Part 47

Although the nature of sympathies most probably will never be ascertained, their study is essential both to the moralist and the physician, and both may be materially aided in their vocations by the temperament of the pupil or the patient; for, as I shall endeavour to show in a subsequent sketch, our temperaments generally indicate individual characteristics. It is in vain that some philosophers may deny the power of innate faculties and dispositions. The very expression '_human nature_' implies their existence. To encourage their growth, or to check their developement, becomes the duty of those who are entrusted with the education of youth, when yielding to, or counteracting propensities, becomes as necessary as the care the horticulturist devotes to his plants. By the inclination that trees have taken, we can generally learn the prevalent winds of a district. The plastic hand of our early teachers may, in most instances, obtain a similar result; though in the vegetable kingdom, as well as in the animal kingdom, there will be constantly found stubborn trunks that will resist all influence. Were we to admit that our material organism cannot be counteracted, we should inevitably fall into many lamentable errors, and many a crime would be extenuated on the plea of fatalism. It is to be feared that some of our ingenious theorists have too frequently tortured organism on a Procrustean couch, to suit their favourite phantasies. We might reply to the visions of these enthusiasts in the words of Iago, "Our bodies are our gardens, to which our wills are gardeners--either to have it sterile with idleness, or manured with industry. The power and corrigible authority of this lies in our wills. If the balance of our lives had not one scale of reason to poise another of sensuality, the blood and baseness of our natures would conduct us to the most preposterous conclusions."

THE ARCHEUS OF VAN HELMONT.

One of the most ingenious fictions of those speculators who have endeavoured to explain the mysteries of our wonderful organization, was perhaps the Archeus of Van Helmont, a term derived from [Greek: archê], _origin_, _principle_, _authority_, _power_. According to the doctrines of this physician, the archeus was an internal agent that commanded and regulated all the vital functions. I cannot better describe it than by partly borrowing the language of the founder of the doctrine.

The archeus and matter are the natural causes of all. The molecules of matter, essentially inert, receive from this principle their movements, their order, their distribution, their conformation: the archeus is the internal agent that penetrates them, the nucleus of their inspiration; it is the mould in which they are elaborated, brought into form by this plastic influence meeting in this material substance the requisite docility to realize its ideas of perfection. Thus the archeus is an active and an intelligent power, possessing the faculty of amalgamating and identifying itself with matter; penetrating its inmost recesses, it modifies and changes each particle of matter, producing that incomprehensible series of oscillations of spontaneousness and equilibrium, that catenation and marvellous automatism, that constitute the consciousness of our existence, and whence springs the only notion we can form of its causation. It is the archeus that presides over our sense of smelling, of tasting, and consequently the selection of our food; it is _he_ that dissolves it in our digestive organs, liquefies it, and prepares it for due assimilation; it is he that imparts a conservative action to the blood, and converts this vital fluid into bone and muscle. Should any particle of our aliments have escaped from this transforming power, these substances become foreign bodies, irritating by their presence this sovereign power, calling forth his energies and his activity, and exciting his indignation and wrath by their repeated provocations. His just fury stimulates and accelerates the vital functions; but, instead of wreaking its vengeance on external matter, it overwhelms all internal obstacles, whether diffused in the system or concentrated on any given point. It is this tumultuous confusion that constitutes maladies, which arise from two evident causes,--an alteration in matter and a reaction of the archeus.

Of these two morbid elements, the first is susceptible of a thousand varieties both in nature and extent, and therefore produces as many modifications in the corrective power. Then does the archeus, threatened on different points in different manners, regulate his plans and operations both of defence and of attack, selecting his weapons according to the nature of his antagonists. In this mutual struggle our archeus wisely checks the impetuosity of his onset, husbands his forces, and merely detaches them from the main body according to the circumstances of the conflict; thus ever keeping a powerful reserve. It is this wisdom of conduct that ultimately restores tranquillity, and compels the rebellious molecules to submit to the laws of organization. For what constitutes the cure of a disease, whether obtained by nature or by art? Nothing more than the dignified repose of the mighty archeus, when the fire of his wrath has consumed his foes. Diseases, therefore, are simply the execution of vast and complex projects that inspire the archeus, and which he carries into execution as the statuary embodies on the marble the conceptions of his genius. When the morbid idea is in conformity with his plans, a favourable result will ensue; if, on the contrary, the archeus labours under a misconception, if he is thrown by erroneous impressions into disordinate steps, then may this power, excited without a just motive, or a determinate and proper object, turn its arms against itself, and destroy the ties that united it to matter. It is then that art, whose aim it is to meet the foe with his own weapons, must have recourse to medicine for the purpose of rousing the torpor of the archeus, reanimate his energies if he droops, overthrow him if he becomes unruly, and finally compel him to yield, by a salutary terror; forcibly bringing him back to that judicious equilibrium in action, when all the functions contribute in harmony and concert to the general welfare of the system.

