NOTE.

Attempts have been made to specify the elementary tissues of
which the various organs are composed.

Dr. Carmichael Smyth, in an admirable paper upon inflammation,
considered the disease according to the structures which it
affects, – the skin, cellular membrane, serous membranes, mucous
membranes, and muscular fibres^c Dr. Pinel, some years afterwards,
[Seite 3] adopted this arrangement,^d and Bichat at length suggested that
all diseases might be considered in this manner, and distributed
the structures, or elementary tissues, into twenty-one kinds: –

This arrangement, Dr. Rudolphi remarks, is physiological rather
than anatomical, and he distributes the elementary tissues into
eight classes only: –

The primary solids, of which these tissues are said to be com-
posed, are, the cellular fibre, the muscular fibre, and the nervous
fibre.^g

The proximate principles, or distinct chemical compounds of
animal bodies, are: –

The elements, or ultimate principles of animal bodies, into which
the distinct compounds may be resolved, are: –

Hydrogen,

Carbon,

Oxygen,

Azote,

Chlorin, iodin, fluorin?

Sulphur,

Phosphorus,

Potassium,

Sodium,

Calcium,

Magnesium, silicium?

Manganese?

Iron.

The ultimate principles of vegetables may be considered the
same as those of animals.

Vegetable proximate principles are very numerous; the follow-
ing may be considered as the chief: –

The following are constant in their character, or are peculiar
to certain vegetables.

Various acids – Oxalic, citric, tartaric, malic, moroxylic, gallic,
laccic, kinic, boletic, prussic, meconic, benzoic.

Various alkaline bodies – Quinina, cinchonina, morphina, strych-
nina, brucina, delphina, picrotoxina, atropia, veratrina,
hyoscyamina.

Indigo,

Tan,

Suber,

Caoutchouc,

Wax,

Asparagin, ulmin, inulin, fungin, polychroite, haematin, nicotin,
pollenin, emetin, sarcocol, olivile, medullin, lupulin,
cathartin, piperin, &c.

NOTES.

(A) Most cold-blooded animals, as fishes and the amphibia,
have a much smaller proportion of blood and fewer blood-vessels
than those with warm blood, though a much greater number of
colourless vessels arising from the arteries. In. an experiment
which Blumenbach made on this subject, he ‘“obtained from
twenty-four adult water-newts (lacerta palustris), which had been
just caught, and weighed each an ounce and a half, ℈ iiiss. of blood.
The proportion to the weight of the body was as 2 1/2 to 36, while
in healthy adult men it is as 1 to 5.”’^o

(B) Dr. Magendie stated, in 1809, to the Institute, that this as-
sertion is incorrect. If air is injected rapidly, the animal screams
and dies in a moment: but if slowly, he informs us that no incon-
venience results, and that some animals bear the injection of
enormous quantities without perishing.^p Dr. Blundel injected
five drams into the femoral vein of a very small dog, with only
temporary inconvenience, and subsequently three drams of ex-
pired air even without much temporary disturbance.^q Nysten has
established, that many gases soluble in the blood, as oxygen and
carbonic acid, may be thrown into the circulating system in very
large quantity without serious inconvenience; while danger often
ensues upon the introduction of those which are sparingly or not
at all soluble in the blood.^r

In the same way, if about 15 grains of bile are rapidly introduced
into the crural vein of an animal, instant death occurs; but, if
slowly, no inconvenience results. This quantity may be even
rapidly injected into the vena portae without injury, and so likewise
may atmospheric air, probably because the extreme subdivision
of the vessel acts like slowness of introduction, – causes the com-
plete diffusion and dilution of the bile, and solution of the air,
before it reaches the heart.

If warm water is introduced (an equal quantity of blood being
first removed to prevent over distension) mere debility ensues,
proportionate to the quantity; but if oils, or mucilages, or an inert
impalpable powder, are injected, life is at once destroyed by the
obstruction of the minute ramifications of the pulmonary artery.^s
Poisons act powerfully if injected into the veins; and, as will
presently be mentioned, medicines thus introduced, exert their
specific powers on the different organs.

(C) When blood, venous or arterial, is placed in the vacuum of
an air pump,^t or coagulates in the air,^u it emits a quantity of
carbonic acid gas. Professor Brande obtained two cubic inches
from every ounce of blood; Dr. Scudamore less than half a cubic
inch from six ounces. The quantity is said to be much greater
after a meal, and much less if the blood is buffy.^x

(D) Blood coagulates when it has escaped from the body,
whether warm or cold, in the air or in vacuo, diluted within cer-
tain limits, or undiluted, at rest or in motion. Within the
vessels, rest, which causes a cessation of intercourse between
the motionless portion and the general mass, always disposes
it to coagulate. Yet its coagulation, after escape from the
body, is said to be accelerated by motion, a high tempera-
ture, and a vessel calculated to preserve its temperature, by
a vacuum, and by the stream from the vessel being slow,
and vice versa: in short, by every circumstance which favours
the escape of carbonic acid gas, and to be proportioned to
the quantity of carbonic acid gas evolved; this being evolved
during the coagulation, and ceasing to escape when the coagu-
lation is complete.^y Galvanism and oxygen gas raise its tem-
perature and hasten coagulation, while carbonic acid gas, azote,
and hydrogen, have the opposite effects.

The coagulation of the blood is ascribed by J. Hunter to its
life:^z by Mr. Thackrah,^a on the contrary, to its death, as the se-
paration of a portion from the mass, by escape from a vessel, is
[Seite 13] likely to kill it if alive; as every change likely to impair life pro-
motes coagulation, for example, debility, fainting; and as blood
frozen, and therefore likely to be killed if alive, and again thawed,
instantly coagulates. But the coagulation appears, in most in-
stances, if Dr. Scudamore’s experiments be accurate, though
others have not found the same results^b, attributable merely to the
escape of carbonic acid: and as coagulated blood or fibrine (and
the coagulated part of effused blood is fibrine) becomes vascular,
one can hardly, if the fluid is alive, regard a coagulum as ne-
cessarily dead. See also Sect. VI. Note B.

Large quantities of blood are found fluid in every dead body,
showing that simple loss of vitality is not sufficient to cause coa-
gulation. Indeed, the blood of the heart and vessels is found,
most frequently, in opposite states, fluid in one part, coagulated
in another, yet it is all equally dead. From all these contradic-
tory circumstances, I regard the coagulation of the blood as quite
unconnected with its vitality or lifelessness, and as entirely a che-
mical result. That it, however, is influenced by the vital pro-
perties of the containing vessels is possible, but these may ope-
rate upon the blood, in this respect, as a mere chemical compound;
and even if it be alive, and they influence its life, still the in-
fluence, as far as respects coagulation, may in effect be chemical.

The blood generally coagulates in the living body on escaping
from its vessels, and even in its vessels if its motion be prevented
by ligatures; and when it does not, its subsequent escape from
the body almost always produces instant coagulation.^c It almost
always coagulates also in the vessels running through healthy parts
to others in a state of mortification, and in large vessels adjoining
a pulmonary abscess; in which cases, the final cause – prevention
of haemorrhage, is evident. The efficient cause, however, in all
these examples is unknown. In all, the blood is still in contact
with living parts: in the two last, it is not at rest till it coagulates.
J. Hunter, after mentioning that after a mortification of the foot
and leg he found the crural and iliac arteries completely filled
with strongly coagulated blood, adds, that this could not have
arisen from rest, because the same thing ought then to hap-
pen in amputation, or in any case where the larger vessels are
tied up.^d Besides, coagulation after extravasation, or when a
[Seite 14] quantity is included in a vessel between two ligatures, is not an
invariable occurrence.

These facts, in addition to those stated above, show that fluidity
or coagulation is not dependent on the simple presence or absence
of vitality. Whatever connection coagulation out of the body
may have with the escape of carbonic acid gas, there is no proof
of it in the case of internal coagulation. Some have thought that
heat is evolved during its coagulation^c; others have denied this.^f
The latest experimenter supports the opinion.^g

(E) To suppose any affinity of the red particles for either the
lymph or the serum is erroneous. Leeuwenhoek and Hartsoeker
long since proved that serum merely suspends them, for if, when
separated, they are triturated in some serum, part of them is
taken up and the serum assumes a red colour; but, if the fluid is
allowed to settle in a cylindrical glass, they slowly precipitate
themselves to the bottom, and the serum above becomes clear
as before. When blood is drawn, the serum easily separates on
the coagulation of the lymph. But the lymph coagulates before
the colouring particles have time to fall to the bottom, and en-
tangling them acquires a red colour, forming the crassamentum:
if, however, the lymph coagulate slowly, and is thinner^h, as in the
phlogistic diathesis and pregnancy, the greater specific gravity of
the cruor detaches it very considerably from the lymph, which
remains colourless above, constituting what is called the inflam-
matory coat, crust, or buff. Berzelius even believes the lymph
to be in a state of solution in the serum, while the cruor is simply
suspended in this solution. In the phlogistic diathesis both the
fibrin and the serum are more abundant, and the blood lighter.ⁱ

Thinness of the blood and a disposition to slow coagulation gene-
rally co-exist. But the rapidity of the stream greatly affects the
rate of coagulation, so that one portion of the same blood coa-
gulates slowly that is drawn quickly, and another quickly that is
drawn slowly.

The appearance of the buffy coat does not arise from the slow
coagulation, though increased by it; because, of two portions of
the same blood, one has afforded no buffy coat, although it
[Seite 15] remained fluid at least ten minutes after the buffy coat began
to be formed on the other;^k proving, too, if the buffy coat arise
from thinness of the fibrin, as appears from Mr. Hewson’s ex-
periments, the red particles continuing of their usual weight, that
slow coagulation is not altogether dependent on mere thinness
of the blood, though generally connected and proportional with
it. Yet rapid coagulation, by means of a slow stream when the
blood is thin, may prevent the buffy coat, by not allowing time for
the difference in the weight of the fibrin and red particles to
have effect. Stirring such blood has the same consequence, and
the slower the coagulation of thin blood, occasioned, for instance,
by rapid bleeding, the greater will be the buffy coat.

