e applied to the cutaneous capillaries?

7. Another experiment I have frequently wished to try, which cannot be done
in private practice, and which I therefore recommend to some hospital
physician; and that is, to endeavour to still the violent actions of the
heart and arteries, after due evacuations by venesection and cathartics, by
gently compressing the brain. This might be done by suspending a bed, so as
to whirl the patient round with his head most distant from the center of
motion, as if he lay across a millstone, as described in Sect. XVIII. 20.
For this purpose a perpendicular shaft armed with iron gudgeons might have
one end pass into the floor, and the other into a beam in the cieling, with
an horizontal arm, to which a small bed might be readily suspended.

By thus whirling the patient with increasing velocity sleep might be
produced, and probably the violence of the actions of the heart and
arteries might be diminished in inflammatory fevers; and, as it is
believed, that no accumulation of sensorial power would succeed a torpor of
the origin of the nerves, either thus procured by mechanical compression,
or by the bladder-cap of cold water above described, the lives of thousands
might probably be saved by thus extinguishing the exacerbations of febrile
paroxysms, or preventing the returns of them.

In fevers with weak pulse sleep, or a degree of stupor, thus produced,
might prevent the too great expenditure of sensorial power, and thus
contribute to preserve the patient. See Class I. 2. 5. 10. on stupor. What
might be the consequence of whirling a person with his head next the center
of motion, so as to force the blood from the brain into the other parts of
the body, might be discovered by cautious experiment without danger, and
might probably add to our ability of curing fever.

XVI. _Recapitulation._

1. The sensorial power causes the contraction of the fibres, and is excited
into action by four different circumstances, by the stimulus of external
bodies, by pain or pleasure, by desire or aversion, or by the previous
motions of other contracting fibres. In the first situation it is called
the sensorial power of irritation, in the second the sensorial power of
sensation, in the third the sensorial power of volition, and in the fourth
the sensorial power of association.

Many parts of the body are excited into perpetual action, as the
sanguiferous vessels consisting of the heart, arteries, and veins; othe