Such were the truly poetical ideas of Van Helmont, who might have written an epic on the government, revolutions, and battles, in the archean state, similar to the Holy War of our ingenious Bunyan; for, like the cobler poet, our theorist divided and subdivided his legions and their officers. The archeus is merely the sovereign commander, whose head-quarters and throne were in the stomach; all the other viscera have distinct commandants, receiving their orders from their chief, who employed the nerves of his _aides-de-camp_. Nor was it an easy matter to keep all these captains in a proper state of discipline. Their irregularities occasioned constant tumults; for the court of the archeus, like all other courts, was most depraved and capricious in its practices, and intriguing in all its machinations, and the archeus had great trouble in keeping his subordinates in a proper state.

The most rebellious of his generals was the one who commanded the uterine district. There it was in vain that the articles of war were constantly read,--that solitary confinement and prison-diet were resorted to. Its constant mutinies not only demanded the utmost vigilance, but it was no easy matter to prevent its dangerous influence from contaminating the other branches of the service; and treasonable correspondences were not unfrequently discovered with the staff of the brain. This rebellious province, indeed, excited incessant apprehension, constantly agitated the entire commonwealth, and, on the plea of national welfare and liberty, it hoisted at times a standard of defiance, and precipitated the country in all the miseries of civil war; the more to be dreaded, as it always put forth the most specious pleas, destroying with words of peace.

This whimsical doctrine is not unlike the Platonic theories, and resembles the _naturism_ or [Greek: enormon] of Hippocrates, and the autocracy of the soul, of Stahl. Van Helmont not only established his archei in animals, but in plants, and even in our food. The archeus of man he sometimes called _ens seminale_, _ens spirituale_, _impetum faciens_, _aura vitalis_. Well aware that the most powerful despot cannot reign without rival powers, Van Helmont admitted certain _imperia in imperio_: for instance, there was a troublesome minister in his own cabinet, whom the archeus frequently could not control,--one _pylorus rector_, or master of the ceremonies; then he had to apprehend the power of a secret faculty possessed by the stomach and spleen, which he called a _duumvirate_,--_jus duumvirat'_. The sensitive and immortal soul was another check on his sway; while the spirit of life residing in the blood was not easily managed. All these vexations occasioned frequent attacks of illness in the monarch, and Van Helmont has described these several affections; for, although he possessed the power of conceiving and executing plans of disease, like many physicians, he did not know how to cure himself.

When we consider that systems similar to this absurd doctrine, if not more extravagant, have ruled the medical schools for centuries with a despotic sway, can we marvel that medicine should have incurred the invectives of scepticism, or the scurrility of wits? In the very ratio of their absurdity have these flitting systems been maintained with scholastic fury; their proselytes would have vied in excesses with monastic persecutors, had they been able to assume a religious mask. It is painful to observe that unbelief and impious ridicule in theologic matters may be referred to the same causes as medical scepticism,--the vain and presumptuous endeavour of man to explain that which the CREATOR has most probably willed to remain inexplicable. Instead of wisely referring all that is mysterious to the Almighty Power that knows no limit, man has sought to explain and comment upon human principles, nay upon human motives; and when they could no longer attribute evil to GOD, they crossed the _pons asinorum_ to call in the Devil. In like manner, when they proudly fancied that they had regulated all the functions of the animal economy in that harmonious manner that they were modest enough to call admirable and wondrous, they endeavoured to account for a derangement of this equilibrious condition, either by the introduction of some evil spirit, or the unmanageable rebellion of some organ, some principle, some agency, and for this purpose they gave individuality and specific vitality to those agents, each of the _dramatis personæ_ having a particular part to perform in bringing on a tragic catastrophe or a happy _denouement_ of the drama of life.

Let not the learned doctors of modern schools exclaim, that these were the errors of former days and of dark ages. They themselves are grovelling and groping in the dark whenever they pretend to fly from the trammels of empiricism, and, like our forefathers, account for what is unaccountable. But, above all, let them be meek and modest (if they can) in passing judgment upon others, and inscribe upon the doors of their splendid libraries the saying of the olden sage, "All that we know is our own ignorance."

MONSTERS.

