described by my words. One 

 fact stands out prominent to the observation of any person who studies 