The different cups of blood drawn in an inflammatory disease
may vary as to the buffy coat, according to accidental variations
in the stream, but generally it is the first cup that abounds in
buff, and the last frequently has none. This occurs when there
is no difference in the stream.^l Therefore, if the buff arise from
thinness of the fibrin, we must conclude with Hewson^m that its
qualities may be changed even during bleeding. Dr. Scudamore
finds much more fibrin in buffy blood; and, consequently, that
not merely the thinness, as Hewson found, but the quantity, of
fibrin, may vary during the flow of blood.ⁿ

The greater the strength of the patient and the intensity of the
inflammation, the firmer is the coagulum of fibrin and the more
cupped its appearance.

Dr. Scudamore did not find a buffy coat in blood drawn imme-
diately after violent exercise.

The blood of different brutes coagulates in different times.
Mr. Thackrah imagines the rapidity to be inversely as the
strength and size. Thus, while in health, human blood coagulates
in from 3 or 4 to 7 minutes, that of the

(F) The coagulable part of serum is albumen; that which
remains fluid is called serosity, – a name given it by Cullen, and
contains no gelatin as the French chemists asserted, but an ani-
mal matter different from both gelatin and albumen, with a mi-
nute portion of albumen and fibrin, and affords a little free soda,
muriate, lactate^p, and phosphate, of soda, and muriate of potash,
with 905/1000 of water.^q

If mixed with six parts of cold water, serum does not coagulate
by heat.

Under the influence of the galvanic pile, the soda collects
at the negative wire, and the albumen coagulates at the
positive.

(G) When venous blood acquires a florid colour by exposure to
oxygen or atmospheric air (and it does so even when covered
by a bladder, provided this is moistened^r), carbonic acid gas
is formed, and an equal volume of oxygen gas disappears. If
exposed to nitrous oxide, it becomes of a brighter purple, and
much of the gas is absorbed: carbonic acid gas renders it darker
and is a little absorbed: nitrogen and hydrogen have the same
effect. The dark colour produced in arterial blood by carbonic
acid or azotic gas takes place if blood is placed in vacuo, though
less rapidly and deeply than if exposed to hydrogen gas. Arte-
rial blood left in contact with oxygen gradually acquires the same
dark colour, and no oxygen will afterwards render it scarlet.
Berzelius finds the colouring particles only concerned in these
changes: and, after all, no difference of composition can be de-
tected between scarlet and purple blood. But Prevost and Dumas
found more particles, i. e. fibrin and red particles, in arterial than
in venous blood.

It has been generally supposed that iron exists in the red par-
ticles of the blood as a subphosphate. Berzelius informs us that
serum, although able to dissolve a small portion of the oxides,
not indeed of the phosphates, of iron, does not acquire a red
colour by their addition, and that he has never discovered iron
[Seite 17] nor lime in the entire blood, although both are so abundant in its
ashes. He concludes that the blood contains the elements of
phosphate of iron and of lime, and of carbonate of lime, and also
of phosphate of magnesia, united in a manner different from their
combination in the salts. But Dr. Engelhart has lately shown
iron to exist in blood, by the usual liquid tests, after passing a
stream of chlorin through a solution of red particles.^l

Mr. Hewson asserted that the particles consist of a nucleus
and an enveloping coloured portion.^m The nucleus is said to be
colourless; perhaps about 1/5000 of an inch in diameter, and the
whole globule nearly one-fourth larger.ⁿ MM. Prevost and
Dumas believe,^o that the internal portion is spherical, but the
outer or vesicular, as Hewson noticed^p, flattened. The inner part,
according to these enquirers, rolls in the outer, and, in the frog’s
web and bat’s wing, at least, the whole particle is carried, steadily
balanced, in the current of blood, sometimes flat, sometimes
oblique, sometimes gently turning upon itself; and lengthening
if driven into a vessel of diameter hardly sufficient for its admis-
sion: the assertion of Reichel, (12. note,) being thus corroborated.
Mr. Bauer has discovered a third set of smaller colourless globules
in the blood, 1/2800 of an inch in diameter. They appear to
belong to the fibrin, and are accordingly denominated lymph
globules. It is thought probable that the central globule of the
red particles is the same, and thus really fibrin. Colourless
globules gradually form also in serum.^q

It was mentioned in the note to Section I. that Dr. Hodgkin
and Mr. Lister had lately employed a microscope superior
to those of former investigators, and disproved the opinion
of the globular composition of living structures. They, at the
same time, examined the blood, and though, like Hewson, they
found its particles flat and circular, and indeed with edges somewhat
raised, so that the middle of each surface was depressed, they
could detect no central particle; and satisfied themselves that the
diameter was pretty exactly 1/5000 of an inch.

(H) Oxygen and hydrogen also exist in fibrin. The fibrin,
albumen, and colouring matter, afford, on decomposition, the
same saline and gaseous products. Berzelius views them all
three as modifications of the same substance. Albumen contains
a greater proportion of oxygen than fibrin, and has sulphur for a
constituent part, which, however, cannot be detected while the
albumen is entire, any more than the iron while the cruor is entire.
The chief differences between the colouring matter and fibrin
are, colour; the spontaneous coagulation of fibrin at all temper-
atures, while the colouring matter may be dried without losing its
solubility in water, and becomes insoluble only at a certain tem-
perature; and the peculiarity in the latter of not diminishing in
volume like fibrin during exsiccation. Albumen is intermediate
between the two, and its only character of distinction from fibrin
is, that it does not coagulate spontaneously, but requires a high
temperature or some chemical agent.

The crystalline lens is a sort of albumen; the epidermis, nails,
hair, horn, cartilage, are nearly composed of it; of bone and
muscle it is an essential part. Fibrin exists in muscles only, be-
sides the blood, and is indeed their chief constituent, giving them
form, and rendering them fibrous. Gelatine, or rather what becomes
so by the agency of boiling water, contains somewhat less carbon
and more hydrogen and oxygen than albumen, and although
not obtained from blood, is an important part of our frame: the
cutis, serous membranes, and tendons, are a species of it; it forms
the chief part of cellular membrane, and is an essential constituent
of bones, muscles, ligaments, hair, &c. The composition of the
substance of the viscera is not well known.^r

The blood of brutes has the same general character as our
own, and Rouelle obtained the same ingredients, though in dif-
ferent proportions, from the blood of a great variety of them.
Berzelius finds a larger proportion of nitrogen in that of the ox, and
analogy would lead us to suppose there is a peculiarity in the blood
of every species. Muscles look pretty much alike in various ani-
mals, yet when cooked they disclose the greatest diversities.
Transfusion, or pouring the blood of one system into another,
satisfies us, that the blood, whether arterial or venous, of one in-
dividual, agrees well enough with another of the same species;
but some late experiments of Dr. Leacock,^s and subsequently of
Dr. Blundel,^t render it unlikely, contrary to the opinion of
former experimentalists, that the blood of one species suits the
system of another. Dr. Young found the large outer globules of
the skate to be somewhat almond-shaped, and Hewson found
them of different shapes in different animals, and Rudolphi ob-
served them to be more or less oval in the common fowl and many
amphibia.^u MM. Prevost and Dumas have noticed, in their mi-
croscopic experiments, a great difference in the blood of different
animals as to the globules, and in this way explain the impossi-
bility of transfusing the blood of some animals to others without
danger to life. They assert that the quantity of the particles
is proportionate to the temperature of the animal, and that, con-
[Seite 20] sequently, most exist in the blood of birds: that the size and
shape also vary, although the size of the central portion is the
same in animals in which they are spherical, and is about 1/7500 of
an inch in diameter; and that the shape of the external part is
circular in the mammalia, and elliptical in birds and cold-blooded
animals, thus confirming and generalising the observations of
others^x, (and this is again confirmed by Dr. Hodgkin) and
the shape of the central portion correspondent with that of the
external, – spherical when the latter is circular, oval when ellip-
tical. They found, that if the blood of two animals of different
species, the blood of one of which was transfused into the other,
differed in the size only of the globules, temporary restoration
of energy took place; but that if it differed in their shape,
convulsions and death were the result. They also find a
larger proportion of fibrin and red globules in warm than in cold-
blooded animals, and a larger in the former according to the
height of the temperature – (of 10,000 parts by weight; in pi-
geons, 1557; man, 1292; frogs, 690): – a smaller also, accordingly
as animals are bled; it thus appearing that bleeding promotes the
absorption of watery fluid.^y The colour of the particles differs
in different animals: hence red and white-blooded animals.

Hewson^z saw the red particles of the blood of the foetal
chicken and viper larger than those of the adult animal: and
Prevost and Dumas have observed the red particles of the
foetal goat to be as large again as those of the adult; and
those of the chicken to be circular, till about the sixth day,
when some elliptic ones are first seen; and on the ninth, from
their progressive multiplication, none but elliptic ones can be
detected.^a

The blood of invertebral animals is colourless, but has not been
analysed.

The sap of vegetables corresponds to the blood of animals, but
is totally different; is nearly as liquid as water; has always an acid,
sometimes free, more commonly united with lime and potash.
It has various vegetable principles; but sugar and mucilage are
[Seite 21] the most remarkable. Sometimes it contains albumen, tannin,
and gluten.

It soon effervesces if left alone, and grows sour, or even vinous,
if much sugar be present.

About forty years after the discovery of the circulation of the
blood, transfusion was practised upon brutes, and at length upon
the human subject, though some contend that the operation was
known to the ancients. Experiments were made upon the
effects of injecting medicated liquids into the blood, first by
Wahrendorf, in Germany. It was ascertained that they exert their
specific powers exactly as when swallowed, – cathartics, v. c.
purging, and emetics emptying the stomach. Among other liquids,
Dr. Christopher Wren proposed that blood should be injected,
and Dr. Lower first put this into practice. It was found that
if an animal was drained of its blood, and lay faint and almost
lifeless, and the blood of another was transfused into its cir-
culating system it soon revived, stood up, and presently ran
about as before, apparently none the worse for the operation.
If too much was poured in, the animal became drowsy, breathed
with difficulty, and died of plethora. An idea of curing diseases
in this way, by substituting the blood of the healthy for that
of the diseased, was immediately entertained when the possibility
of the operation was proved.

