Excerpt from Treatise on the Practice of Medicine, Vol. 2 of 2 The nervous system gives to organized matter all the peculiar functions of animal life, and in its higher states of development, renders it a fit recipient for the powers of reason and moral feeling. In a state of health, or freedom from irritation, it qualifies man for the enjoyment and communication of happiness - when disordered, it may render him the most deplorable and abject of created beings. Exalted mental endowments, equanimity, and benevolence, may be converted into imbecility, waywardness, and misanthropy; meek piety into the wildness and intolerance of fanaticism; confidence into universal mistrust, and friendship into hatred, by morbid conditions of this component of the human organization. The chronic diseases of the nervous system may be divided into two classes - viz: 1. Those in which the sensorial or muscular functions are morbidly affected, either separately or conjointly; 2. Those in which the intellectual and moral powers are disordered. The first of these classes comprehends a great variety of affections - characterized either by a perversion, or a morbid activity, or abolition of one or more of the sensorial functions; or by spasm, or convulsion, or paralysis, of a greater or less portion of the muscular system. The examples of singularly perverted sensorial function are numerous. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.