General indications which relate to the laws of organic life / by Daniel Pring.
- Pring, Daniel, 1789-1859.
- Date:
- 1819
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: General indications which relate to the laws of organic life / by Daniel Pring. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by University of Bristol Library. The original may be consulted at University of Bristol Library.
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![•Uianfes, seeing that both are in all instances at the same time exposed to their operation. If, however, the relation of remedies were in every case with the material or fluid alliances, it would not interfere with our conclusions on the laws of the operation of reme- dies on the spirit: the only difference would be, that, instead of pro- ducing such and such etlVcts directly, the same would be produced mediately. But as it ciui rarely be proved that the change of the spirit is a result of a change of its alliances, and as the change of the spirit itself is in every instance to be inferred from the change of phenomena dependent upon it (which change is the only proof of a causative relation of any kind, in most instances), so it is best, having stated these possibilities, together with the alternatives to which the argument would be liitble, supposing them to obtain, to speak of the operation of remedies in general as influencing directly the principle of life, without which influence, the changes which occur in the material or cliymicai alliances are no more than would result from the sanie causes employed upon the dead subject. § I'ii. Every change in the organic spirit is according to its rela- tion with the cause that produces it. But difierent agents will sometimes agree in producing similar effects: thus, a disorder which might be cured by blood-letting may also be cured by purgatives, or by emetics, blisters, &c. In other instances, particular diseases, or slates of the principle, are cured only by some particular means; as certain forms of syphilis by mercury, the itch by sulphur, scurvy by arsenic, 6ic. The effect which is produced in common by the former means can be identified only by the same causes; we have then to determine whether they possess common efficient causes, disguised by different alliances] or whether they have only the force of remote causes to which a series of processes succeed, the result of which, through different relations, may be finally to identify the state of health? § 14. We have thought it necessary, on grounds before stated, to conclude tliat remedies never restore health on the direct princi- ple of causation, viz. that of supplying deficient properties, &c.; at least, remedies can never be employed with this view, except in the instances of the material occasional causes, of which those that fall within the department of niediciue are very few, and with which the direct relation of remedies is perhaps altogether problematical; our alternalives are therefore briefly answered: remedies must on this account, with respect to the cure of diseases, have always the force and operation of remote causes. § 15. The manner in which external agents produce change iit the condition of the spirit, in the direct way which we are now con- sidering, is by an alliance of their properties with those of life, by which the combinations of the constituent properties of lile are modifled, and hence exhibit modified phenomena, which are com- monly expressed in symptoms. § 16. The ideutity which life assimilates is dependent upon the combinations of its integral properties: its phenomena also depend](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21445163_0335.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
