Select discourses on the functions of the nervous system : in opposition to phrenology, materialism, and atheism : to which is prefixed a lecture on the diversities of the human character arising from physiological peculiarities / by John Augustine Smith.

  • Smith, John Augustine, 1782-1865.
Date:
1840
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Select discourses on the functions of the nervous system : in opposition to phrenology, materialism, and atheism : to which is prefixed a lecture on the diversities of the human character arising from physiological peculiarities / by John Augustine Smith. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

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    slowly into action, and acquire by almost imperceptible degrees their influence in the system. Were it other- wise, were the blood for instance, to be suddenly di- verted from the brain to the lungs, they would be unable to withstand the shock, and disease or death would fre- quently be the consequence. Such an effect does occa- sionally take place, and is vulgarly expressed by saying such a person grows too fast. Were the several organs of the body to retain the same relative influence in manhood as in childhood, then would men be but children of a larger growth. And this does sometimes happen. For if those parts of the body which I shall presently point out as destined to change our dispositions, be not called into action, the person actually does retain through life, whatsoever his bulk, the peculiarities of childhood. What then are the organs which produce such great alterations in us, and consequently so poAverfully influ- ence our characters ? They are the brain, the lungs, the liver, and the sexual organs. These are the prin- cipal, and to these my observations will be chiefly di- rected, although others must be incidentally noticed. For in a machine so complicated as the human body, where all the parts are intimately connected and mu- tually dependent, each must necessarily affect the others, and thus modify the ultimate result in proportion to its own importance in the general scale. But the forces which many of the minor parts exert are not yet suffi- ciently ascertained to be appreciated. Future observa- tion may detect them, and they will then be applied by