Philosophers have puzzled their brains to no purpose in endeavouring to account for the unnatural formation of animals. The ancients, amongst whom we may name Democritus and Epicurus, attributing all organization to an atomic aggregation, fancied that matter was endowed with an elective faculty and certain volition in attaining this organism; and considered monstruosities as mere experiments on the part of these atoms to produce some other species or races. This chimera was of a par with the archeus and his satellites of the preceding article. There is no doubt, however, that in the myriads of organized creatures various circumstances may tend to affect most materially the regularity of these developments, in the same manner as the properties and peculiar qualities of their organs may depend in a great measure upon similar influences. Conservation and reproduction are in the ratio of this perfection and imperfection. It is true, generally speaking, that the healthy and the best organized are less liable to engender an ill-conformed offspring; yet parents of this description have been known to produce monsters. Still the _fortes creantur fortibus_ of Horace has become a proverbial expression; and some fanciful wanderers in the mazes of imagination framed rules for their _megalanthropogenesy_, or the art of creating illustrious men and distinguished women by uniting the learned and the witty.

Generation is a wondrous mystery. Many casual circumstances may check the mechanism of its action, (if I may be allowed the expression,) and affect its results. Any sudden physical or moral impression acting violently might produce this result; although, despite the theories and experiments of philosophers, it has not been proved that conception depends in the slightest degree upon the passions, being an act of nature totally independent of the control of mental emotions or bodily sufferings. This fact is clearly proved in cases of brutal violence.

The ideas entertained by several naturalists, that organized beings were cast in a certain mould, were not altogether visionary, or unfounded in observation. The great resemblance between children, and their hereditary mal-conformation and defectuosities in whole families, would seem to a certain degree to warrant this conclusion; but it is more probable that imagination may have some influence in this irregularity, although at the time we may be unconscious of the relative action of moral agency on physical functions. The supporters of the existence of this plastic mould in which organized matter is cast, would then maintain that the mind having once influenced the conformation of the matrix, it would ever after preserve this deviation from nature's general laws.

It is evident that different species of animals and vegetables have disappeared on the face of the earth, some within the memory of man. We neither know how these species have ceased to exist, nor whether all that possibly can be created has hitherto been brought into being; neither can we form any idea regarding the perpetuity of the races that surround us. Perpetuity and eternity (as far as regards this world) are conventional terms: races were supposed to be perpetuated by the successive evolutions of germs, as I have observed in a former article. To a certain extent this doctrine is correct, and is rendered evident in the evolutions of plants arising from their seed. Preternatural conditions are merely irregularities in this germination. The doctrine, that at each creation a true generation and gradual formation of a new conception from the formless genital matter takes place, does not appear to me reconcileable with sound physiology, nor supported by observation; for, were this the case, it is more than probable that preternatural formations would be more frequent. It was upon this doctrine that the learned Blumenbach founded his _nisus formativus_, an expression that he thus explains: "The word _nisus_ I have adopted chiefly to express an energy truly vital, and therefore to distinguish it as clearly as possible from powers merely mechanical, by which some physiologists formerly endeavoured to explain generation. The point upon which the whole of this doctrine respecting the _nisus formativus_ turns, and which is alone sufficient to distinguish it from the _vis plastica_ of the ancients, or the _vis essentialis_ of Wolff, and similar hypotheses, is _the union and intimate co-exertion of two distinct principles in the evolution of the nature of organized bodies_,--_of the_ PHYSICO-MECHANICAL _with the purely_ TELEOLOGICAL;--principles which have hitherto been adopted, but separately, by physiologists in framing theories of generation."

The ingenuity of this hypothesis must be admitted, but it does not militate against the pre-existence of germs. Germs are visible in the ovum before fecundation; in these germs the very primordia of future organization can be distinguished. It is by no means necessary to allow these germs an exciting power, or a formative power, as has been objected: they are more or less profuse, and under the influence, as I have already said, of accidental circumstances. It has been maintained that monsters are more common in domesticated animals than in wild ones. This is by no means evident, since we have little opportunity of ascertaining the case in forests and in wildernesses; but, admitting the fact, it only tends to corroborate my opinion regarding the influence of accidental causes in physical development, since domestication must expose animals to many emotions unknown in their natural condition. It has been said that monsters are especially observed among sows. There perhaps is no animal under the subjection of man, excepting, perhaps, the unfortunate donkey, more exposed to physical injuries during gestation; and as the Portuguese maintain that a _cajado_ (a stick) springs from the earth whenever an ass is born, so our bumkins and malicious urchins fancy that every one owes a kick to a gravid sow. Howbeit, I doubt much whether the swinish multitude are more subject to bear monstruosities than other animals; and preternatural conformations are, I believe, as frequent in lambs, and calves, and chickens; and double-headed and double-legged specimens of these animals are more frequently exhibited than monstrous pigs.

