the system, from which, for want of proper
reflection, he often drew wrong deductions, and which he often
applied improperly. But whatever errors Brown may have committed in
the application of his system, and however short his doctrines may
fall of a perfect system of medicine, we may venture to predict that
the grand outlines will remain unshaken.

From what has been already shown, it must be evident that if the just
degree of excitement could be kept up, mankind would enjoy continual
health. But it is difficult, if not impossible, to regulate the
action of the exciting powers in this equable manner, and if their
action is increased, the first effect they produce on the functions
is to increase them, and the next is, to render them disturbed or
uneasy; or, in other words, to bring on diseases of increased action,
or what have been called inflammatory or phlogistic, both of which
terms are improper, as they convey false ideas, and are connected
with erroneous theories: Dr. Brown has given the name of sthenic to
these diseases, from their consisting in increased strength or
action, and this is certainly a more appropriate term. On the
contrary, when the action of the exciting powers is diminished more
than is natural, the functions become languid and disturbed, and by a
still further decrease of the action of these powers, they become
irregular and inordinate. This state of the body, which is opposite
to the former, Dr. Brown has denominated asthenic.

But the stimulant powers may act so powerfully, and exhaust the
excitability to such a degree, that they may overstep the bounds of
sthenic or inflammatory disease and bring on debility. Debility may
therefore arise either from the stimuli acting too weakly, or from a
deficient excitability, while the stimulus is not deficient. Debility
produced in the former manner is called direct debility, and in the
latter indirect debility.

To explain this more clearly, let us take a common instance. If a
person by any means be deprived of the proper quantity of food, he
will feel himself enfeebled, and the functions will gradually grow
more and more languid, and at last become irregular, and be performed
with pain. This state is called direct debility. Here is excitability
enough, and even too much, for it has accumulated by the subtraction
of a stimulus; but here is a deficiency of excitement from defect of
stimulus.

If now we suppose that a person, in good health, begins to