Premolar

“ Here the people were sometimes seized with general tremor, the pulse grew weaker, their breathing difficult, and, at long intervals, their hands and feet became cold, and finally they fell, and both pulse and breath, and all symptoms of life forsook them for nearly an hour, during which time they suffered no pain, and were perfectly conscious of their condition and knew what was passing around them. ”

“ My sole recollection, from the time I fell under the trees until I awoke the following evening, is of my head out of the window, facing the wind caused by the train, cinders striking and burning and blinding me, while I breathed with will. All my will was concentrated on breathing--on breathing the air in the hugest lung-full gulps I could, pumping the greatest amount of air into my lungs in the shortest possible time. ”

“ Or the more gross and vibrative Pulse communicated through the Air and all other convenient mediums, whether fluid or solid: Or the effluvia of Bodies dissolv’d in the Air; Or the particles of bodies dissolv’d or dissoluble in Liquors, or the more quick and violent shaking motion of heat in all or any of these: whatsoever does any wayes promote any of these kinds of criteria, does afford a way of improving some one sense. And what a multitude of these would a diligent Man meet with in his inquiries? ”

“ We hear when the air between the sonant body and the organ of hearing suffers concussion, a vibration which spreads spherically and then forms waves and strikes upon the ears, just as the water in a reservoir forms wavy circles when a stone is thrown into it. Sleep is caused, they say, by the slackening of the tension in our senses, which affects the ruling part of the soul. ”

“ To listen attentively to the finest and least obtrusive sounds, as with the stethoscope to the murmurs in the breast, or with mouth and ear to distant sounds, needs a hush that breathing disturbs; the common ear has to die and be born again to exercise these delicate attentions.
"To take an aim at a rapidly flying or minute object, requires in like manner a breathless time and a steady act. The very pulse must receive from the stopped lungs a pressure of calm. ”

“ Those that come on while the juices of the heart remain, seize upon the body of the heart, and hence the febrile flame is kindled, like the flame of a lamp from its wick. This is one of the modes of formation. ”

“ Therefore we must not suppose that the air itself is moulded into shape by the voice emitted or something similar; [79] for it is very far from being the case that the air is acted upon by it in this way. The blow which is struck in us when we utter a sound causes such a displacement of the particles as serves to produce a current resembling breath, and this displacement gives rise to the sensation of hearing. ”

“ And next I desire to know of those who tell us that the spirits are formed in the heart, being compounded of the vapours or exhalations of the blood (excited either by the heat of the heart or the concussion) and the inspired air, whether such spirits are not to be accounted much colder than the blood, seeing that both the elements of their composition, namely, air and vapour, are much colder? For the vapour of boiling water is much more bearable than the water itself; the flame of a candle is less burning than the red-hot snuff, and burning charcoal than incandescent iron or brass. ”

“ The breathing automaton had become an eager and joyous little being, seeing and hearing and feeling much as we do, knowing her own body somewhat, and controlling it throughout to a certain extent, laughing and frolicking, enjoying the vision of the world with a delicious zest, clinging to us not so much for physical protection as for human companionship, beginning to show a glimmer of intelligence, and to cross over with sign and sound the abyss between spirit and spirit. ”

“ Volition is simply a peculiar molecular action of a nervous centre of motion reflected upon consciousness—translated into a state of consciousness—symbolized in consciousness. The mental part of the phenomena—the volition—being simply a state of consciousness—a consciousness of the molecular action—then, the molecular action is a condition precedent to that state of consciousness which is a symbolical representation of it. ”

“ I awoke with a sound in my ears like the never-ceasing surge and hiss of waters, a sound that waxed ever louder. Hearkening to this, I presently sought to move and wondered, vaguely uneasy, to find this impossible: I strove now to lift my right hand, found it fast held, tried my left and found it in like case, and so became conscious of something that gripped me about the throat, and ever my wonder and unease grew. ”

“ Suddenly there comes a hollow booming sound—a roar, mellowed and subdued by distance, with a peculiar beat upon the ear, as if a wave struck the nerve and rebounded and struck again in an infinitesimal fraction of time—such a sound as can only bellow from the mouth of cannon. ”

“ Dryness of the heart renders the pulse hard, and the passions ungovernable, fierce, and difficult to quell; and, for the most part, the whole body is drier than usual, unless the parts about the liver antagonise. These are the marks of a more humid temperament: a soft pulse, a disposition easily roused to anger, and easily pacified, and the whole body more humid than common, unless antagonised by the parts about the liver. When the temperament is both hotter and drier, the pulse is large, hard, and quick and dense ”

“ In like manner the sensual motions, or ideas, that are excited by perpetual irritation, are nevertheless occasionally excited by sensation or volition; as in the night, when we listen under the influence of fear, or from voluntary attention, the motions excited in the organ of hearing by the whispering of the air in our room, the pulsation of our own arteries, or the faint beating of a distant watch, become objects of perception. ”

“ By an examination of those notions which enter into all our reasonings and judgments on living things, it appears that we conceive animal life as a vortex or cycle of moving matter in which the form of the vortex determines the motions, and these motions again support the form of the vortex: the stationary parts circulate the fluids, and the fluids nourish the permanent parts. Each portion ministers to the others, each depends upon the other. The parts make up the whole, but the existence of the whole is essential to the preservation of the parts. ”

“ Some great Physicians observing this, and that depriv'd by whatsoever means of Communication with the external Air, we became instantly extinct, have imagin'd, that in the Act of Inspiration certain purer parts of the Air, mixed with the Blood in the Lungs, and was convey'd with it to the Heart, where it nourish'd a sort of Vital Flame, which was the Cause of this reciprocal Æstus of the Heart. Others not quite so gross, rejecting an Actual Flame, have fancied, that these fine Parts of Air mixing with the Blood in the Ventricles of the Heart, produc'd an Effervescence which dilated it. ”

