"In fevers, the sudden failing of the strength and pulse ought, we are told, to be regarded by us as signs of the despairing soul's discontinuing her care of the body, and being soon about to relinquish it: nay, sometimes, like a mean and silly coward, she sinks even under such diseases, as, in their own nature, are not at all deadly; and, through false alarms, she is either thrown into a great hurry and trepidation, which urges her to make wild work of it, and to do much mischief; or else she becomes very backward and remiss in her endeavours to preserve the body, and, as if it were a field not worth keeping, foolishly deserts it: though, were she but always wise enough, and, neglecting things of less moment, were solely intent on the preservation of the body, she could, if we may believe the Doctor [Stahl], not only prevent diseases, as far, at least, as they proceed from internal causes, but protract also the life of man, it may be, to a thousand years: a term greatly beyond what the adepts promised themselves from their <em>aurum potabile</em>, or Universal Remedy!"
An Essay on the Vital and Other Involuntary Motions of Animals
3 entries in ESTC (1751, 1763, 1768).<br>
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Robert Whytt, <u>An Essay on the Vital and Other Involuntary Motions of Animals</u> (Edinburgh: Printed by Hamilton, Balfour, and Neill, 1751). &lt;<a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=eCz7KJ_6XYIC">Link to Google Books</a>&gt;