But the first case of human transfusion proved fatal, and the
unfortunate results of some careless trials caused the Pope and
the King of France to prohibit the practice.

The extravagant hopes of curing diseases and restoring youth,
at first entertained in France, were disappointed, and the operation
fell into complete neglect, notwithstanding that Denys, in France,
was declared to have made a fool clever by a supply of lamb’s blood;
a Mr. Cox, in England to have cured an old mongrel of the mange
with the blood of a young spaniel; and a M. Gayant to have
made a blind old dog frisk with juvenile bound which before could
hardly stir; till Dr. Leacock brought it again into notice a few
years ago, and Dr. Blundel prosecuted this gentleman’s re-
searches. Dr. Blundel conceived it might be rationally expected
to be of benefit in cases of dangerous haemorrhage, and he soon
proved it to be void of danger in the human subject, if properly
performed. Many women who would probably otherwise have
[Seite 22] perished from uterine haemorrhage, now owe their lives to his
disinterested zeal in establishing the practice.

I should think it applicable to many cases of exhaustion, be-
sides those arising from haemorrhage. The original history of
transfusion will be found in the early numbers of the Philosophi-
cal Transactions: the successful cases of its employment as a
remedy, in the late English journals. The double pump em-
ployed for emptying the stomach, or a common syringe, capable
of holding four or six ounces, answers very well. But Dr. Blundel
at present, when he has able assistants, sometimes receives the
blood from the blood-vessel into a funnel, the tube of which is
very long, and inserted into the vein of the subject supplied, so
that the blood enters by its gravity only.

NOTES.

(A) Since this structure neither secretes mucus, nor consists of
mucus, but chiefly of what becomes gelatin by the operation
of boiling water, the generally-received appellation of cellular
membrane appears preferable to that of mucous tela adopted by
Blumenbach from Bordeu,^h and especially in this work, as our
author (40) suggests the title of vis cellulosa for the contractile
power of the membrane.

(B) Dr. William Hunter contended that the fat is not contained
in the same cells of the cellular membrane as the fluid of
anasarca, but in distinct vesicles: because, – 1. The marrow, which
strongly resembles fat, is contained in vesicles or bags; 2. Parts
which are most loaded in anasarca, as the eyelids, never contain
fat; 3. In dropsical subjects, exhausted of the fat, the membrane
which contained fat appears still very different from the other, –
that immediately under the skin, for example, being thin and col-
lapsed, while that opposite the tendon of the latissimus dorsi is
thick and gelatinous; 4. Parts which become filled with fluid
from gravitation in dropsy, as the penis and scrotum, never con-
tain a drop of oil in the fattest persons; 5. Dropsical parts pit
on pressure; the fluid disperses, and returns when the pressure is
resumed. This is not the case with parts distended by fat,
although it is when oil is poured into the common cellular mem-
brane after death.ⁱ

NOTES.

(A) John Hunter divides sympathy into general and partial;
such as pyrexia from a wound, and convulsion of the diaphragm
from irritation in the nose. Partial sympathy he subdivides into
remote, contiguous, and continuous, – Where there is no evident
connection between the sympathising parts, sufficient to account
[Seite 37] for the circumstance; as vomiting from the pregnant state: –
Where there is proximity of the sympathising parts; as tenesmus
when a stone exists in the urinary bladder: – and Where, as most
commonly, the sympathising parts are continuous; as itching
of the nose and verge of the anus from worms in the in-
testines.^y

Bichat’s division^z cannot be understood till after the perusal
of Note B, Sect. VI. He considers sympathy as affecting either
animal sensibility or contractility, as pain of the knee in diseases
of the hip, or tetanus from a wound of the extremities; or or-
ganic sensibility or contractility, as palpitation from disorder of
the stomach.

Sympathy does not arise from mere nervous connection, because
it frequently happens that no particular nervous communications of
sympathising parts are discoverable, as between the nose or eye and
diaphragm, although sneezing follows from a pinch of snuff in the
nose or the sun’s glare upon the eyes, while remarkable ones exist
between other parts not particularly disposed to sympathise, as the
neck and diaphragm.^a Vegetables, which are not known to have
nerves, show sympathy: if a leaflet of the sensitive plant is stimu-
lated by a burning-glass, the whole leaf contracts and the foot-stalk
drops; when the branches of trees feel the warmth of summer, the
sap ascends in the roots; and even in a frost it will ascend from the
roots through the stem, if a single branch is introduced into a hot-
house.^b

Sympathy of animal contractility occurs only when the nerves
connecting the affected muscles with the brain are entire; when
[Seite 38] they were divided by Bichat, the convulsions in the correspond-
ing muscles ceased.

Neither, where sympathetic muscular action arises from a sen-
sation, will it occur, if the nerves communicating impressions from
the affected part to the brain are compressed or divided, or if the
brain itself is unable to receive the impression: – although the
stomach may be thrown into contraction in an animal newly dead,
by mechanical irritation, no sympathetic action of the diaphragm
and abdominal muscles, no vomiting, occurs^c; sneezing or con-
traction of the iris cannot be induced in coma, by stimulating the
nostrils or letting the sun’s rays into the eye. Even when the im-
pression is not perceived, but the action is of voluntary muscles,
as in hiccup, the action ceases if the brain is disqualified for
the impression; v. c. a forcible distraction of the attention arrests
hiccup. The necessity for sighing after reading or listening
attentively arises from our forgetting to breathe fully, – not fully
perceiving the want of breath while our attention was so oc-
cupied^d; and the general coughing and sneezing in church at
a pause in the sermon, is owing to the sensations which give rise
to those actions having been for a time overpowered throughout
the congregation by other feelings.^e

The sympathies of the organic functions are not all ascribable,
as many might imagine, to continuity of surface; for after dividing
the oesophagus of a dog, Bichat produced vomiting equally as
before, on irritating the fauces.

Sympathy depends on the peculiarity of the sensation as well
as upon the part. ‘“When the sides or soles of the feet are
[Seite 39] tickled,”’ says Whytt, ‘“the body is often thrown into convulsive
motions; but nothing of this kind happens when those parts are
either inflamed or wounded: neither an acrid injection of a so-
lution of corrosive sublimate, nor the introduction of a catheter
into the urethra, occasions any alternate convulsive motions of the
acceleratores urinae, although the semen, which stimulates the
nerves of the urethra much more gently, has this effect.”’

The same cause, too, will produce the same sympathetic effect,
though applied to different parts. Convulsions arise from tickling
any part; nausea from a disgusting smell, taste, or sight.

The same sympathetic effect, lastly, may arise from many dif-
ferent causes in different parts: vomiting may arise from injuries
of the head, a stone in the kidney, disgust, sailing, &c.^f

Sympathy is of the utmost importance in health. When the
glans penis is irritated to a certain pitch, not only the ejacula-
tores seminis, but the levatores ani, are thrown into violent action:
when the uterus has arrived at the term of gestation, the breasts se-
crete milk. Sympathy often occurs, in disease, in parts which
showed none during health; as pain of the right shoulder in affec-
tions of the liver: and new sympathies occur in parts which were
sympathetically connected in health, as vomiting in constipation;
pain, and even secretion of milk, in the breasts, when the uterus or
ovaria are diseased.

(B) Our author here, as below (135), means the pulmonary
portion of the pleura, and very properly regards this and other
serous membranes, as condensed cellular substance; that is, as
a substance not originally cellular and now condensed, but of the
same nature with the cellular membrane, though much more
compact.^g

I may mention that Rudolphi asserts that serous membranes
are incapable of inflammation, are not vascular, and do not secrete;
but that the secretions of close sacs take place from the subja-
cent parts, and transude the serous membranes, which are thus
regarded only as a kind of cuticle; and he further asserts, that
they in a similar way line all the mucous surfaces.^h

(C) The shrinking of cavities on the removal of the distending
cause (58), is referable to mere elasticity; and also, the constant
effort (if real) of the cellular membrane to contract upon its con-
tents. (40)

NOTE.

Dr. Gall gives a very different view of the mental faculties. In-
stead of dividing them into perception, attention, memory, judg-
ment, &c. as fundamental faculties; and viewing ‘“the Power of
Taste, a genius for Poetry, for Painting, for Music, for Mathe-
matics,”’ &c. as ‘“more complicated powers or capacities, which
are gradually formed by particular habits of study or of business;”’^d
he regards these last powers as distinct faculties, and perception,
attention, memory, judgment, &c. merely as modes or varieties
common to the action of each faculty.^e He contends that when
we see a boy, brought up exactly like his brothers and sisters,
displaying fine musical talents or an astonishing power of calcu-
lation, though in all other respects a child, his pre-eminence cannot
be explained by particular habits of study or of business, nor by
mere strength of judgment, memory, &c.: – That the boy has a
strong perception of melody, a strong memory of tunes, a strong
musical imagination, a strong musical judgment, or a strong per-
ception, memory, and judgment, of numbers; but is not clearer-
headed or more attentive on any other point, while men of the
strongest sense may have no perception, memory, or judgment,
of tunes, or may calculate with extreme difficulty. It is the same
with regard to instinct. Writers consider instinct a general faculty,
while it is only the inherent disposition to activity possessed
by every faculty, and there are, therefore, as many instincts as
fundamental faculties. By instinct ‘“the spider spreads a web and
ensnares flies; the working bee constructs cells, but does not kill
flies to support itself; it takes care of the young but does not
[Seite 43] copulate. Many male animals copulate, but take no care of their
young; the cuckoo, both male and female, abandons the charge
of bringing up its young to other birds, although it is compelled
to copulation by a very ardent instinct. The castor builds a hut,
but neither sings nor hunts; the dog hunts, but does not build;
the butcher-bird sings, builds, and preys; the quail does not
mate, but copulates, takes care of its young, and migrates; the
partridge mates, copulates, and takes care of its young, but does
not migrate; the wolf, fox, roebuck, and rabbit, marry, and take
care of their young conjointly with the female: the dog, stag, and
hare, copulate with the first female they meet, and never know their
offspring. The vigorous wolf, the artful and timid hare, do not
burrow like the courageous rabbit and the cunning fox. Rabbits
live in republics, and place sentinels, which is done by neither the
fox nor the hare. How can these various instincts exist in one
species of animals and not in another? How can they be com-
bined so differently? If instinct were a single and general faculty,
every instinct should show itself, not only at once, but also in the
same degree, and yet while in the young animal many instincts act
with great force, others are still quite inactive: some instincts act at
one season, others at another. There is one season for propagation,
another for emigration; one season for living solitarily, another
for assembling in companies, and for collecting provisions. And
how can we explain, on the supposition of a general instinct, why
the different instincts do not exist merely separate in different
species of animals, but that many of them are even con-
tradictory?”’^f

