as to be able to diftinguish the poifon of each ferpent, by the tafte!-Wonderful fagacity!

Yours, laconically.

LETTER LXXIX.

ON VARIOUS SUBJECTS.

A

SIR,

SI have little or no leifure; this letter will be

like yours, in a two-fold refpect, fince it will be very fhort, and confift chiefly of acknowledgements of your late favors. I feel myself happy, that you approve in general of my account of modern neurology: you agree with me and with most others, that the brain is apparently a gland, or a secretory organ of fome fort; and that as fuch, it does moft probably feparate fome fluid either from the blood, from the chyle, from the lymphatic ferum, or from fome or all of thefe together; and if fo, why not

that

that individual fluid, which modern phyficians call the nervous juice, or animal fpirits? I think this the most plaufible theory that ever was invented by the wit of man. You fay, the nerves have no apparent cavity; but I humbly conceive this is no reason why the minutest nerve in the human body (tho` no cavity in it can be difcerned by the eye or by a microscope) may not be yet hollow enough to tranfmit a fubftance as thin as light, or fubtile as the electric fluid.

I ftill remark, that the nerves are far from being tenfe, so as to be fuppofed to act like vibrating chords. You highly commend my laudable attempt (as you call it) of pointing out, in fome meafure, the diftinct and feparate offices of the cerebrum and cerebellum: a wound in the former being feldom mortal, and a wound or any confiderable injury in the latter being always fo: this, you admit, strongly favours my opinion. At this very instant I am favoured with the receipt of another letter; you had been fo long filent, that I knew not whether an epiftle might not, with some little propriety, be addreffed to you in fome part of the Elyfian fields! You acknowledge the receipt of my

chapter on the comparative anatomical knowledge of Homer and Virgil, and so far think with me that the latter has copied most of his death-wounds from the former and tho' Virgil is your great favourite, you candidly confefs, that he is manifeftly inferior, in the variety of deaths, &c. to his great master.

You fay likewise, that I have laboured hard, and not unfuccefsfully, in endeavouring to defend Homer's death of Patroclus, against the cenfure of Pope and others. In further illuftration of this fubje&t, according to the original text of the Iliad, Apollo gave the Grecian hero a blow on the back part of the head, “ πλῆξεν δε μετάφρενον,” and partly difarmed him. This is all beautiful and poetical allegory. Let us throw off the veil of poetry, and take the matter in plain profe, Homer had previously told us, that the fun was a little declining in his course: that is, it must have been about an hour after noon, and confequently the hottest hour in a fummer's day, in a hot climate and at that time Apollo, (that is the fun) smote* with his rays (that is fhone intensely) on

the

• In violent hot weather, the eastern nations protect their heads, to prevent what they call colpa di folè, the ftroke of the fun, which otherwife gives instant death or madness.

the head of Patroclus. From this caufe, and the violent fatigue that he had previously undergone, (for he had juft before, in three feveral onfets, killed nine men in each) he must have been much exhaufted; or, in Homer's phrafe, lapwv, faint or flupified: and under all these circumstances, to avoid the intense heat, he might relieve himself, by throwing off fome part of the heavy and cumbrous armour of the great Achilles and in this fituation Euphorbus might take the advantage to come behind him, wound him between the shoulders, and Hector might meet him in front, and give him an ufual Homeric wound.

• veíœloves neveŵva," "extremum ad ventrem, at the lower extremity of the belly;" but fuch was the

મેર

vigour of the He&torian arm, διὰ ποὺ δὲ χαλκόν έλασσε, that he drove the steel, (that is the steeled point of the fpear) quite thro' the body. This wound was inflicted with heroic force; and for reafons obvious to your penetration, may be announced to be speedily fatal, according to the stricteft anatomical and phyfiological propriety.

:

NOTE to the READER.

ALL the correfpondence alluded to in the laft letter is loft and in the letters on modern neurology a weak attempt was made to prove, that the cerebrum, or the true brain, was the feat of intelligence, and supplied the nerves, that serve for the purpofe of voluntary motion. That the cerebellum was the seat of life, and supplied those nerves that contributed to the animal and vital functions, and to involuntary motion. And likewife fome conjectures were offered how far the feveral fubftances of the cerebrum and cerebellum, after they had joined and formed the medulla oblongata, and the spinal marrow, might or might not, be distinct in themselves, and ftill, in fome measure, continue to perform their feveral offices.

LETTER