would be found, who should be recovered by the Resuscitative process after suffering Suspended Animation from the attacks of a Fever. If the last state of depression, which passed into Suspended Animation, should have been the period, in which the Disorder had run its course to the appointed crisis; it is manifest, that the person would be recovered in a condition, free from the Fever; and Debility only would be the malady remaining. If the Disorder had not proceeded to its crisis, we might thus reason on the subject according to the language and theory at present familiar in the Codes of Medical Philosophy.

In this state of quiescence from Suspended Animation, the sympathies of the System, which create-propagate and continue its disturbed actions, are torpid, and no longer co-operate to destroy the æquilibrium of the animal functions, which were before subject to the controul of these alternate paroxysms and depressions.--The Associated Motions from Irritation-Sensation and Volition, are now broken, and no longer excite the System to that state of deranged or disordered action, which continued only, because it before exis

ted

ted. The Sensorial Power accumulates, according to its usual laws, in this state of quiescence for the future benefit of the System, and performs probably this office with more force and safety, in proportion as the quiescence, under certain limits, is more profound and complete.

This is no new idea, but is altogether consonant with the Sympathetic Doctrine of Fevers; and even, when I enlarge my Hypothesis to a wide extent, and and presume to propose results and consequences of great import, I am supported in my reasoning by occasional hints and suggestions, which the most illustrious Sages in the Art of Medicine have sometimes supplied in the course of their argument, tho' they were but little aware to what great consequences these accidental suggestions were inevitably though obscurely directed. Dr. Darwin has furnished us with an extraordinary passage of this kind, which will shew us,how slowly even those minds are accustomed to proceed in the investigation of any new truth, which are at once gifted with the highest powers of research, and ardent in the pursuit of new devices for the attainment of their purposes.

"Many

"Many other parts of the System subject "to perpetual motion in health, may rest " for a time without much inconvenience to

the whole; as when the fingers of some "people become cold and pale; and during "this complete rest, great accumulation of "irritability may be produced. But where "the heart and arteries are previously feeble, "they cannot much diminish their actions,

and certainly cannot rest entirely; for "that would be death; and therefore in this "case their accumulation of the sensorial

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power of irritation or of association is

slowly produced, and a long Fever super"venes in consequence, or sudden Death, "as frequently happens, terminates the "cold fit. Whence it appears, that in Fev"ers with weak pulse, if the action of the "heart, arteries and capillaries could be "diminished, or stopped for a short time "without occasioning the death of the patient, "as happens in cold bathing, or to persons

apparently drowned, that a great accumu"lation of the sensorial powers of irritation "or of Association might soon be produced, " and the pulse become stronger, and conse"quently slower and the Fever cease. "Hence cold ablution may be of service in

"Fevers

"Fevers with weak pulse, by preventing ، the expenditure, and producing accumula❝tion of the sensorial power of irritation or "Association. Stupor may be useful on the same account." (Darwin's Zoonomia, Vol. 4. p. 349 &c.)

We have here a proposition, exceeding perhaps in importance all other Medical Discoveries; if the conjecture, to which it refers, should be well founded: yet this precious conception of a great Artist is perverted from its destined purpose, and is almost lost alike from the view of the author and his reader, by the confusion of ideas, in which it is involved. First he tells us, that "where the "Heart and Arteries are previously feeble,

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they cannot much diminish their actions, .and certainly cannot rest entirely ; for that. “ would be Death,"tho' he informs us in the succeeding sentence, that there is a state of the Frame, in which the Heart and Arteries do entirely rest, namely the state of Suspended Animation in some cases of Drowning, which is certainly not Death or which happens "without occasioning Death," as he as he expresses it, or that Death,which passes into Putrefactive dissolution.

Still however under this confusion of ideas and this contradictory statement, the follow ing Proposition may be discovered. 'If in certain Fevers,' says Dr. Darwin, the action of 'the Heart and Arteries could be diminished or stopped for a short time, as in some cases of Suspended Animation by Drowning, without occasioning the Death of the Patient; it appears from a due course of rea'soning, that the Fever would cease,

or that the Patient would recover, freed 'from the Fever, with which he was before afflicted.'

6

We should have imagined that the writer, after exhibiting with some exultation, as he might have done, the value of this brilliant proposition, would have explained its opeation somewhat in the following manner. In certain Fevers Death, arising from a torpor of the heart and arteries, that is, a ⚫ state of the frame without any visible signs of motion, and sensation,frequently terminates the cold fit; but we have no reason to despair at the sight of this accident, as conceiving, that such an appearance ne'cessarily indicates final and Putrefactive Death;" since it is most certainly known

and