Monstruosities are of two kinds, and exhibit either an excess of parts or a defect. Thus, some children are born with more limbs than usual, whilst others are deprived of their natural proportions. It is not unlikely that in the former case twins were being developed; whereas, in the other, the proper nourishment of the parts that are either wanting or stunted in their growth had somehow or other been impeded in its assimilation. This opinion seems to be warranted by the facts observed in the artificial incubation of eggs, the different parts of the chick being more or less perfect where the heat had been more or less steadily applied; the produce of those eggs that had enjoyed more warmth being invariably the stronger. The same remark applies to plants. Eggs and seeds are in most respects ruled by similar laws in the phenomena of their germination: the arms and legs grow from the animal foetus, as the branches originate from the trunk of the tree. These ramifications are frequently as symmetrical as human limbs. When there are preternatural excesses in formation, it is probable that twins were intended: thus we see foetuses with double heads, or with two bodies. The same irregularity is observed in double and triple cherries, and other fruits. It is probable that this union took place when these bodies were in a soft state, and the vessels inosculated in their intricate ramifications with greater facility, until further development had consolidated the junction.

If a proof were wanting that monstruosities do not arise in the original organization of the embryo, but from subsequent accidents during gestation, it might be sought in those preternatural appearances that arise from frights or longings, and constitute what are called _nævi materni_. Thus are infants born bearing the marks of some fruit the mother had desired, or some animal that had terrified her. This phenomenon plainly shows that there does exist a wonderful sympathy between external objects and the uterine system; yet this sympathy is not as surprising as that which is subsequently observed between these marks and the fruit they represent. It is a well-authenticated fact that they will assume a tinge of maturity when the fruit is ripening, and become gradually more pale as it is going out of season. The same observation has been made in regard to animal marks; for instance, these marks have displayed a deeper colour when the mouse or the rat that had occasioned them was mentioned. I know a lady who, during her pregnancy, was struck with the unpleasant view of leeches applied to a relative's foot. Her child was born with the mark of a leech coiled up in the act of suction on the identical spot. Mr. Bennett has published a remarkable instance of this uterine sympathy. A woman gave birth to a child with a large cluster of globular tumours growing from the tongue, and preventing the closure of the mouth, in colour, shape, and size exactly resembling our common grapes, and with a red excrescence from the chest, as exactly resembling in figure and appearance a turkey's wattles. On being questioned before the child was shown her, she answered that, while pregnant, she had seen some grapes, longed intensely for them, and constantly thought of them; and that she was also once attacked and much alarmed by a turkey-cock.

Various writers have positively denied these facts. Gerard tells us that he had known three pregnant women whose minds had been constantly occupied with the unpleasant recollections of a cripple, of a dancing-dog fantastically dressed, and a basket of beautiful peaches; yet their offspring bore no marks of these objects. This is no argument. No rational person could imagine for a single moment that every impression thus received is to be transmitted. Buffon, who also doubts this influence, thus expresses himself: "We must not expect that we shall be able to convince women that the marks their children may bear have no analogy with ungratified longings. I have frequently asked them, before the birth of their infants, what had been their wishes, and consequently what would be the marks that they might expect? By this question I frequently gave unintentional offence."

Now, with all due respect to this celebrated naturalist, this argument is by no means conclusive. We perfectly well know that pregnant women are frequently alarmed without such consequences, and the most fantastic phantasies may cross their idle brains, without any such result. It has been observed on this subject, "that when a circumstance may proceed from many causes, we do not universally reject any one because it is frequently alleged without reason." We have too many well-authenticated cases before us to doubt this strange effect of maternal impressions, so clearly observed and recorded in Holy Writ in the following passage of Genesis: "And Jacob took him rods of Green poplar, and of the hazel and chestnut tree, and pilled white strakes in them, and made the white appear which was in the rods. And he set the rods which he had pilled before the flocks in the gutters in the watering-troughs, when the flocks came to drink, that they should conceive when they came to drink. And the flocks conceived before the rods, and brought forth cattle ring-straked, speckled, and spotted."

The sympathy that evidently exists between bodies separated from each other, but previously connected, has given rise to many absurd stories. It is told of Taliocotius, that having made a nose for a patient, cut out of a pig, the poor man's snout fell off the moment the hog was slaughtered. A similar belief prevails among horticulturists, who assert that the graft perishes when the parent tree decays. A very singular phenomenon is observed in wine countries, where the wine in wood enters into a state of slight effervescence, and even efflorescence, when the vines begin to throw out their blossoms.