the pulfe of the femoral artery with my fore- 
finger; 1 could not command’ iis» blood with 
the whole) ftrengch of my body, but. have 
feen jit, with horror, rath as freely as if 
“my. hand had not been 
there.” Vol, 2. 
p- 256, 257. ie ; 
- “There is nothing new under the fun. Of 
the truth of this general principle, our - 
author affords an excellent iluitration. It 
is not new for a man to treat with ridi- 
culé what he has not the opportunity, 
the capacity, or the inclination to under- 
ftand. If-Mr. Bex had vead the paper 
which he criticifes, he would have feen, 
and then poffibly might have believed, on 
my affertion, that my idea of compreffing 
the carotid arteries was fuggefted by the 
actual phenoména of ‘the difeate before 
me, and not by the tales which he repro- 
bates; whéther thofe tales were well or 
ill-crounded. But the knowledge of this 
fag would not have fuited his purpofe. 
Tt would have taken away an opportunity 
for much declamatory invective. It 
would have been fomething new to Mr. 
BELL under the fur. 
In reality, at the time of my writing 
the paper alluded to, I had never read 
thefé hiftories and remarks in Galen, Ru- 
fus Ephefius,; Morgagni, or any other 
author; and if I had, I fhould not have 
formed from them the conclufions which 
I have related. Phyficians, in all fuc-_ 
ceeding ages, have read them without 
any {uch application; nay, Mr. BeLi 
himfelf, who cannof, furely, be tufpe&ted 
of giving another more credit for faga~ 
city than he does himfelt, has ftudied 
them with great attention; and yet, at 
this ‘moment, he is fo far from having 
deduced from them any valuable conclu- 
fions, that he derides the important theory 
* to which he ignorantly afferts that they 
have given birth. 
Tt is true, that I have mentioned ftupor 
_and fleep, as produced by compreffion of 
the carotids. I have mentioned them, 
becaufe I faw them; and could I have 
anticipated the critique of Mr. BreLr, I 
fhould not have omitted to mention them, 
out of compliment to the {cepticifin of 
himfelf, or any other human-being. Now, 
however, that he cannot controvert the 
fa&, he may congratulate himfelf on hav- 
ing found fomething neav uader the fun. 
So°much for the origin of this ‘dif- 
covery. Next as to its effects; as Mr. 
Bett has, in the firtt paragraph which I 
) Rave quoted, accufed me of drawing from 
@fource which I had never vifited, fo in 
the fecond he afcribes to me words which 
) Bohave never employed, and deductions 
= 
fi 
) 
Dr. Parry on. Mr. Bel? s Anatomy. 
not there. 
349 
which I have never formed. He makes 
me fay that I can entirely compreis the 
carotids with my finger and thumb. This 
is a total mifreprefentation of my words, 
which muft greatly miflead all thofe who 
are inclined to repeat the experiment.’ In 
reality, after having vemarked the dificulty 
of comprefiing one carotid in men; and the 
fill greater dificulty of comprefiing both, 
e{pecially in a ftate’of ¢oénvulfions, I add, 
** In women, however, who have gene 
rally longer and flenderer necks than men, 
one can.orten, without difficulty, producé 
a complete compreffion of the artery againit 
the vertebree ot the neck,” &c. ** Medical 
Memoirs,’ vol. 3). p. 100. inftead of 
the ¢arotids, I {peak of one carotid only ; 
and inftead of ufing my finger, or my _ 
finger and thumb, for the purpofe of prei- 
fure, Ihave never been able eifettually te 
fucceed in any other way than by ulmg 
the thumb only, while the neck is at the 
fame time Kept firmly im its. place by 
preffure on its back with the unemployed 
fingers of the fame hand. With me, who 
have probably made the experiment 2 
hundred times as often as any other per- - 
fon, all attempts to make a competent 
preffure cn an artery with my finger, have 
uniformly failed’: Neither, it feems, have 
the effects of Mr. Beru in this way been 
more fuccesful. Whenhe makes the ex- 
periment in -a proper manner, the event 
may poffibly be different. 
But we will’for the prefent fuppofe him | 
to deny the poflibility, on any occafion, 
of completely compretling with the thumb 
one carotid artery: The evidence’ om 
which I fonded my aflertion was, that 
in the inftances to which [I alluded, all 
pulfation in the temporal artery was de- 
ftroyed by the compseffion of the corre- 
{ponding carotid. But Mr, Breve in- 
forms us, that though he could duppref{s 
the pulfe of the femoral artery with his 
fore finger, he could not command its 
blood with the whole ftrength of his body 
(Tf fhould be curious to know how he ap- 
plied the whole ftrength of his body hy 
means of his fore finger), but faw it with 
horror rufh as freely as if his hand svas 
Does hein. the firft, part, of 
this fentence mean, that he fuppretfed the 
pulfé with the compreffing finger, fo as 
no longer to feel it with that finger, in the, 
point where the compreflion was made? 
He certainly cannot have this meaning. 
The conclufion would be too frivolous. 
He” muft wifh us to. underftand, that 
when he had compreffed the artery above, 
fo as to obliterate the pulfe below, the 
blood ftill continued t rush from below 
" ; iy ae 
9? 
