MEDICINE. 
which Brown aimed at. His division is a 
guide to principle but not to practice. 
A recent attempt has been made to include 
in one scheme both general principles and 
particular facts. This plan, however, not- 
withstanding the boldness of conception by 
which it was formed, and extraordinary inge- 
nuity by which it has been executed, is de- 
fective. It rests upon a hypothetical, and 
therefore upon a sandy, foundation. Our 
readers who are acquainted at all with mo- 
dern medicine, will be at no loss to conclude 
that we fefer to the system of the late Dr. 
Darwin. By this author, excitability, which 
was left as an ultimate fact in the Brunonian 
theory, is attempted to be traced to its ori- 
gin. The sensorial power, excitability, or 
spirit of animation, is conceived to be “ a 
subtle fluid, residing in the brain and nerves, 
and liable to general or partial accumula- 
tion.” The vital changes effected by the 
medium of this imaginary fluid, are, 1st, 
“ Irritation, which is an exertion or change 
of some extreme part of the sensorium resid- 
ing in the muscles or organs of sense, in con- 
sequence of the appulses of external bodies. 
2. Sensation, an exertion or change of the 
central parts of the sensorium, or of the 
whole of it, beginning at some extreme parts 
of it, which reside in the muscles or organs 
of sense. 3. Volition is an exertion or change 
of the central parts of the sensorium, or of 
the whole of it, terminating in some extreme 
parts of it, which reside in the muscles or 
organs of sense. 4th. Association is an exer- 
tion or change of some extreme part of the 
sensorium, residing in the muscles or organs 
of sense, in consequence of some antecedent 
or attendant fibrous contractions.” 
With these assumptions as his guide, Dr. 
Darwin endeavours to penetrate deeper into 
the cause of disease than is allowed bv a mere 
knowledge of the condition of the fibre. The 
powers of the sensorium are the proximate 
Cause ; the fibrous action, the excitement of 
Dr. Brown, the proximate effect ; and hence, 
from an ingenious, but by no means satisfac- 
tory, statement of the mode in which excita- 
tions are produced, he treats of diseases as 
occasioned by the comparative redundancy 
or deficiency of the sensorial power of irrita- 
tion, sensation, volition, or association. 
It would carry us far away beyond our li- 
KsitsUo pursue this theory through the minu- 
tia 1 . of its ramifications. Some opportunities 
will be afforded in the course of the present 
article to acknowledge the obligations which 
medicine is under to its ingenious framer. 
We shall here confine ourselves to the state- 
ment of what we consider fundamental ob- 
jections to the doctrines, and, by implication, 
the nosology or arrangement of Zoonomia. 
In the first place, it does not distinguish 
between cause and effect, between fibrous 
motion and its source. Secondly, it substi- 
tutes, like the antient systems, mere state- 
ments of phenomena for explication of their 
origin. Thirdly, and what is more imme- 
diately applicable to our present enquiry, it 
divides that which in its nature is indivisible. 
Dr. Brown had defined excitement to be a 
certain state of fibrous action produced by 
the exciting powers acting upon, the excita- 
bility. Dr. Darwin after him considers irri- 
tation or excitement as an exertion of the 
spirit of animation, exciting the fibres to con- 
traction. Here we observe the want of pro- j 
cisiou alluded to, and the confusion originates 
from forsaking induction to embrace hypo- 
thesis. “ On Dr. Darwin’s principles the 
identical fibrous motion exists before the fa- 
culty of irritation can be exerted.” The spi- 
rit of animation ought to have been stated as 
the unknown medium (“ quo pacto adficia- 
tur ignoratur ”) through which the excite- 
ment or irritation is produced. 
Again, the sentient and fibrous changes 
which in the Darwinian system of life are 
thus connected, are not rendered more ex- 
plicable by the intervention of a subtle fluid. 
The spirit of animation of Darwin, allowing its 
existence to be capable of proof, in no mea- 
sure facilitates the conception of vital causa- 
tion. As an exemplification of the last of 
the above objections, it may be urged, that 
when Dr. Darwin, in framing his classifica- 
tion, referred all morbid affection to the 
heads of irritation, sensation, volition, and 
association, he seems to have overlooked his 
former assumption, founded upon the insepa- 
rability and identity of the sensorial power 
or fluid, and not to have been aware he had 
already asserted that “ propensity to action, 
whether it be called irritability, sensibility, 
voluntarity, or associability, is only another 
mode of expressing the quantity of sensorial 
power residing in the organ to be excited.” 
An increase then or diminution of one of 
these energies necessarily supposes an in- 
crease or diminution of all, “ and the disor- 
der of decreased irritability, ought also to be 
the disorder of decreased sensibility, volun- 
tarity, and associability.” The classification, 
then, is even in contradiction to the princi- 
ples of Zoonomia. It is intricate and erro- 
neous. 