For my own part, when I reflect upon the various talents and
dispositions of persons who are all placed in the same circum-
stances, – how unsuccessfully some apply, with the utmost per-
severance, to a branch of study, in which another, under the same
instructors, or, perhaps, scarcely assisted at all, or even with every
impediment thrown in his way, reaches excellence with little
trouble, and, again, fails in one in which the first is, on the other
hand, successful, – how early various tempers are developed among
children of the same nursery, – how hereditary are peculiarities of
talent and of character, – how similar some persons are to each
other in one point of talent and character, and dissimilar in
another, – how positively contradictory many points of the same
[Seite 44] character are found; – how exactly the same is true of all species
of brutes, and of all individuals among them, – each species having
its peculiar nature, and each individual its peculiar character: –
I confess myself unable to deny that there is one innate faculty
for numbers, another for colours, a third for music, &c. &c., with
a variety of distinct innate sentiments and propensities; and
that memory, judgment, &c. are but modes of action common to
the different faculties.^g

The faculties of whose existence Gall has satisfied himself are:
1. The instinct of generation; 2. The love of offspring; 3. The
disposition to friendship; 4. Courage; 5. The instinct to destroy
life; 6. Cunning; 7. The sentiment of property; 8. Pride; 9. Vanity;
10. Circumspection; 11. Sense of things; 12. Sense of locality, or
of the relations of space; 13. Sense of persons; 14. Sense of
words; 15. Sense of language; 16. Sense of the relations of colours;
17. Sense of the relations of tones; 18. Sense of the relations of
numbers; 19. Sense of construction; 20. Comparative sagacity;
21. Metaphysical sagacity; 22. Wit; 23. Poetic talent; 24. Good-
ness; 25. Faculty of imitation; 26. Religious feeling; 27. Firm-
ness. He has been long inclined to admit also a sense of order
and a sense of time, and waits only for proofs of their organs.

Gall gives various other names to each faculty, more anxious
to express his view of the nature of each than to quibble for
appellations.

For information respecting the precise nature of each faculty,
many of which may be ill understood from their designations, I
refer to the latter part of the third, and to the fourth and fifth
volumes of Gall’s Fonctions du Cerveau, – portions of the work
which the most indolent will find entertaining.

That the faculties enumerated are not modifications of each other,
or of any other, but distinct and primitive, Gall considers proved
by the circumstance of each having one or more of the following
conditions.

‘“An instinct, inclination, sentiment, talent, deserves,”’ says he,
‘“the denomination of fundamental, primitive, radical:’

‘“1. When a quality or faculty, (or its organ) is not manifested
nor developed, nor diminishes, at the same time with others.
[Seite 45] Thus, the instinct of generation (with its organ) is generally deve-
loped and manifested later than other inclinations. Thus, the
memory of names usually grows weak sooner than the other
faculties.’

‘“2. When, in the same individual, a quality or faculty is more or
less active (and its corresponding cerebral part more or less de-
veloped) than the others. Thus, the greatest sculptors, painters,
designers, have sometimes not the least disposition to music; the
greatest poets little talent for mathematics.’

‘“3. When a single quality or faculty is active, whilst the others
are paralysed (and only the corresponding organ developed).
Thus, persons imbecile in every other respect, are often violently
impelled by physical love, or have a great talent for imitation, &c.’

‘“4. When, all the other qualities and faculties being active
(and all the other organs sufficiently developed), one single quality
or faculty is inactive (and one single organ not developed). Thus,
certain individuals cannot comprehend that two and two make
four; others detest music, or women.’

‘“5. When, in mental diseases, one quality or faculty only suffers,
or one only is entire. Thus, one insane person is mad only in
regard to religion, to pride, &c.; another, although mad in every
respect, still gives lessons in music with great intelligence.’

‘“6. When the same quality or faculty is quite differently mani-
fested in the two sexes of the same species of animal (and the
organ is differently developed in the two). Thus, the love of off-
spring (with its organ) is more developed in the females of most
animals: thus, among singing birds, the male only sings (and has
the organ well developed).’

‘“7. Lastly, when the same quality or faculty (and the same
organ) always exists in one species and is deficient in another.
Thus, many species of birds, the dog, the horse, &c. have no in-
clination (nor organ) for construction, though so strikingly mani-
fested in other kinds of birds, in the squirrel, in the castor. Thus,
certain kinds of animals are predaceous, migrate, sing, take care
of their young, while other kinds are frugivorous, lead stationary
lives, do not sing, abandon their offspring.”’^h

Perception, memory, judgment, &c. are modes of action of
these distinct faculties. ‘“As often as there exists a fundamental
faculty, a particular and determinate intellectual power, there
[Seite 46] necessarily exists likewise a perceptive faculty for objects related
to this faculty. As often as this faculty is active upon the objects
of its option, there is attention. As often as the ideas or traces
which the impressions of objects have left in the brain are re-
newed, either by their presence, or in the absence of these
same objects, there is remembrance, reminiscence, passive memory.
If this same renewal of received impressions takes place by an
act of reflection, by a voluntary act of the organs, there is active
memory. As often as an organ or a fundamental faculty compares
and judges the relations of analogous and dissimilar ideas, there
is comparison, there is judgment. A series of comparisons and
judgments constitutes reasoning. As often as an organ or a fun-
damental power creates, by its own inherent energy, without the
concurrence of the external world, objects relative to its func-
tions; as often as the organ discovers, by its own activity, the
laws of the objects related to it in the external world, there is
imagination, invention, genius.’

‘“Whether, now, we consider perception, attention, memory, re-
miniscence, recollection, comparison, judgment, reasoning, imagin-
ation, invention, genius, either as gradations of different degrees
of the same faculty, or as peculiar modes of being of this faculty,
it still remains certain, that all the fundamental faculties which
have been demonstrated, are endowed, or may be endowed, with
perception, attention, memory, recollection, judgment, imagin-
ation; and that, consequently, it is they which ought to be con-
sidered intellectual and fundamental faculties, and that the
pretended mental faculties of my predecessors are only common
attributes. Here, then, is a perfectly new philosophy of the
intellectual faculties, founded upon the details of the natural
history of the different modifications of human intellect. The
same may be said of the appetitive faculties or rather qualities.”’ⁱ

‘“When a person has the talent for music, poetry, construction,
judging of distance, &c. in only a weak degree, he will not have a
very decided inclination for those objects. If, on the other hand,
the organs of these fundamental forces are more energetic, the
person feels a pleasure in the exercise of their functions; he
has an inclination for these objects. When the action of these
organs is still more energetic, he feels a want to occupy himself
[Seite 47] with them. Lastly, when the action of these organs prepon-
derates, the person is impelled towards these objects; he finds
his happiness in them, and feels disappointed, unhappy, when he
cannot follow his inclination; he has a passion for these objects.
Thus it is that certain individuals have a passion for music,
poetry, architecture, travelling,”’ &c.^k

‘“‘‘You shall not persuade me however,’’”’ Gall fancies it will be
said to him, ‘“‘‘that the faculties acknowledged by philosophers as
faculties of the soul, are chimaeras. Who will dispute that under-
standing, will, sensation, attention, comparison, judgment, me-
mory, imagination, desire, liberty, are not real operations of the
soul, or, if you please, of the brain?’’”’ ‘“Yes,”’ replies Gall,
‘“without doubt these faculties are real, but they are mere ab-
stractions, generalities, and inapplicable to a minute study of a
species, or of individuals. Every man, who is not imbecile, has
all these faculties. All men, however, have not the same intel-
lectual or moral character. We must discover faculties, the
various distribution of which determines the various species of
animals; and the various proportions of which explain the
varieties among individuals. All bodies have weight, all have
extension, all have impenetrability; but all bodies are not gold
or copper, all are not any plant, or any animal. Of what use to
the naturalist would be the abstract and general notions of weight,
extension, and impenetrability? If we confined ourselves to
these abstractions, we should still be in the most profound
ignorance of every branch of physics and natural history.’

‘“This is exactly what has happened to philosophers with their
generalities. From the most ancient period down to the present
day, one has not made a single step farther than another in the
precise knowledge of the true nature of man, his inclinations and
his talents, or of the source of his motives and determinations.
Hence we have as many philosophies as soi-disant philosophers:
hence the vacillation and uncertainty of our institutions, especially
of those which relate to education and criminal legislation.”’^l

Gall does not pretend to have discovered the ultimate nature
of all the fundamental faculties which he has pointed out. The
poet’s faculty, for example, he regards as distinct and fundamen-
tal, because it has the conditions of a fundamental faculty above
[Seite 48] enumerated, but what are the ordinary functions of that part of
the brain, which, when greatly developed, produces the poet, he
dares not determine.^m

Neither does Gall pretend to have enumerated all the funda-
mental faculties of the mind. ‘“Probably,”’ says he, ‘“those who
follow me in the career which I have opened, will discover some
fundamental forces and some organs which have escaped my
researches.”’ⁿ

He doubts, however, whether so many will be discovered as
some apprehend. A modification of a faculty must not be mis-
taken for a faculty, nor the result of the combined action of
several faculties for a particular faculty. ‘“If”’ he says, ‘“we
reflect on the number of possible combinations which may result
from the twenty-seven or thirty fundamental faculties or qualities,
from the reciprocal action of as many organs, we shall not be
surprised at the infinite number of shades of character among
mankind. How many different combinations result from the ten
ciphers, from the twenty-four letters.”’^o

This view of the mental faculties may be considered quite in-
dependently of the peculiar doctrines of Gall respecting the
cerebral organs of each faculty, and even quite independently of
the fact of the brain being the organ of the mind. It may be
examined precisely like the metaphysics of Locke, Reid, Stewart,
Brown, &c.^p

It, however, derives its great proofs from the fact of the indivi-
dual faculties being, caeteris paribus, strong in proportion to the
development of particular parts of the brain, as we shall see in
Sect. XII.; and these facts suppose the other general fact of
the brain being the organ of the mind.

