Erasmus Darwin

“ What I have thus delivered, I beg to be considered rather as observations and conjectures, than as things explained and demonstrated; to be considered as a foundation and a scaffolding, which may enable future industry to erect a solid and a beautiful edifice, eminent both for its simplicity and utility, as well as for the permanency of its materials,—which may not moulder, like the structures already erected, into the sand of which they were composed; but which may stand unimpaired, like the Newtonian philosophy, a rock amid the waste of ages! ”

“ In the cold paroxysm of fever with weak pulse the part first affected I believe to be the stomach, and that it has become torpid by previous violent exertion, as by swallowing contagious matter mixed with saliva, and not by defect of stimulus, as from cold or hunger. The actions of this important organ, which sympathizes with almost every part of the body, being thus much diminished or nearly destroyed, the sensorial power of association is not excited; which in health contributes to move the heart and arteries, and all the rest of the system; whence an universal torpor occurs. ”

“ It may be asked, Why is there a great and constant accumulation of the sensorial power of association, owing to the torpor of the stomach and heart and arteries, in continued fever with weak pulse; which is exerted on the cutaneous and pulmonary capillaries, so as to excite them into increased action for many weeks, and yet no such exuberance of sensorial power produces fever in winter-sleeping animals, or in chlorosis, or apepsia, or hysteria?
In winter-sleeping animals I suppose the whole nervous system is torpid, or paralysed, as in the sleep of frozen people ”