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Show 130 Analogical Considerations. Analogical Considerations. me of having it in contemplation to persuade him that the two complaints are identical. Neitheir do I wish to run the parallel closer. Certain general differences are obvious enough, of which we shall get at the source when the causes and effects of the various modifications of nervous influence are explored. But in opposition to the doctrine in View, it is sufficient to have shown that similar symptoms and similar incidental appearances after death give hydro- phobia as good a title as fever to be deduced from inflammation of the brain. Should any one be unwilling to give up the notion, there is undoubtedly an alternative. He may con~ stitute an hydrophobic encephalitis and a febrile encephalitis. The one does not, primd fade, exclude the other. But here comes the mis- fortune. Syn'iptomatology and morbid anatomy, applied just in the same way, will oblige him to make an encephalitis also out of several others among the neuroses. And thus shall he be, by degrees, forced hack to the old common-place notion,--\rhich in fact is an avowal of profound ignorance scarcely disguised; namely, that in these disorders the condition of the sensorium differs from its condition in health. Indeed if we consider strictly, I scarce know the disorder, of which we may not say the same. For under 131 nnder what disorder, local or general, will the ideas and feelings remain unmodified? what are these but manifestations of the states of the sensorium, which must be different as they are different? " Were our means of observa- tion" says Dr. Clutterbuck, " more accurate and our diligence greater, it is probable that in most, if not in all, fatal terminations of fever (where the patient is cut off by the fever itself, and not by supervening diseases) we should be able to detect some change in the colour, consistence, transparency, or other physical property of the organ (brain), indicating a corresponding change in the action of its vessels." (p. 177.)---A most capacious hypothetical casting net! and thrown abroad with a bold arm! but unluckily, like many others, constructed so as to catch facts not sought for, and to suffer others to escape through its meshes! For what, if any one chose to assume that other disorders would be equally seen to leave behind them changes in the brain, could it be microscopically enough examined 9 How are we to know whether a given slight change of the brain is the cause of death in fever? By what signs shall we distinguish a. fatal termination from fever and from supervening disease? Do we understand vitality well enough to be sure that all disorders do not kill by bringing about a change in the brain : nay even who can prove that the man, who instantly drops K 2 down \ in M09317 |