Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: The works of John Hunter / edited by James F. Palmer. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.
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![producing impressions which are forming dispositions to action in the parts impressed; and, secondly, it is capable of being acted upon or impressed by common inanimate matter, in both which cases the im- pressions will be according to the nature of the impressions and part impressed conjoined. When a man is so affected as to feel within himself that he cannot live, which is very common, it arises from the mind being made ac- quainted with the state of the body ; the living powers are become weak, inactive, &c., and the nerves are communicating the intelligence. Accordingly, their actions are expressive of the extinction of life going on, and the action of the brain is expressive of such actions of the nerves; and as death is a something we know takes place, and this sen- sation of ours is not such as we feel in health, we conclude, from an habitual species of reasoning, that we cannot live, and we are often not deceived. This effect is often so quick that it may exceed the sensation of it, or at least may hardly afford us time to communicate these sensa- tions to others. The internal susceptibilities, with the consequent impressions and dispositions, are, first, of want, and, second, of repletion; and all the other internal operations of the machine arise naturally from these two, especially repletion, as digestion, circulation, respiration, secretion, the intercourse of the sexes, &c. But the first movement of these actions appears to require the impression of external matter, the powers of digestion being excited by food being thrown into the stomach, in con- sequence of which circulation, respiration, secretion, &c. all follow, aris- ing out of the internal operations of the machine; all which have no- thing to do with the sensitive principle, but are wholly dependent on the living principle. The desire of food, or susceptibility of the stomach to di- gest it, arises not from external objects, but from its own organization. The second kind, susceptibility of external impressions, affects prin- cipally the sensitive principle, but may also affect the living principle, as in medicines. These are called stimuli; and when both principles are affected they may be said to have the management of the machine*. Impression, or stimulus, produces a disposition to act, or rather action may or may not take place. But all impressions, either on the living or sensitive principle, are not stimuli; some go beyond stimulus, and become irritantsf; and other impressions are from their nature not sti- * [It is impossible to avoid remarking here the similarity of this view of Hunter’s to Bichat’s division into organic and animal actions.] f [It may safely be said that almost all stimuli, when applied in excess, operate as irritants, and, if carried to their utmost point, as direct sedatives. Thus, electricity, which in a moderate degree irritates the system or rouses it to an unusual degree of](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21996623_0001_0298.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
