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Zoonomia, Vol. I - Or, the Laws of Organic Life by Erasmus Darwin
page 100 of 633 (15%)

I must observe, also, that something similar happens in the production of
our ideas, or sensual motions, when they are too weakly excited; when any
one is thinking intensely about one thing, and carelessly conversing about
another, he is liable to use the word of a contrary meaning to that which
he designed, as cold weather for hot weather, summer for winter.

6. A certain quantity of stimulus, less than that above mentioned, is
succeeded by paralysis, first of the voluntary and sensitive motions, and
afterwards of those of irritation, and of association, which constitutes
death.

VI. _Cure of increased Exertion._

1. The cure, which nature has provided for the increased exertion of any
part of the system, consists in the consequent expenditure of the sensorial
power. But as a greater torpor follows this exhaustion of sensorial power,
as explained in the next paragraph, and a greater exertion succeeds this
torpor, the constitution frequently sinks under these increasing librations
between exertion and quiescence; till at length complete quiescence, that
is, death, closes the scene.

For, during the great exertion of the system in the hot fit of fever, an
increase of stimulus is produced from the greater momentum of the blood,
the greater distention of the heart and arteries, and the increased
production of heat, by the violent actions of the system occasioned by this
augmentation of stimulus, the sensorial power becomes diminished in a few
hours much beneath its natural quantity, the vessels at length cease to
obey even these great degrees of stimulus, as shewn in Sect. XL. 9. 1. and
a torpor of the whole or of a part of the system ensues.
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