THE VETERINARY ART IN INDIA. 
171 
tability, than is possessed by the blood. The blood, thus ex- 
hausted of all its irritable properties, returns to the lungs, to 
become renovated and resume its former functions. 
The fibres thus accumulating would in a very short time pro- 
duce disease, and even death, by rendering the whole body 
violently irritable. This is prevented by a power being supplied, 
which possesses a yet stronger affinity for irritability than the 
fibre, or, more properly, conveys it from the body. 
This property exists in every thing under the name of stimu- 
lants, and is supplied by heat, exercise, sensation, the passions, 
emotions and desires, as love, anger, &c. ; also by food, particu- 
larly if of a spicy and heating kind, as wines, spirits, &e., all of 
which have the property of consuming the irritability from the 
fibre ; and if they are supplied in excess, they more than consume 
the redundance, and exhaust the fibre, which will induce indirect 
debility and disease. If on the contrary the stimulus is not suf- 
ficient, the irritability (which now being explained we will term 
excitability) accumulates, and produces diseases of an opposite 
nature. 
It may be questioned how the whole body can be deprived of 
its excitability by a local application of stimulus, as in spirits 
taken by the stomach to excess, Sic. But a communication 
exists between every fibre in the body, by which, one set being 
exhausted, this is soon supplied by the rest. This is proved 
in exhaustion, and general debility, arising from a debauch. 
The excitability keeps up nearly a balance throughout the sys- 
tem, and the communication is so general, that the excitability of 
the whole body-may be exhausted by local applications of stimulus. 
By this it is obvious that health must depend on the due quan- 
tity of these principles, and an equilibrium being supported in 
the system ; and, however numerous the diseases may be to 
which the animal is subject, or whatever shape they may assume, 
it must proceed from this balance being destroyed, and conse- 
quent excess of either the excitability or the excitement ; and it 
is the knowledge of the action existing between these that must 
direct the mode of relief. 
If the fibres are overcharged, it would be imagined that a 
powerful stimulant must be employed to carry off the redun- 
dance ; but this is not the case, for the very lowest degree of 
stimulus acts very powerfully on a large proportion of irritability ; 
it must be therefore used in small quantities at first, and gently 
increased. Thus, when a child is born it is all excitability, and 
the first stimulus is obliged to be very weak, as milk, food, &c.; 
but as it advances in life this property decreases, and stronger 
stimulants are required, which are produced by growing passions, 
and stronger diet ; and, by the time the object arrives at maturity, 
