Publisher's Synopsis
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1817 edition. Excerpt: ... SECTION VIII. THE ATMOSPHERICAL INFLUENCE IS OVERLOOKED, FROM ITS OBSCURE MANNER OF OPERATION ON THE NERVOUS SYSTEM. All the phaenomena of the animal machine, the various functions of automatic life, of sensation, &c. depend ultimately on the nervous system. So do the diseases. No error is more common, or more dangerous to right practice, than that of confounding the various symptoms of disease with the morbid state of, or influence on, the nervous system, wherein the real disease consists. Cancer, for instance, may be regarded as the consequence of a morbid diathesis. The various symptoms of headach, vertigo, cutaneous eruptions, and local diseases in general, mark a disordered state of the nervous system, and of the digestive organs. By curing the latter by medicines and diet, and the former by exercise, do the symptoms subside. The question is, How far is the influence of atmospherical causes periodical with respect to the peculiarities of the symptoms? I have noticed, and firmly believe, that there are periods of general irritability, and that at these periods those symptoms may be excited, to which, from other causes, the body be foreinclined. But I cannot discover that the peculiarities of atmosphere, which seem to vary the symptoms, like the local influence noted in the second section, has any regular periods observable in the term of human life; we may regard it, therefore, as casual. Still, even in epidemical diseases of this sort, the daily and monthly periodicity is not to be overlooked. This peculiar influence on our bodies from without acts in an obscure manner: because not consisting in the degree of heat, moistness, way of the wind, &c, we do not immediately feel its presence. The electrical state of the atmosphere seems...