On the subject of paragraph (73), I shall speak in the Note
(F), Sect. XLIV.

Every sentiment and propensity was given us for a good pur-
pose, and it is only when one or more are excessive, or defective,
or too much or too little excited by external circumstances, or by
disease, that error occurs; and on this subject the profound
metaphysical sermons, preached at the Rolls Chapel by the exem-
plary Bishop Butler,^q and an essay on the constitution of man by
Mr. George Combe,^r highly deserve perusal. The natural tend-
ency of all our united faculties and feelings, the Bishop proves, is
to virtue; and Mr. Combe ably and beautifully shows, by nu-
merous illustrations, that obedience to the laws of nature, in
strict accordance with phrenology, is the only source of virtue and
of the happiness of individuals and nations.

NOTES.

(A) The sanguineous temperament is denoted by a full habit,
and rather soft fibre, a delicate skin, with large veins, a fresh
complexion; often red or yellow, and, occasionally, darkish hair;
great sensibility, a quick pulse, free secretions, and a cheerful
disposition.

The melancholic, on the contrary, often by a spare habit, by a
firm fibre, a thick, dark, hairy skin, black hair and eyes, and a
dark complexion: a slow pulse, little sensibility, sparing secre-
tions, and a gloomy cast of character; great perseverance in all
pursuits, and constancy of passion.

The choleric lies between the two, and is marked by a softer
fibre, a more irritable habit, a less dark and hairy skin, a more
[Seite 54] florid countenance, a quicker and stronger pulse, and a more irrit-
able mind than the melancholic.

The phlegmatic is characterised by a lax and weak habit, a
pale smooth skin generally destitute of hair, very light hair upon
the head, a slow weak pulse, small blood-vessels, languid secre-
tions, and dulness of mind and feeling.ⁿ

The cheerfulness of the sanguineous temperament, and the
gloom and constancy of the melancholic, are subject to great
exceptions, as they depend entirely upon the developement of
certain parts of the brain.^o

A new view of temperaments has lately been published by Dr.
Thomas, of Paris.^p He arranges them according to the predo-
minance of the head, chest, or abdomen, – the mental, circula-
tory, or digestive organs: so that we have, – 1. The cranial or
encephalic temperament: 2. The thoracic: 3. The abdominal: with
their combinations, 4. The encephalo-thoracic: 5. The encephalo-
abdominal: 6. The thoracico-abdominal; and, lastly, 7. The mixed,
in which all three are equally blended. Men of genius or enter-
prise are of the first, Hercules may represent the second, Bacchus
the third, and the Apollo Belvidere the last.

According to the relative bulk of the three regions, will
be the relative energy of the mental, muscular, or abdominal
functions.

The idea is exceedingly ingenious, and capable of extensive
application^q; but evidently does not interfere with the established
view of temperaments. For every individual is, throughout his
frame, of the sanguineous, or melancholic, &c., and at the same
time has a particular proportion of each of the three regions to
each other.

(B) The consideration of a division, as ancient as Aristotle,
and by some considered preferable to that which Blumenbach
adopts, will perhaps form an useful note to the eighty-third
paragraph and the greater part of the fourth section.

In this, the functions are arranged in two classes: – the animal
constituting one peculiar to animals; and the vital and natural
[Seite 55] united into another, common to vegetables and animals, under
the title of organic or vital. The generative, relating in their
object to the species rather than to the individual, and of but
temporary duration, are thrown into a separate and inferior divi-
sion, but in fact, except the animal passion, are part of the organic.

We owe the revival of this classification, and our knowledge
of the characteristics of each class of functions, to Dr. Wilson
Philip,^r and Xavier Bichat,^s although the latter, from having
published a work expressly on the subject, has received the whole
honour, both in Great Britain and on the Continent.

The animal functions prove us feeling, thinking, and willing
beings: they are the actions of the senses which receive impres-
sions; of the brain which perceives them, reflects upon them, and
wills; of the voluntary muscles which execute the will in regard
to motion; and of the nerves which are the agents of transmission:
The brain is their central organ. The vital or organic functions
are independent of mind, and give us simply the notion of life:
they are digestion, circulation, respiration, exhalation, absorption,
secretion, nutrition, calorification: The heart is their central
organ.

The organs of the animal functions are double and correspon-
dent, there being on each side of the median line of the body,
either two distinct organs, as the eyes, ears, extremities; or two
correspondent halves, as is the case with the brain, spinal marrow,
nose, tongue, &c.

The organs of the vital or organic functions, are, in very few
instances, double, or situated with their centres in the median
line, and possessed of symmetrical halves; v. c. the heart,
stomach, liver. There are, indeed, two kidneys, but they con-
tinually differ in size, figure, and situation: the two lungs are
very dissimilar.

Hence Bichat infers, that in the animal functions a harmony of
action in each organ, or in each half of the organ, is indispensable
to perfection, when both organs or sides act together; and that
if such harmony do not occur, it is better for one organ or one
[Seite 56] half to act alone. This certainly appears true of the eye,
and ear, and even of the brain. It certainly does not hold good
in the actions of the voluntary muscles, nor in the operations of
the brain or spinal marrow in willing those actions. From the
duplicity of the organs it also happens that one side may cease
to act without detriment to the function of the other; while, in
the vital or organic class, no harmony of action is possible, and
the derangement of any one part of an organ generally affects the
whole of it, – an obstruction in the colon disturbs the functions
of all the alimentary canal.

The animal functions experience periodical intermissions –
sleep. The organic or vital continue incessantly, suffering merely
remissions: – the blood constantly circulates, the perspiratory
fluid is constantly secreted, the stomach has no sooner digested
one meal than we commit another to it; yet we shall hereafter
see that the actions of the heart, lungs, &c., have intervals of
remission.

The animal functions are much influenced by habit; the vital
or organic are considered by Bichat as removed from its influence.
The power of habit over our sensations and voluntary motions
is manifest: yet I think it equally great over the organic func-
tions. The operation of food and of all descriptions of ingesta
is most remarkably modified by habit; through it poisons become
comparatively innoxious, and divers bear a long suspension of
respiration.

Bichat regards the passions as directly influencing the organic
functions only, and springing from the state of the organs of
that class. Here he is to me perfectly unintelligible. Vexation
indeed disturbs the stomach, and fear augments the quantity of
urine; but does not vexation equally and as directly disturb the
mind, – confuse the understanding, and occasion heat and pain
of the forehead? Are not, in fact, the passions a part of the
mind? – a part of the animal functions? They powerfully affect,
it is true, the organic or vital functions, but this shows the close
connection merely between the two classes of functions.^t

This connection is conspicuous in respiration, the mechanical
part of which belongs to the animal functions, the other to the
organic; and in the alimentary functions, in which the food is
swallowed and the faeces rejected by volition, and digestion, &c.
performed, independently of our influence, by the powers of
simple life. So close indeed is this connection, that every organ
of the animal class is the seat of organic functions; – in the vo-
luntary muscles, the organs of sense, and even in the brain,
circulation, secretion, and absorption are constantly carried on.
This connection is likewise apparent in the property of sensibility.
In the language of Bichat there are animal sensibility and contrac-
tility, and organic sensibility and contractility, besides the common
extensibility of matter, which he terms extensibilité de tissu, and
common contractility upon the removal of distension, – con-
tractilité par défaut d’extension, confounded by Blumenbach
(58. clause 5 and 6) with purely vital contractility, and, indeed,
greater during life than afterwards.^u Animal sensibility is accom-
[Seite 58] panied by a perception in the mind, as in seeing, hearing, tasting,
smelling, feeling: animal contractility is excited by the volition
of the mind conveyed to the voluntary muscles by means of the
[Seite 59] nerves. Organic sensibility is attended by no perception, and is
followed by contraction totally independent of the will: – the
[Seite 60] heart is said to feel – (physiology has no proper term for the
idea, but excitability would answer the purpose) – the stimulus of
the blood, and, without our influence, forthwith contracts; the
lacteals to feel the stimulus of the chyle without our knowledge,
and they then propel it without our assistance.^x But although we
never acquire the least direct voluntary power over the actions of
organic contractility, – over the peristaltic motion of the in-
testines or the contractions of the heart, yet every organ of
the organic functions may have its organic sensibility height-
ened into animal sensibility, as inflammation, for instance, of the
pleura and the joints, daily demonstrates; indeed, in some organs
of that class of functions, we invariably have sensation; – the
stomach is the seat of hunger, in the lungs we experience an un-
easy sensation nearly as soon as their air is expelled.

The nerves of the animal functions run to the brain or spinal
marrow; those of the organic chiefly to ganglia; but, as might
be expected, the two nervous systems have abundant commu-
nications.

The animal functions have not only a shorter existence than
the organic, from their necessity of alternate repose,^y but they
flourish for a shorter duration, – they do not commence till birth,
they decline, and in the natural course of events, terminate,
earlier, v. c. the organs of sense and the mental faculties fail before
the action of the heart and capillaries. But the decay of the
animal functions must, in truth, be only the consequence of the
decay of the organic, because there are fundamentally in every
part organic functions, – circulation, nutrition, &c.; and the perfect
performance of these in the organs of the animal functions is in-
dispensable to the perfect performance of the animal functions.
[Seite 61] Hence the impairment of these organic functions, even to a small
extent, must derange or diminish the animal functions, and the
decline of the latter is really owing to the decline of the former,
although these still remain vigorous enough to appear unimpaired.