Perhaps the most consistent and compre- 
hensive plan of arranging individual diseases 
would be that which, while it preserved the 
important fact in view, of the indivisibility of 
the living system, would take into its account 
the three leading, and in one sense separate, 
functions performed by the arterial, the ner- 
vous, and the glandular organization. 
As approaching nearest to this plan, and 
likewise because it is in most general use in 
this country, at least as a text-book for 
teachers of medicine, we shall make use in 
the present article of the nosology of Dr. 
Cullen, requesting the reader to recollect the 
unavoidable objections which oppose them- 
selves to all systems and all classifications of 
morbid affections. 
The following are the classes, orders, and 
genera of Cullen, with the exception of the 
class locales, which relates to those disorders 
principally that come under the head of sur- 
gery. 
TABLE OF CLASSIFICATION. 
Class I. Pyrexia;. A frequent pulse, 
succeeding to shivering or horror ; increased 
heat ; disturbed functions; prostration of 
strength. 
Order I. Febris. Pyrexia, independant 
of local affection as its cause ; languor, lassi- 
tude, and other signs of debiiitv. 
Sect. 1. Intermittentes. levers arising 
from the miasma of marshy grounds, with an 
evident remission, the returning fits being 
almost always ush. red in by horror or trem- 
bling. One paroxysm only in the day. 
Genera. Tcrtiana; quartana ; quotidiana. 
133- 
Sect. 2. Continues. Fevers without in- 
termission, not occasioned by marsh miasma, 
attended with exacerbations and remissions, 
though not very perceptible. 
Genera. Synocha ; typhus; synochus. 
Order II. Phlegmasia:. Fever, accom- 
panied by local inflammation or topical pain, 
lesion, or disturbance of the internal func- 
tions ; sizy blood. 
Genera. Phlogasis ophthalmia; phrenitis ; 
cynanche; pneumonia carditis; peritonitis; 
gastritis; enteritis; hepatitis; splenitis; ne- 
phritis ; cystitis ; hysteritis ; rheumatism us ; 
odontalgia podagra ; arthropuosis. 
Order 111. Exanthemata. Contagious dis- 
eases, which only affect once during life, 
commencing with fever, and succeeded by 
phlogosis or inflammatory eruptions on the 
skin. 
Genera. Erysipelas ; pestis ; variola ; va- 
ricella ; rubeola miliaria; scarlatina; urti-. 
caria; pemphygus; apthax 
Orderly. Hemorrhagia. Pyrexia; spoil-, 
taneous discharge of blood; blood when 
draw’n from a vein of a sizy appearance. 
Genera. Epistasis ; hemaptisis ; haemarr- 
hois menarrhagia. 
Order V. Frojluvia. Pyrexia; inordinate 
discharge, but not of blood. 
Genera. Catarrh ; dysenteria. 
Class II. Neuroses. A lesion of sense 
and motion, without idiopathic pyrexia or lo- 
cal disorder. 
Order I. Comata. A diminution ‘of vo- 
luntary motion with sleep, or a deprivation 
of sense. 
Genera. Apoplexia; paralysis. 
Order II. Adynamia. Diminished volun- 
tary motion, whether vital or natural. 
Genera. Syncope ; dyspepsia ; hypo- 
chondriasis ; chlorosis. 
Order III. Spusmi. Irregular action of the 
muscular iibre. 
Sect. 1 . In the animal functions. 
Genera. Tetanus ; trismus ; chorea ; ra- 
pliania ; epilepsia. 
Sect. 2. In the vital functions. 
Genera. Palpitatio ; asthma; dyspnac ; 
pertussis. 
Sect. 3. In the natural functions. 
Genera. Pyrosis; colica; cholera; di- 
arrhoea ; diabetes ; hysteria ; hydrophobia. 
Order VI. Fes unite, Derangement of judg- 
ment, independantly of pyrexia or coma. 
Genera. Amextia; melancholia; mania; 
oneirodynia. 
Class III. Cachexiae. A depraved ha- 
bit of body, without idiopathic pyrexia or 
neurosis. 
Order I. Macores. A wasting of the 
whole body. 
Genera. Tabes ; atrophia. 
Order II. Intumescentia. A swelling of 
the whole or of the greatest part of the body. 
Sect. 1 . Adiposa. Fatty swellings. 
Genus. Polysarcia. 
Sect. 2. E/atulosce. Windy swellings'. . 
Genera. Pneumatosis ; tympanites ; phy- 
sometra. 
Sect. 3. Eh/dropes. Watery swellings. 
Anasarca; hydrocephalus; hydrorachitis; 
hydrothorax; ascites; hydrometra ; hydro- 
cele ; physconia. 
Older 111. Impetigines. Cachexies, chief- 
ly deforming the skin and external parts of 
tiie body. 
11 
