PALSY IN THE HOUSE. 3 
1 shall, in order to avoid repetition in the present course, start 
from the point at which we had then arrived : — 
Definition. — Having considered the various diseases which 
are referrible to an unnaturally increased supply of nerv- 
ous agency — whether flowing in a continuous rapid stream, 
and to many muscles or sets of muscles, as in Tetanus — or 
still flowing rapidly, and to many parts, but with certain remis- 
sions or pauses, as in Epilepsy — or the stream, although con- 
tinuous and rapid, confined to one muscle or set of muscles, as 
in Cramp — or passing on in a succession of waves or impulses, 
as in Chorea — and all these perfectly independent of the will ; or 
some involuntary impulse being added to and interfering with 
strict obedience to the mandate of the will, as in Stringhalt , — we 
proceed to maladies of a different character, and connected with 
the partial or total suspension of nervous influence, as in Palsy. 
Strictly speaking, palsy means a diminution or a suspension of 
the influence of the nervous system whether sensitive or motor — 
a loss or diminution of feeling, as well as of the power of action ; 
but as I have, hitherto, been speaking only of the inferior super- 
ficies of the spinal chord and the motor columns, my attention 
will, at present, be confined to the diminution of action, and 
that as resulting not from various mechanical causes, as the 
contraction of tendons, or the ossification of ligaments, but the 
want of nervous energy — a disease, not of the part to be stimu- 
lated, but a partial or total absence of the stimulus. 
Every action implies two things — the stimulus, and the power 
of being stimulated. The irritability — the symptom, the essence 
of animal and organic life — we suppose to remain ; but the 
agent, the nervous influence from the brain or spinal chord, is 
diminished or withdrawn. We can produce an artificial palsy 
whenever we please ; we have but to divide the nerve which 
goes to a certain muscle or limb, and the power of motion ceases 
below the division. 
General Palsy — Human Being. — The human practitioner 
distinguishes between general and local palsy. In the first 
case, the whole body is deprived of the powder of voluntary 
motion, and, occasionally, the senses are impaired, and the 
feeling is diminished or lost: but the man lives for a while, 
and for a long while too, because the principle, and the agents, 
and the functions of organic life, whether arising from the 
lateral column of the spinal chord, or from the superior cer- 
vical ganglion, are, except by anastomosis, independent of the 
brain. How dreadful must be the state of such a being! — 
he can eat, and digest, and even speak ; but he can neither 
see, nor hear, nor smell, nor feel. Dr. Todd relates a case 