We thus find in every living system a class of functions, not
in themselves dependent upon mind, as perfect in the vegetable
as in the animal, and pervading every part of the system. In
animals there further exist certain parts which, when endowed
with the common life of other parts, – with the organic pro-
perties, – are able to perform peculiar functions which give us the
notion of mind: the organ of these functions is termed brain, and,
by means of nerves and medullary prolongations, it maintains a
correspondence with the whole machine, influenced by and
influencing the most distant parts. The phenomena of the mind
have been metaphysically considered in the fifth section; they
will be examined as functions of the nervous system in the
twelfth.

The organic functions depend on life, in the proper accept-
ation of the word. The word life should be regarded, like the word
attraction or repulsion, as merely an expression of a fact. In this
point of view it may be as easily defined as any other expression.
By life we generally mean the power of organised matter to pre-
serve its particles in such chemical relations as to prevent other
chemical relations from inducing disorganisation, or even to
increase or decrease by internal appropriation and separation;
to produce peculiar matters for its own purposes; to preserve, in
some measure, a temperature distinct from that of the surrounding
medium; to move certain parts of itself sensibly (as muscles) or
insensibly (as the capillaries) independently of mere impulse,
attraction, or repulsion: or if not organised (as the fluid which
becomes the embryo, the blood,) the power of matter produced by
an organised body endowed with the properties above mentioned,
to resist the ordinary chemical influences, and even directly form
(as the embryotic fluid) an organised system so endowed, or
directly become (as the fibrin, when it is secreted from the blood or
blood is effused, becoming vascular, and its new vessels inosculat-
ing with those of adjoining parts), the organised substance of an
already formed system so endowed.

That fluids as well as solids are susceptible of life, I cannot
doubt. There is no reason why they should not be so, although
[Seite 62] a person who has not thought upon the subject may be as unable
to conceive the circumstance as a West Indian to conceive that
water may by cold become solid. It is impossible to deny that
the male or female, or both, or united, genital fluids are alive, be-
cause from their union, or one influenced by the other, a living
being is produced which partakes of the vital qualities of each
parent. Accordingly Blumenbach, in his Commentatio de vi vitali
sanguini deneganda, grants both male and female genital fluids to
be alive^z, notwithstanding that he fancies his victory over the
defenders of the blood’s life so complete, that like that of the un-
fortunate Carthaginian Dido, as he says, ‘“in ventos vita recessit.”’
It is as easy to conceive the blood to be alive as the genital fluids.^a

Many facts adduced as arguments of its life are certainly explic-
able without such a supposition. Its freedom from putrefaction while
circulating may be owing to the constant renovation of its particles,
for the thinness of hybernating animals at the end of their torpid
[Seite 63] season, shows it has received accessions even in them and from
the absorption of fat. Its inability to coagulate after death from
arsenic, opium, and some other narcotics, and from lightning
and electricity (though Dr. Scudamore found it to coagulate as
usual in the latter case), from hard running, anger, or a blow on
the stomach, all three of which deprive the muscles of their usual
stiffness, may depend upon chemical changes. The admixture of
opium with the blood has been said to prevent its coagulation,
and this by destroying its life. But Dr. Scudamore found that the
admixture of prussic acid and belladonna, both strong poisons,
has no such effect, and that many mere salts, as common salts,
weaken or prevent its coagulation, and these are not likely to kill
it, but to act chemically. Its accelerated coagulation by means of
heat, when frozen by cold, and some other circumstances, and the
reverse, were believed to depend upon an affection of its vitality,
but are, perhaps, referable to the escape or detention of its car-
bonic acid gas. Its earlier putridity when drawn from young than
from old persons may arise from its inferior qualities. Parts die
if deprived of a supply of blood, yet, though necessary as a
material and agent to maintain the life of parts, it is not, therefore,
necessarily itself alive. But the circumstance of it freezing more
readily, like eggs, frogs, snails, &c., when once previously frozen,
(which change may be supposed to have exhausted its powers,^b)
is, if really the case, an argument in favour of its life, as
these are certainly endowed with life. The organisation of
extravasated blood,^c and the inosculation of new vessels with
those of surrounding parts, shows^d that the solidified lymph
is now endowed with life; and one may more easily believe it to
have been alive in the mass of blood, than that it should have
acquired vitality after its effusion. Indeed Sir Everard Home
declares that a coagulum of blood becomes vascular out of the
body and may be injected;^e but if the vessels are formed by the
[Seite 64] mere extrication of carbonic acid gas, as he contends, their mere
formation is no proof of life.

John Hunter believes that the chyle is alive, and some that
vivification commences even in the stomach, and Albinus grants
life even to the excrement. But the excretions must be regarded
as dead matter, useless and foreign to the system, and they all
run with the greatest rapidity into decomposition. In operating
for retention of urine, the surgeon finds this fluid abominably
foetid; the faeces become so when not discharged in due time;
and the neglect of washing the surface is the source of filth and
disease.

The essential nature of life is an impenetrable mystery, and no
more a subject for philosophical inquiry than the essential nature
of attraction or of heat. To attempt explaining the phenomena
of life by a vital fluid is only increasing the intricacy of the
subject by an unfounded hypothesis, and always reminds me of
Mr. Dugald Stewart’s remark, – ‘“That there is even some reason
for doubting, from the crude speculations on medical and chemical
subjects which are daily offered to the public, whether it (the
proper mode of studying nature) be yet understood so completely
as is commonly imagined, and whether a fuller illustration of the
rules of philosophising, than Bacon or his followers have given,
might not be useful even to physical inquirers.”’^f We see matter
in a certain state possessed of a certain power which we term life,
and the object of physiology is merely to observe its effects, just
as it is the object of chemistry to observe the circumstances of
the affinity of different bodies and of physics to observe other
phenomena of matter, without vainly speculating on the essence
of affinity or the essence of matter, to comprehend which our
faculties are, in their nature, incompetent. By attributing life,
the power of attraction, &c. to subtle and mobile fluids, we not
only do not advance a single step, for we have still to explain
what these fluids are, and how they obtain their powers, just as we
had before in regard to common matter; but we make the addi-
tional mysteries of their being united with ordinary matter, and
so united that life appears a power possessed by it. The editors
of a medical review have in vain searched John Hunter’s works
[Seite 65] for such an hypothesis,^f and Mr. Lawrence has had no better
success,^g so that I apprehend his meaning has been misunderstood
by those who constitute him its patron.^h Granting for a moment
that life depends upon a peculiar, fine fluid, we have still to
account for mind, because life is not mind, – a cabbage is as much
gifted with life as the wisest man. Yet those whose faith makes
life a subtle fluid strangely imagine that the doctrine of a soul is
thereby advanced. The life of a brute requires a subtle fluid as
much as the life of a man, and of a cabbage as much as the life of
a brute.

We have reason to believe that life never originates, but began
at the creation, and is communicated to assimilated matter and
propagated from parent to offspring (XLII. D). It is the property
of organised systems, producing various effects by various kinds
of organisation, but is not quite peculiar to organised matter,
because capable of being possessed by matter in a fluid state.ⁱ

The animal functions demonstrate mind. This is seated in
the brain, to which the spinal marrow, nerves, and voluntary
muscles are subservient. Mind is the functional power of the
[Seite 66] living brain. As I cannot conceive life any more than the power
of attraction unless possessed by matter, so I cannot conceive
mind unless possessed by a brain, or by some nervous organ,
whatever name we may choose to give it, endowed with life.
(XLIV. F). I speak of terrestrial or animal mind; with angelic and
divine nature we have nothing to do, and of them we know, in the
same respects, nothing. To call the human mind positively a
ray of the divinity, (Divinae particula aurae,^k Ex ipso Deo decerp-
tus, Ex universa mente delibatus^l) appears to me absolute non-
sense. Brutes are as really endowed with mind, – with a con-
sciousness of personality, with feelings, desire, and will, as man.^m
Every child is conscious that it thinks with its head, and common
language designates this part as the seat of mind.ⁿ Observation
shows that superiority of mind in the animal creation is exactly
commensurate with superiority of brain (XLIV. F);^o that activity
[Seite 67] of mind and of brain are coequal; and that as long as the brain
is endowed with life and remains uninjured, it, like all other
[Seite 68] organs, can perform its functions, and mind continues; but, as
in all other organs, when its life ceases, its power to perform its
function ceases, and the mind ceases; when disease or mechanical
injury affects it, the mind is affected, – inflammation of the stomach
causes vomiting, of the brain delirium, a blow upon the loins
causes nephritis or haematuria, a blow upon the head stuns; if ori-
ginally constituted defective, the mind is defective;^p if fully
developed and properly acted on, the mind is vigorous; accordingly
as it varies with age, in quality and bulk, is the mind also varied, –
the mind of the child is weak and very excitable, of the adult
vigorous and firm, and of the old man weak and dull, exactly like
[Seite 69] the body;^q and the character of the mind of an individual agrees
with the character of his body, being equally excitable, languid,
or torpid, evidently because the brain is of the same character as
[Seite 70] the rest of the body to which it belongs, – the female mind ex-
ceeds the male in excitability as much as her body;^r the qualities
of the mind are also hereditary,^s which they could not be, unless
they were, like our other qualities, corporeal conditions; and the
mind is often disordered upon the disappearance of a bodily com-
plaint, just as other organs, besides the brain, are affected under
similar circumstances, – the retrocession of an eruption may affect
the lungs, causing asthma, the bowels, causing enteritis, or the
brain, causing insanity, – phthisis and insanity sometimes alter-
nate with each other, just like affections of other organs; the
laws of the mind are precisely those of the functions of all other
organs, – a certain degree of excitement strengthens it, too
much exhausts it, physical agents affect it, and some specifi-
cally, as is the case with other functions, for example, narcotics.
The argument of Bishop Butler, that the soul is immortal and
independent of matter, because in fatal diseases the mind often
[Seite 71] remains vigorous to the last,^t is perfectly groundless, for any
function will remain vigorous to the last if the organ which
performs it is not the seat of the disease, nor much connected
by sympathy or in other modes with the organ which is the seat
of the disease, – the stomach often calls regularly for food and
digests it vigorously, while the lungs are almost completely con-
sumed by ulceration. All the cases that are adduced to prove
the little dependence of the mind upon the brain, are adduced in
opposition to the myriads of others that daily occur in the usual
course of nature, and are evidently regarded as extraordinary
by those who bring them forward. An exact parallel to each
may be found in the affections of every other organ, and each
admits of so easy an explanation that it may be always truly
said, ‘“Exceptio probat regulam.”’^u

I have placed the preceding arguments alone, but to them may
be subjoined another equally demonstrative as any, – that the
strength of the various intellectual powers and inclinations ac-
cords with the size of the various parts of the brain; that ex-
actly as the various parts of the brain are successively developed
is the character developed, and as they shrink with age does the
character again change.

