same general laws as that of the truly human economy.
7. Life, or the Uving state, is a series of actions or mo
tions in animal matter, of which organized bodies are alone
susceptible, and it may be truthfully said of them that "activity
is life."
8. Without organization there cannot be life. Again,
1.
32 THOMSONIAN SYSTEM
organized bodies, though possessed of a capacity for life, require the aid of stimulants (active agents) to call it into activity.
9. Animal life can be supported only by external means
(stimulants).
10. Life is created and kept functioning by the influence
of heat or caloric activity upon organized bodies.
11. Heat, or caloric activity, is the power or agency by
which other stimulants, as atmospheric air, light, electricity,
galvanism, food, drink, medicine and all reconstructing agents
are made to act upon the system.
12. Caloric activity brings into play that power (an electro-
galvanic potency, since life is the result of action and reaction,
negative upon positive, acid upon alkali) which is the im
mediate agent of those varied and complicated actions which
form and fashion the organs; conveys to and appropriates
nourishment to every organ and tissue; sustains animal matter
in a state of composition; selects and expels effete or worn out
matter by the pores of the skin, the kidneys and other depuratory
organs; carries on all the various secretions and enables them
to react against or resist the influences that tend to their destruc
tion.
These last two propositions form the cornerstone or basis of the Physio-Medical science of medicine.
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