The tree of life, or, Human degeneracy : its nature and remedy, as based on the elevating principle of orthopathy / by Isaac Jennings.

  • Jennings, Isaac, active 1847-1860.
Date:
1867
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The tree of life, or, Human degeneracy : its nature and remedy, as based on the elevating principle of orthopathy / by Isaac Jennings. 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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    death is apparent, except in cases where an essential organ has heen destroyed, so that there is no chance for continued life, as in most cases of wasting pulmonic consumption. From the fact that mental derangement sometimes occurs in extreme debility, Professor Liebig draws an argument in favor of his theory of conflict between vitality and chemistry; maintaining that the inorganic affinities have destroyed or removed a portion of the brain, which occasions the derange- ment of mind. It is true that in some rare cases of debility, and more particularly in the last stages of pulmonic con- sumption, the mind wanders; but this is true of but a very small proportion of the cases of debility that occur, and of this class of persons quite a share of them recover the full possession of their reason a little before their death—which is fatal to the Professor's argument. The reason fails, not from disorganization of the brain, but from debility of that organ. My reason for a plurality of powers in muscular motion— a theory, so far as I know, peculiar to myself—was forced upon me from being unable to account satisfactorily or even plausibly for spasmodic action on any other ground. When I stood by the bedside of a patient afflicted with tetanus, who a portion of the time reposed quietly, the muscles of voluntary motion now obedient to the will and anon in violent spasms, I was exceedingly perplexed and defeated in my attempts to account for this distressing phenomenon on the one-power principle. To say that there was a sudden augmentation or diminution of muscular power would not explain the diffi- culty, for this power may be plus or minus through all de- grees of it, from the most robust health to the lowest stage of life, and there be no spasm. And with me the hetero- pathic doctrines of wrong action, altered state of the vital properties, pathology and physiology (disease and health) express opposite or antagonistic conditions, and the like, were obsolete—of no force. But when I contemplated 5*