In contending that the mind is a power of the living brain, and
the exercise of it the functions of that organ, I contend for merely
a physical fact, and no Christian who has just conceptions of the
Author of Nature will hesitate to look boldly at Nature as she is,
lest he should discover facts opposite to the pronunciations of
his revelation; for the word and the works of the Almighty cannot
contradict each other. Lord Bacon accordingly, in a very memor-
able part of his writings, directs the physical enquirer to be unin-
fluenced by religious opinions,^x as the more independently truth
is pursued the sooner will it be gained, and the sooner will the
real meaning of the divine statement of natural things, and the
conformity of this to physical fact, be established.

The assertion, however, that the mind is a power of the living
brain, is not an assertion that it is material, for a power or property
of matter cannot be matter.

Neither is it an assertion that this power cannot be a something
immortal, subtle, immaterial, diffused through and connected with
the brain. A physical enquirer has to do with only what he
observes. He finds this power, but attempts not to explain it.
He simply says the living brain has this power, medullary matter
though it be. Seeing that the brain thinks, and feels, and wills, as
clearly as that the liver has the power of producing bile, and does
produce it, and a salt the power of assuming a certain form,
and does crystallise, he leaves others at liberty to fancy an
hypothesis of its power being a subtle, immaterial, immortal
substance, exactly as they fancy life to be a subtle fluid, or,
perhaps, though very extraordinarily, the same subtle fluid (if
subtlety is immateriality and immortality),^y elucidating the subject
no more than in the case of life, and equally increasing the num-
ber of its difficulties^z (p. 64.); as though we were not created
[Seite 74] beings or not altogether ignorant what matter is, or of what it is
capable and incapable; as though matter exhibited nothing but
extension, impenetrability, attraction, and inertness; and as
though an Almighty could not, if it seemed good to him, have
endowed it, as he most evidently has, with the superaddition of
life, and even of feeling and will.^a

Nor does this assertion imply that the resurrection from the
dead is impossible or even improbable. The physical enquirer,
finding the mind a power of the brain, and abstaining from
hypothesis, must conclude that, in the present order of things,
when the brain ceases to live the power necessarily ceases, – that,
[Seite 75] in the language of scripture, Dust we are and unto dust we all
return, – that our being is utterly extinguished and we go back
to the insensibility of the earth whence we were taken.^b Our
consciousness of personality can afford no reason for imagining
ourselves immortal and distinct from earth, more than brutes,
for this the fly possesses equally with the philosopher about
whose head it buzzes.^c The moral government of the world,
the sublime reach of our acuteness, the great improvableness of
our characters, –

have been thought to completely harmonise with a life hereafter,
but certainly fall so short of proof as to have left the wisest of
antiquity, – Solomon, Socrates, Cicero, &c. – in uncertainty,^e
when they saw how death reduces us to our pristine elements.
The hope of immortality inspired by such reflections, assisted by
the desire of explaining every thing in some way or other, first,
I apprehend, made men attempt to find, in the imagined ethereal
essence of the soul, a reason for our not totally perishing as our
senses would lead us to suppose. But, because we refuse to
listen to a mere hypothesis respecting spirit, we are not necessa-
rily to deny the resurrection. For if a divine revelation pronounce
that there shall be another order of things in which the mind shall
exist again, we ought firmly to believe it, because neither our
experience nor our reason can inform us what will be hereafter,
and we must be senseless to start objections on a point beyond
the penetration of our faculties.^f The scripture so pronounces,
[Seite 76] – not that we are naturally immortal, but that ‘“in Adam (by
nature) all die,”’^g – have our being utterly extinguished,^h and in
another order of things, – when the fashion of this world shall
have passed away and time shall be no more, that in Christ (by
the free, additional, gift of God, granted through the obedience
of Christ, but, consequently, by a miracle, not by our nature,ⁱ) –
we shall all again be made alive. St. Paul declares the resurrec-
tion to be ‘“a mystery:”’ it must, in truth, be a miracle, and there-
fore the enquiry ‘“how can these things be”’, altogether fruitless.
The miracle of Christ’s resurrection, to which the scriptures refer
us as the foundation of the hope of a future state, would not have
been necessary to convince us of a necessary truth, discoverable
by sense and reason. That the promises of the New Testament
are the proper and only foundation of our hopes of immortality,
was the opinion of the late Regius Professor of Divinity in the
University of Cambridge, whose powerful intellect and sincere
love of truth render his opinions weightier than the decrees of
councils. ‘“I have no hope of a future existence,”’ says he,
‘“except that which is grounded on the truth of Christianity.”’^k
[Seite 77] While those are wrong who think there can be any thing like an
argument against a future life in another order of things, if de-
clared by a revelation, it is strange that others should think it
necessary to attempt rendering the pronunciations of scripture
more probable, and that by an hypothesis which is at best but the
remains of unenlightened times,^l and should require any as-
[Seite 78] surance besides that of the gospel, which, they read, ‘“has
[Seite 79] brought life and immortality to light.”’^m They should reflect
that the belief of an immaterial substance removes no imagined
difficulty, as it is the peculiar doctrine of scripture, in distinction
to that of all the heathen philosophers and people,ⁿ that the
resurrection will be positively of body, – that in our flesh we shall
see God,^o and that therefore our minds must appear as much a
property of body hereafter as at present.^p

This only, the christian, doctrine of a future state is reason-
able. The heathen doctrine was grounded on the supposed in-
herent immortality of a supposed substance distinct from the body.
The christian doctrine teaches the resurrection of what we obvi-
ously are – bodies, and that through a miracle of the Almighty.^q

NOTES.

(A) On applying the ear or a stethoscope to the region of the
heart, the distinct sounds of the action of the ventricles and
auricles may be at once perceived. At the moment of the
arterial pulse is heard a dull sound, and immediately afterwards,
without any interval, a clearer sound, similar to the noise of a
valve or to the licking of a dog. The former arises from the
action of the ventricles, the latter from that of the auricles.

The former occupies about 2/4 of the whole time; the latter 1/4
or 1/3, and then a pause occurs of another 1/4. This is termed the
rhythm of the heart’s action.^a

The sounds of the heart are ordinarily heard in health between
the cartilages of the fourth and seventh ribs, and under the
inferior part of the sternum; those of the left side of the heart in
the former situation, and those of the right in the latter.

The shock, or stroke, occurs, as mentioned in the text, at the
contraction of the ventricles. The force and extent of the sound
and of the shock, and the rhythm of the heart’s action, are
variously altered in disease, and other sounds superadded.

(B) Dr. W. Hunter accounted for this in 1746.

‘“The systole and diastole of the heart, simply, could not pro-
[Seite 97] duce such an effect; nor could it have been produced, if it had
thrown the blood into a straight tube, in the direction of the axis
of the left ventricle, as is the case with fish, and some other
classes of animals: but by throwing the blood into a curved tube,
viz. the aorta, that artery, at its curve, endeavours to throw itself
into a straight line, to increase its capacity; but the aorta being
the fixed point against the back, and the heart in some degree
loose and pendulous, the influence of its own action is thrown
upon itself, and it is tilted forwards against the inside of the
chest.”’^b

Though this is generally allowed, Haller remarks that in the
frog also, which has a straight aorta, the point of the heart moves
forwards during the contraction;^c and some say that while the
heart of a dog continues to palpitate, after being extracted from
the chest, the apex is lifted up at each contraction of the empty
ventricles.^d

The occurrence is ascribable likewise, in some measure, to the
distension of the auricles, for Haller found the apex give the
usual stroke at the nipple, on his distending the left auricle with
air,^e and Senac^f has shown a similar influence from the right
auricle also.

Dr. Barclay has the following passage on this point:

‘“When the blood is forced into the arteries, their curvatures,
near where they issue from the ventricles, are from their disten-
sion lengthened and extended towards straight lines; and, causing
the heart to palpitate in their motions, compel it to describe the
segment of a circle, when the apex moving atlantad and sinistrad,
is made to strike against the left side. The same kind of motion
having also been observed by the celebrated Haller, in distending
the left or systemic auricle, it must follow, that the stroke which
is given to the side, may be the effect of two distinct causes,
either acting separately, or in combination: but acting on a heart
obliquely situated, as ours is, in the cavity of the thorax, where
the aspect of the base is atlantad and dextrad, and that of the
[Seite 98] apex sinistrad and sacrad. In combination, as the first of the two,
by removing the pressure, will facilitate the influx of the venous
blood into the left or systemic auricle, which is situated dorsad;
so the second, by the influx of blood into the auricle, will contri-
bute in its turn to facilitate the circular motion of the heart,
proceeding from the arteries.”’^g

(C) It is commonly believed, that the pulse of every person is
quicker in the evening than in the morning, and some have sup-
posed an increase of quickness also at noon. Upon these suppo-
sitions Dr. Cullen builds his explanation of the noon and evening
paroxysms of hectic fever,^h as others had theirs of the evening
exacerbation of all fevers,ⁱ regarding them as merely aggrava-
tions of natural exacerbations. The existence of the noon pa-
roxysms is doubtful, and the evening one cannot be so explained
if Dr. R. Knox is correct,^k though he is opposed to Haller, &c.
His observations make the pulse to be slower in the evening, and
quicker in the morning.

