On spasm, languor, palsy, and other disorders, termed nervous, of the muscular system / by James Arthur Wilson.

Date:
1843
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On spasm, languor, palsy, and other disorders, termed nervous, of the muscular system / by James Arthur Wilson. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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    exercise, and in the allotment of task-work under the regulations of school or prison discipline. Certain persons never stir, if they can help it. Others are impatient of a moment's rest. This natural slowness or restlessness of fibre is characteristic of families and entire nations as of individual persons, and may be inherited, with all else that is elementary in action, by a run of ages, through the blood. To the blood, in its variety of composition, these pecu- liarities of muscular temperament, are in truth to be referred ; rather than to differences of conformation in the brain. In medical ethics, there is more warrant for hsematology than for craniology. And not only man's physical health, but many of the higher attributes of his nature are, through these structures, placed at his own disposal, and made dependent on his will. In the due exercise and management of the voluntary muscles, much of our moral duty is made to consist. Work, life's great practical moral, in them, for good or for harm, is mainly carried out. The human purpose is by them made complete; and virtue thus becomes example/ Had iEneas been feeble in the shoulders, his filial piety would not have been the pattern theme of posterity; and Grace Darling, less practised with the oar, would have missed the honours of her beacon- rock. By wholesome moderate fatigue of the voluntary muscles, the inducement to sensual indulgence is prevented ; and thus, we may be led from temptation, by walking or by riding out of it. The temper softens,