“ Gently, hardly perceptibly the air at length begins to move. It is not a breeze, but the merest breath. But this breath scorches, pierces like an icy wind into bone and marrow, producing dull headache, enervation, and uneasiness. ”

“ A strong fever made the blood rush wildly through my veins, causing my temples to throb as if they would burst. From about this time consciousness forsook me. I can recollect little more until I found myself lying in a berth, on board of a strange vessel. I was feeble as an infant. A man, with the aspect of a foreigner, sat near me. ”

“ If he heard the call before awakening, then consciousness was awake to hear it while the body slumbered. If he awoke before he heard the call, then the call did not awaken him. No matter how deep the slumber of the body, something remains awake to catch the signals from without. ”

“ Even so a sound by the pulsation of the air arouses the sleeper, by loosing the organ of perception, and not because it is known: since judgment about the sound that reaches the ears is subsequent to the awakening and is not its cause. ”

“ The pulse that suggests the running of a partridge is called delirium pulse. An irregular pulse indicates delirium tremens, and a pulse which is almost imperceptible, depressed, irregular, and extremely languid, is a precursor of death. Pulsations in one suffering from fever or amorous passions are quick, and in a healthy man they are of a medium strength and perfectly regular. The capriciousness of the pulse produces other modifications very curiously described. ”

“ For a strong pulse stands in need of all the other causes for its formation; but the feeble is produced by weakness alone. The originally strong pulse accompanies moderate ages, seasons, places, and temperaments; but the feeble the immoderate. A pulse changing from feebleness to strength is formed by the vital faculty growing strong, from a preceding state of debility. It is strengthened either by things within the body, such as concoction of the fluids, or an excretion of them, or passion; or by externals, such as wines, food, exercises, and whatever will rectify the intemperament. ”

“ An apoplexy, except when a vessel breaks in the brain, is not so very rapid. People live four or six days or more, that is, they breathe and have a pulse. The King died in an instant, and from some strange odd faintnesses and oppressions upon his breath, I was almost sure ’twas in his heart or the great vessels near. ”

“ Our breathing is a double motion of universal æther, an active and a reactive movement. This androgyne principle, with its dual motion, is the breath of God in man.” The writings of the ancients teem with these ideas, which have been handed down to us from generation to generation, and [22] are now flashing their light, like torches in the darkness, upon mysteries too long regarded as “lying outside the domains of physical science.” ”

“ One morning, after a sleepless night in which I imagined that someone I was linked up with, was feverish and that I must not move, I lay for about half an hour in one position, a voice begging me to lie still, that someone was in a straight-jacket and every movement I made hurt it. ”

“ The sensation of floating in equilibrium was delightful and soothing; and yet I felt that it would be a relief to touch something solid. As soon as my candle lighted up the cavity, I saw that the walls of my strange abode were perforated in various places by holes, some of which were large enough to admit my body. ”

“ But, truly, as has been stated, both in the chick in ovo and in the moribund animal, if you but apply some gentle stimulus either to the punctum saliens or to the right auricle of the heart after the failure of all pulsation, forthwith you will see motion, pulsation, and life restored to the blood—provided always, be it{377} understood, that the innate heat and vital spirit have not been wholly lost. ”

“ And we hear less well during a yawn or expiration than during inspiration, because the starting-point of the sense-organ of hearing is set upon the part concerned with breathing and is shaken and moved as the organ moves the breath, for while setting the breath in motion it is moved itself. ”

“ She saw him start; and with a single syllable of an oath, reached his hand under her hood to the track of the artery at her throat. He needed to listen but an instant to the fevered pulse to know the truth.
“We're going too fast,” he told her shortly. ”

“ REPERCUSSION The principle of sympathetic vibration mentioned above also provides the explanation of the strange and little-known phenomenon called repercussion, by means of which any injury done to, or any mark made upon, the materialized body in the course of its wanderings will be reproduced in the physical body. ”

“ As the prána expiration expires in the open air, the inhaling breath rises and rushes in a moment; just as the light having fled from the horizon, is succeeded immediately by deep darkness.
49. Know ye intelligent men, that the apána breath becomes extinct, where the prána comes to be born; and the prána respiration is lost, where the apána takes its rise. ”

“ Excursion, book 9 As another specimen, the mode of explaining the condensation of spirit by flight may be selected.
The spirit, he says, is condensed by flight,—cold,—appeasing, and quelling. The condensation by flight is when there is an antipathy between the spirit and the body upon which it acts; as, in opium, which is so exceedingly powerful in condensing the spirit, that a grain will tranquillize the nerves, and by a few grains they may be so compressed as to be irrecoverable. ”

“ The cause of death seemed fairly referrible to a sudden change in the non-naturals, the chief mischief210 being connected with the change of air, which through the whole course of life had been inhaled of perfect purity,—light, cool, and mobile, whereby the præcordia and lungs were more freely ventilated and cooled ”

“ TOI. Let me feel your pulse. Come, come, beat properly, please. Ah! I
will soon make you beat as you should. This pulse is trifling with me;
I see that it does not know me yet. Who is your doctor?
ARG. Mr. Purgon.
TOI. That man is not noted in my books among the great doctors. What
does he say you are ill of?
ARG. He says it is the liver, and others say it is the spleen.
TOI. They are a pack of ignorant blockheads; you are suffering from
the lungs. ”

“ Undulations, nervous affections, movements, and so forth, are only intelligible by us as modifications of our consciousness. To conceive in any degree the atmospheric perturbations which are the physical correlatives of sound, we must imagine them as somehow felt or perceived—for instance, as a faint breeze. ”