OF OPIUM AND HYDROCYANIC ACID. 
97 
as by clipping ] If proved so to be, we shall soon arrive at higher 
and more practical deductions; and agree that the best material 
for dressing horses with is an electric rubber, and that rubber made 
of hair. 
The tenets, then, that I have dared to advance amount to these : — 
that, according to the existing quantity and state of electricity in 
the animal body, its operations are feeble or energetic; — that the 
great supporter of vital power is an immaterial substance closely 
resembling, if not identical with, that which has been termed elec- 
tricity ; — that the power which the body has of assimilating some 
substances into its own nature, and of rejecting others, is referable 
to the influence of this agent; — and, further, I consider that Nature 
has not ordained that, in winter, there should be an extension, a 
greater supply of hair, solely for the purpose of protecting the body 
from the effects of cold, but that it is a wise provision at this sea- 
son of the year, when the supplies for animals in a state of nature 
are by their keeper so scantily given and frugally withheld, that 
the increased growth and length of hair conduces largely to diminish 
their wants, from forming a still greater impenetrable barrier to the 
passage of electric fluid, and more effectually arresting its circuit. 
Where rest those animals which, during the season of hyberna- 
tion, are in torpitude 1 Is it not in places most secluded from the 
influence and varying changes of electricity 1 In places where this 
fluid generally holds an equilibrium on all sides, and where each of 
its particles are repelling and not attracting others towards them ] 
The influence of this state of things, aided by the dormant condition 
of the external senses, induces a state of somnolence, by which 
we ourselves know, when it enshrouds us, that the workmen of 
Nature within us grow indolent. 
Respecting the other point — “ the magic effect of the clipping on 
the wind of the hunter” — it appears to me to admit of more easy 
solution than the effects which have been already described as pro- 
ceeding from the operation. 
That the skin is a respiratory organ is beyond the pale of doubt ; 
for when in contact with the air it is proved by experiment, that 
it “ separates a portion of carbon from the blood, and to the extent 
in which it does this it is auxiliary to the lungs;” “it relieves the 
blood of its superabundant watery particles,” the chief conductor 
of electricity from the body. 
That the surface of the body is warmer in a clipped horse is ma- 
nifest to the hand. That this augmentation or increased supply of 
caloric is derived by the increased elimination of carbon is more 
than probable. That the lungs, more especially the lining mem- 
brane of the air-passages, are powerfully influenced by clipping, 
