Page:Transactions of the Provincial Medical and Surgical Association, volume 4.djvu/364



PART IV.

ESSAYS AND CASES.

ARTICLE V.

PHYSIOLOGY AND PATHOLOGY

OF

BY CHARLES COWAN, M.D.E. M.D.P.

Bath

HETHER we contemplate the organic or inorganic world, we must admit that both are exposed to influences which are permanent in their application, and to others by which they are only temporarily controlled. No rational doubt can be entertained, that matter, from the first moment of its existence, has continued to manifest physical properties identical with those it at present possesses, while its vital attributes have been gradually accumulating through the ascending scale of organization. The powers of gravitation, affinity, cohesion, &c. are essential to the very existence of both, and their slightest interruption would entail inextricable ruin and confusion upon the whole system of the natural world. Vitalized beings are not only dependent, as material compounds, on the permanence of the laws to which