WHAT IS A STIMULANT? 
79 
vitality of tlie nervous apparatus connected with the hearty if 
it be brought about with sufficient and not too much rapidity^ 
will always greatly accelerate the hearths movements ; and 
there can be no doubt that this is the origin of the rapid pul- 
sations in acute disease. In these instances_, the organ which 
is thus disturbed may be said to have escaped from its vital 
conditions, and to exhibit phenomena which_, y>ro tanto, are 
physical rather than truly vital. 
It is the same with the violent tetanic spasms which are caused 
by a poisonous dose of strychnia_, and which are so often spoken 
of as the result of excessive stimulation or iritation of the spinal 
cord. Such effects as these are naturally but erroneously 
conceived of as directly opposed^ in their physiological signi- 
ficance^ to paralysis. In truths however^ there is no ground for 
this theoretical opposition of the two groups of symptoms ; 
both the one and the other imply the death_, temporary or per- 
manent_, of a certain portion of the nervous system. It is 
because strychnia Jiills the nervous centres of the spinal cord 
with great swiftness^ that it produces general tetanic spasm ; 
and the proof that there is no real opposition between the ' 
causal conditions 'bf tetanus and of palsy^ respectively^ is 
found in the fact that an agent apparently so different from 
strychnia as opium may be made to produce precisely the 
same symptoms if it be administered to an animal, like the 
frog, in which the spinal cord is at once largely developed in 
proportion to the rest of the nervous system, and highly im- 
pressible, that is to say, delicate and feeble in its organization. 
The tetanized muscles may be said to have escaped, in great 
measure, from the control of true vital conditions, and the 
application of such a term as excessive stimulation to the 
cause of their movements is not merely incorrect but the ex- 
treme of incorrectness. 
It would be easy to give instances of the error which we 
are considering in respect of excessive movements of any of 
, the bodily organs ; but I shall content myself with one more 
illustration. The abnormal action of the brain in drunkenness 
is often spoken of as an effect of over- stimulation. It is, 
however, not difficult to perceive, on analyzing the symptoms, 
that every one of them is really an evidence of paralysis. The 
jj noisy roaring drunkard is not troubled with any superfluous 
amount of brain-power, but with a partial brain-puls?/ : a palsy 
which has invaded those portions of the cerebral mass which 
execute the behests of intellect, prudence, and the moral sense, 
and has thus simplyremoved the checks ordinarily imposed upon 
the emotions and appetites. The flushed face, suffused eyes, 
and slightly thickened speech, give abundant evidence that 
this advancing palsy is pressing upon certain other portions 
