Page:Medicine and the church.djvu/169

 use of muscles in musculo-spiral paralysis by the use of the interrupted current.

This sounds plausible enough. There is nothing very new in it; indeed, when we come to analyse it, we shall see that, so far as general principles go, there is nothing which was not perfectly familiar in Sydenham's day, or which the most materialistic practitioner of our own time would not admit without a moment's hesitation. But, of the limitations of his process, Mr. Dearmer only seems to have a confused idea. Let us take one of the instances which he adduces in illustration of his argument. He is speaking (p. 33) of the familiar phenomenon of blushing. 'When a person blushes,' says our author, 'the small arteries are relaxed and dilate, the amount of blood in them is increased, and this hot red fluid flows in such quantities through the capillaries of the skin that the skin itself becomes hot and red. It is strange that the thought "He says I am a pretty girl" should cause the small arteries to behave in this way; but the physiological explanation is simple enough. These arteries are supplied with muscles which regulate them, and all muscles are worked by nerves. The thought in the higher conscious centres has somehow seen fit to hitch itself on to the arterial muscles, just as when we telephone