[11] Mr. Fourcroy does not appear to have given any particular attention to this fluid. He says, “Cette humeur ne paraît pas différer de celle qui mouille toutes les parois membraneuses du corps humain en general, et dont j’ai déja parlé. C’est un liquide mucoso gelatineux, plus ou moins albumineux, et contenant quelques matiéres salines.”—Systéme des Connoisances Chimiques, 8vo. tom. ix. p. 303.
[12] It may be remarked, that all children in the early attempts at language, speak of themselves and others in the third person, and never employ the pronoun; they likewise never use connectives, or the inflections of verbs, until they begin to acquire some knowledge of numbers. Beyond this rude state our patient never advanced.
[13] For this term the indulgent reader must give the author credit, because he finds himself unable adequately to explain it.—It is a complex term for many ideas, on which language has not as yet, and perhaps will never be imposed. Very unfortunately there are many terms of this nature, equally incapable of description—a smile, for instance, is not very easy to be defined. Dr. Johnson calls it “a slight contraction of the face” which applies as properly to a paralytic affection. He also states it to be “opposed to frown.” If curiosity should prompt the inquisitive reader to seek in the same author for the verb, to frown, he will find it “to express displeasure by contracting the face to wrinkles.” He who would
“Finde the minde’s construction in the face”
must not expect to be able to communicate to others, in a few words, that knowledge which has been the slow and progressive accumulation of years.
[14] These are the usual terms employed by writers on this subject, but the propriety of their use must be left to the judgment of the reader. Every person will occasionally hesitate whether certain occurrences, said to be causes, ought to be referred to one class, in preference to the other. They are loose and vague names: for instance, a course of debauchery long persisted in, would probably terminate in paralysis; excessive grief we know to be capable of the same effect. Paralysis frequently induces derangement of mind, and in such case it would be said, that the madness was induced by the paralysis as a physical cause. But it often happens that debauchery and excessive grief are followed by madness, without the intervention paralysis. Moral, in this sense, means merely habitudes or customs, reiteration of circumstances confirmed into usage; and these may be indifferently accounted physical or moral.
“——nessun maggior dolore,
Che ricordarsi del tempo felice
Nella miseria.”—Dante.
[16] The Jews also were particularly instrumental in the practice and propagation of medical knowledge at that period.
[17] Cogitatio, (hîc minimè prætereunda) est motus peculiaris Cerebri, quod hujus facultatis est proprium organum: vel potiùs Cerebri pars quædam, in medulla spinali et nervis cum suis meningibus continuata, tenet animi principatum, motumque perficit tam cogitationis quam sensationis; quæ secundùm Cerebri diversam in omnium animalium structuram, mirè variantur.—Tolandi Pantheisticon, p. 12.