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Show Consideratianof the precedmg arguments. Consideration of the preceding argzmzents. The state of the functions as it results from that ofthe organs, is to medicine what trigo- nometry is to the art of surveying. To this we have seen our authors resorting for their rules. Dr. Clutterbuck (p.200-17) transcribes at large, and Dr. Ploucquet quotes, a passage in which Dr. Home deduces it as a highly probable con- nected with inflammation of that organ; as thickening of the arachnoid coat; also the dissection of a fever-patient by the join in commanding all traces of it whatever to vanish with life. Which seems pretty nearly saying that every sort of alteration indicates fe~ brile inflammation or somewhat a-kin, while the absence ofalteration affords no proof to the c0u~ trary. A rule (leducible from such reason- ing would be fairly entitled to enter into a re- ceipt for the composition of an irrcfragable ‘ _‘ "ti! ,i‘AI4 same, in which purulent sinuses were detected in the brain, though no symptom of phrenitis had appeared. Displaying a case or two so widely may of certain nimble-fingered performers, who engage .x ~' If seem, in effect, similar to a contrivance the eye of the spectator on some prominent u'rm‘ those considerations on the laws oft/2e system in " brain," because, during an indisposition of his own, he felt as if febrile symptoms were con- " are connected with, an obstruction of the ‘NJWI not have been a more suitable preliminary than health, on the nature qf disease, andon the locality of diseases, which we find at the head of Dr. Clutterbuck's ingenious work. One may apprehend that both writers are somewhat too indulgent towards their own doctrine, when, after laying peculiar stress upon the evidence from wide‘spreading devastations in the organ, supposed to be principally concerned, they subtilize fever-producing inflammation into amere sequence, that " all low fevers arise from, or l. 43 object, that they may imperceptibly make the dispositions, out of which the surprize is to Most certainly, nothing unfair is inissue. tended; and we often enough see the framer or advocate ofan hypothesis practising upon him- self as if spectator, only in perfect good faith, with a dexterity equal to that-of the most expert professor ofleger-de-main. But I seriously question whether settling with some exactness the value of post-obituary appearances would not hypothesis. and then It is true that Dr. Bush, a man whose 'acuteness of observation is no way in«ferior to his opportunities, long enough ago remarked " that in those cases, where congestion only takes place, it is as easy to conceive that all morbid appearances in the brain may cease after death, as that the suti'usion of blood in the face should disappear after the retreat of the blood from the extremities of the vessels in the last moment of life. It is no 'iew thing for morb i d . "T‘s, a. - ‘ fir-«- l wom Moss} |