Medical inquiries and observations (Volume 1-2).

  • Rush, Benjamin, 1746-1813.
Date:
1819
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Medical inquiries and observations (Volume 1-2). 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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    I. Of external stimuli. The first of these is Air. In support of this opinion, I shall produce the highest authority, and that is, the history of the creation of man, as recorded in the second chapter of the book of Genesis. For this pur- pose, I beg you would accompany me in your imaginations to the garden of Eden, the birth place of the great progeni- tor of the human race. In the midst of this garden, behold a human figure! Let us approach it: How exquisitely formed are its head, its body, and its limbs! All is sym- metry and beauty ! Let us approach still nearer, and exa < mine it by the aid of all our senses. It is motionless as the earth upon which it stands. Its external surface is cold, but soft. Its well formed face is pale, and its eyes, mouth, and nostrils are all closed. But who is that august figure that with slow and majestic steps advances towards it ? It is its Creator in a human shape. Let us retire a little to make room for him to come nearer to the beautiful workmanship of his divine hands. What follows ? Let the inspired his- torian tell us. And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living soul.* The common ex- planation of this passage of Scripture is, that God, in this act, infused a soul into the torpid, or lifeless body of Adam, and that his soul became its principle of life, or in other words, that he thus changed a dead mass of animalized matter, into an animated being. That this was not the case I infer, not only from the existence of life in many persons in whom the soul is in a dormant or torpid state from disea- ses in the brain, but from a more liberal and correct trans- lation of the above passage of Scripture, in which I am warranted by several Hebrew scholars in our city, alike emi- nent for their learning and piety. It is as follows. And the Lord God breathed into his nostrils, the air of lives^ and he became a living soul. That is, he dilated his nostrils, and thereby inflated his lungs with air, and thus excited in him, animal, intellectual and spiritual life, in consequence of which he became an animated human creature. From this view of the origin of life in Adam, it appears that his soul and body were cast in the same mould, and at the same time, and that both were animated by the same act of Divine power by means of the same stream of air. The • Verse 7.