Rush considers this last, at least from injuries of the viscera, as a rare occurrence;[55] but we certainly know that general diseases are very often followed by evident diseases of particular organs; and in these cases it is impossible to say whether the general disease did not begin, though imperceptible to us, in that very organ in which we suppose it to terminate when the local disease was come to such an height as to be evident to our senses. In some cases it is plain that local injuries will bring on most violent diseases of the whole system. Thus a local inflammation of the end of one of the fingers, by physicians called a _paronychia_, has been known to induce a most violent fever, nay, even to occasion death. These violent symptoms end as soon as the suppuration is completed; so that, were it not for the excessive pain of the inflammation, we might be apt to suppose that the fever terminated in the suppuration, whereas it evidently was occasioned by the local disease, or the tendency of the part to suppurate; the pain and inflammation being necessary preliminaries. Again: When an intermittent fever is said to terminate, or to be followed, by a hardness of the liver, we do not certainly know whether an original disease of the liver might not have been the cause of the intermittent. From a consideration of all these things, viz. the extreme diversity of parts which compose the human body, the ultimate invisibility of the structure of each, the incomprehensible manner in which they are united, the equally incomprehensible dependence they have upon one another in some cases, and independence in others, the numerous laws by which they are governed, and which must be very much unknown to us, the invisible and incomprehensible nature of the powers which act upon them, &c. &c. I say, when we consider all these things, the boldest theorist must be humbled when he attempts to account for the phenomena of disease in any one instance. The excessive difficulty in which we are involved is beautifully described by Dr. Ferriar when speaking of hysterics; and obstacles equally insuperable by our theories will undoubtedly be met with in any other distemper. “We are ignorant (says he) by what laws the body possesses a power of representing the most hazardous disorders, without incurring danger; of counterfeiting the greatest derangement in the circulating system, without materially altering its movements; of producing madness, conscious of its extravagances; and of increasing the acuteness of sensation by oppressing the common sensorium. In hysterical affections all these appearances are excited, which are incompatible with the reasonings of every system-maker who has yet endeavoured to explain the inexplicable. Nature, as if in ridicule of the attempts to unmask her, has, in this class of diseases, reconciled contradictions, and realized improbabilities, with a mysterious versatility, which inspires the true