When the phenomena of disease are sympathetic, they follow the same laws as when they arise from a direct affection. Much has been said of the sympathies of the stomach, the intestines, the bladder, the lungs, etc. But it is impossible to form an idea of them, if they are referred to the organ as a whole, separate from the different textures. 1st. When in the stomach, the fleshy fibres contract by the influence of another organ and produce vomiting, they alone receive the influence, which is not extended either to the serous or mucous surfaces; if it were, they would be the seat, the one of exhalation, the other of sympathetic exhalation and secretion. 2d. It is certain that when the action of the liver is sympathetically increased, so that it pours out more bile, the portion of peritoneum that covers it does not throw out more serum, because it is not affected by it. It is the same of the kidney, the pancreas, etc. 3d. For the same reason the gastric organs upon which the peritoneum is spread do not partake of the sympathetic influences that it experiences. I shall say as much of the lungs in relation to the pleura, the brain in relation to the _tunica arachnoides_, the heart to the pericardium, etc. 4th. It is undeniable that in all sympathetic convulsions, the fleshy texture alone is affected, and that the tendinous is not so at all. 5th. What has the fibrous membrane of the testicles in common with the sympathies of its peculiar texture? 6th. No doubt a number of sympathetic pains that we refer to the bones, are seated exclusively in the marrow. I could cite many other examples to prove, that it is not this or that organ that sympathizes as a whole, but only this or that texture in the organs; besides, this an immediate consequence of the nature of sympathies. In fact the sympathies are but aberrations of the vital properties; now these properties vary according to each texture; the sympathies of these textures then would do the same. FOOTNOTES: [Footnote 26: Translated from _Traité sur les Membranes_ (1800).] XXIV AMADEO AVOGADRO 1776-1856