Sketches on animal life : an inaugural essay, submitted to the consideration of the Honourable Robert Smith, provost ; and of the regents of the University of Maryland / by John Cromwell, of Huntingdon County, Pennsylvania, member of the Baltimore Medical Society.

  • Cromwell, John, 1794-
Date:
1814
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Sketches on animal life : an inaugural essay, submitted to the consideration of the Honourable Robert Smith, provost ; and of the regents of the University of Maryland / by John Cromwell, of Huntingdon County, Pennsylvania, member of the Baltimore Medical Society. 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.)

    28/40
    of particular accidents upon the parts they affected, have given rise to that opinion, and to the present day, multi- plied facts have only tended to confirm its prohable accu- racy. When it becomes established, that the nerves were subject to the influence of all agents applied to them, in a greater or less degree, and that the actions and opera- tions of the body were effected through that medium, a capacity was attributed to them, designated by the term energy. The reception of this principle of nervous energy as an auxiliary in the prosecution of researches into animal life, was perhaps the most momentous occurrence in the history of that science. Though it was for a long time the parent of errour, confusion and absurdity, if we possess at this day, any correct knowledge of animal ac- tions, it is in my apprehension, the great ground work on which that knowledge has been raised. Here it enqui- red what was the precise nature of this energy, my own impressions upon the subject would lead to a candid de- claration, that it was involved in total mystery. We be- lieve there is such a principle, from witnessing actions or operations, upon the application of certain agents, which actions or operations constitute what we under- stand by the term life. The specifick principle, in other words, the energy itself, cannot be rendered obvious, we know it but from its effects. It does not appear to be the consequence of any thing peculiar to the structure of the nerves ; and we have justly, I think, discarded the systems built upon conjectures deduced from a regard to that structure. Every thing perhaps which we should be safe in advancing, may be comprised in a repetition of the asserted belief touching life in all its forms, that it is an incomprehensible condition of matter, arranged by in- finite intelligence. We believe that the nervous system