A Treatise on the Eclectic Southern Practice of Medicine Page: 17 of 724

PREFACE.

a; that it was the business of this agent (which they did
appose to be an intelligent and independent being, but a
of property of the living body,) to preserve the body in
h, to prevent its natural tendency to plethora for that it
uch a tendency was a part of their doctrine to counteract
t was the sole duty of the physician, to watch the operations
e supposed anima, and to co-operate with it by regulating
vacations.
ffman, the contemporary of Stahl, approaching nearer the
attributed the phenomena of life, health and disease to
Kclusive action of the nervous system. To this nervous
ice he added the supposition that diseases, though some-
originating in the fluids, more generally found their seat
solids. He supposed the body to contain a certain
g fibre, possessing a certain tone necessary to its healthy
spasmodic or atonic, according to its too great or too
action. How far he, individually, allowed his theory to
is practice, we cannot say; systematically followed, it is
hat it would indicate nervous stimulants or anodynes as
lost exclusive remedies.
>ughout the prevalence of the schools we have mentioned,
Ioral pathology had maintained its sway; but this was
now to be utterly denied, and the Solidists arose, who
vhat all diseases are the results of the morbid action of
ds, although they admitted that through them the fluids
secondarily affected,-a doctrine, though not sufficing
sh a perfect theory, yet certainly containing a great
uth, and which, to this day, maintains a very general
is time appeared the great Boerhave, whose ambition
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