Dr. Heberden saw a woman fifty years of age who had always
an intermitting pulse, yet an able anatomist could discover nothing
unusual after death; and two persons whose pulse was always
irregular in strength and frequency when they were well, and be-
came quite regular when they were ill.^l

(D) The heart, however, of frogs, for instance, contracts and
relaxes alternately, for a length of time, when out of the body
and destitute of blood.

Mr. Brodie divided the great vessels in rabbits and found the
action of the heart ‘“apparently unaltered, for at least two minutes
after that viscus and the great blood-vessels were empty of
blood.”’^m But the quantity of blood greatly influences the action
of the heart.

(E) The influence of a vacuum, pointed out by Rudiger,ⁿ en-
larged upon by Dr. Andrew Wilson, and mentioned as probable
[Seite 99] by Haller,^o John Hunter,^p &c., has been very ably displayed by
Dr. Carson of Liverpool.^q

The quantity of the blood, the length of its course, and the vari-
ous obstacles opposed to its progress, render, in his opinion,
the mere propulsive power of the heart insufficient to main-
tain the circulation perpetually. But assistance must be given
by the vacuum which takes place in all the cavities of the
organ, when the contraction of the muscular fibres is over. The
blood is thus drawn into each relaxed cavity, and the heart per-
forms the double office of a forcing and a suction pump. The
situation of the valves of the heart is thus explained. There are
valves between the auricles and ventricles, and at the mouths of
the two great arteries, because behind each of these four openings
is a cavity of the heart, alternately dilating and affording a
vacuum, into which, were there no valves, the blood would be
drawn retrograde. At the venous openings of the auricles no
valves exist, because they do not open from a cavity of the
heart, – from a part ever experiencing a vacuum, and, therefore,
the blood cannot, when the auricles contract, move retrograde,
but will necessarily pass forwards into the ventricles, which at
that moment are offering a vacuum. The inferior elasticity and
irritability of the veins are also explained. If veins were capable
of contracting equally with arteries, on the diminution of their
contents, the suction influence of the heart would constantly
reduce their cavities to a smaller capacity than is compatible with
their functions. The collapse of the veins by pressure, during
the suction of the heart, is prevented by the fresh supply of blood
afforded by the vis a tergo, which does exist, although it is not
[Seite 100] considered by him as of itself adequate to convey the blood back
to the right auricle.

All allow that when the heart is relaxed its cavities enlarge,
though some ascribe this to its elasticity, and others regard it as
a necessary consequence of the arrangement of its fibres.^r Ex-
periment proves the same Dr. Carson extracted the hearts of
some frogs, and immediately put them into water, blood-warm.
They were thrown into violent action, and, upon some occasions,
projected a small stream of a bloody colour through the trans-
parent fluid. The water could not have been projected unless
previously imbibed. It was thought that a stream of the same
kind continued to be projected at every succeeding contraction;
but that, after the first or second, it ceased to be observable, in
consequence of the liquid, supposed to be imbibed and projected,
losing its bloody tinge and becoming transparent, or of the same
colour with the fluid in which the heart was immersed. The
organ was felt to expand during relaxation, – a fact stated long
ago by Pechlin.^s

Dr. Carson accounts, however, for the full dilatation of the
heart upon another principle, upon the consideration of which it
will be impossible to enter before the next section, where the sub-
ject will therefore be prosecuted.

(F) Most physiologists grant to the capillaries irritability, to-
nicity, or organic contractility; but some deny that arteries pos-
sess muscular properties. Bichat’s objections are, the absence of
contraction on the application of stimuli to them, the much greater
resistance of the middle coat to a distending force than of mus-
cular parts, and, lastly, the difference of the changes which it and
muscles undergo both spontaneously and by the action of other sub-
stances.^t Berzelius has multiplied the latter description of proofs.^u
However this may be, I must remark, first, that the capillaries
have certainly vital powers of contraction as fully as any parts of
[Seite 101] the body. This appears in their various degrees of local dilatation
and contraction, under inflammation, passions of the mind, &c.
When different stimuli are applied to them, they are seen
under the microscope locally to experience various degrees of
contraction and dilatation, and this even after connection with the
heart has been cut off by absolute excision of this organ.^x Under
similar circumstances, when no stimulus was applied, the blood
was seen by Dr. Hastings often to cease, indeed, to flow, but still
to oscillate. If the capillaries are allowed to possess organic con-
tractility, it is impossible to say in which point of the arterial tract
it begins.

The evidence of muscular fibres is not necessary to irritability.
The iris and uterus are strongly endowed with irritability, but
their muscularity is disputed by many. No muscularity is dis-
cernible in the plant called dionoena muscipula, nor in the sensitive
plant, nor in those zoophytes which appear gelatinous masses,
yet contractility dependent on life is very manifest in them.

Verschuir actually found the larger arteries contract on irritating
them with a scalpel, in fifteen out of twenty experiments.^y Dr. L.
Bikker, and J. J. Vandembos assert the same of the aorta, and
Van Geuns of the carotid when influenced by electricity.^z Zim-
merman, Bichat, and Magendie, saw the arteries contract upon the
application of acids, but the two last considered it a chemical
change. Dr. Hastings, however, saw the same from the appli-
cation of ammonia. J. Hunter found the posterior tibial artery of
a dog contract so as nearly to prevent any blood from passing
through it on merely being laid bare, and facts similar to this are
mentioned by Drs. Hastings, Fowler,^a Jones,^b and the Drs. Parry.
The fact of continued contraction, and of alternate contraction
and relaxation in arteries, being occasioned by stimuli is therefore
certain, and although some have not succeeded in stimulating
them, we must remember that others have failed in the application
of electricity to parts indisputably muscular; – Verschuir^c in the
[Seite 102] case of the heart and urinary bladder, and Zimmerman in other
parts of known muscularity.^d Dr. Hastings caused contraction
in veins also by the application of stimuli.^e

Dr. Parry instituted a number of experiments upon this ques-
tion. After exactly ascertaining the circumference of arteries in
animals, he killed them, and again measured the circumference;
and after a lapse of many hours, when life must have been per-
fectly extinguished, he measured the circumference a third time.
Immediately after death, the circumference was found greatly
diminished, and on the third examination it had increased again.
The first contraction arose from the absence of the blood which
distended the vessel and antagonised its efforts to contract, and it
was evidently muscular, or to speak more correctly, organic,
contraction, because, when vitality had ceased, and this kind of
contraction could no longer exist, the vessel was, on the third
examination, always found enlarged.^f

The forced state of distention in arteries was proved by the
contraction immediately occurring on making a puncture in a
portion of vessel included between two ligatures. An experiment
of Magendie’s is of equal weight, in which a ligature was fixed on
the whole of a dog’s leg except the crural artery and vein, and
the vein and artery were compressed, when, upon wounding the
vein, the artery completely emptied itself.^g The capacities of
arteries are thus always accommodated to the quantity of blood,
and this circumstance gives the arterial canal such properties of
a rigid tube as enable an impulse at the mouth of the aorta to be
instantly communicated throughout the canal. This appears the
great office of the contractile powers of arteries, for,

(G) They do not incessantly dilate and contract to any amount,
as many imagine. Dr. Parry, on the most careful examination,
could never discover the least dilatation in them, during the
systole of the ventricle, – when the pulse is felt. Dr. Hastings
declares he has seen it, as does Magendie in the case of the
aorta and carotid of the horse; but from the number and accuracy
of Dr. Parry’s experiments, I incline to believe it does not occur
in the ordinary undisturbed state of the circulation to any extent.
Dr. Barry plunged his arm into the thorax of a horse and found
the aorta constantly full, nearly to bursting, not perceptibly vary-
[Seite 103] ing in distention for an instant, though he held it during five
minutes and examined it afterwards again; while at every expira-
tion the cava was so empty as to feel only like a flaccid thin mem-
brane.^h The fact of a continued stream occurring from a wounded
artery, only augmented at each pulsation of the heart, is thought
by Magendieⁱ to prove that the arteries assist in propelling the
blood: but an opening takes off the resistance to its course so
considerably that the vessel cannot but contract between the im-
pulses of the heart.

Although the blood is constantly streaming onwards, the pulse
is felt only when arteries are more or less compressed; under
which circumstance, the motion of the blood onwards, by the
impulse of a fresh portion from the left ventricle, is impeded: and
this effort of the fluid against the obstructing cause gives the
sensation called the pulse,^k which follows the stroke of the heart
successively later throughout the arterial system, though the
interval is in general too minute to be appreciated. Dr. Barry
found no pulsation in the aorta of the horse, unless he compressed
it violently.

The elastic coat both assists and antagonises the muscular:
assists it in preventing distention when the distending force is
very strong, and antagonises it – tends to prevent the canal from
becoming too narrow, when it attempts to contract the vessel
excessively.^l

Still, independently of the whole quantity of blood, and of the
heart’s action, particular arteries may be in various degrees of
distention, according to the various states of their individual
contraction. For example, when a finger has a whitlow, the
[Seite 104] digital branches are found larger than usual at the very roots
of the fingers; in many affections the pulse of the two wrists differ
for a time. In fact, their condition may vary like that of the
capillaries, and probably does vary every time that altered cir-
culation occurs in a part, although Dr. Parry’s opinion holds true
during the tranquil and ordinary condition of circulation. I am
thus inclined to agree with and differ from both Dr. Parry and
Dr. Hastings; believing the former to be right as to the ordinary
state, the latter in irregularity.

The elastic power is said to be greater in the arteries, and the
muscular in the capillaries; and as the muscular power is proved
by Dr. Parry’s experiments to be able to overcome the elastic in
the arteries, it must be very considerable in the capillaries.

Dr. Curry, the late senior physician and distinguished lecturer
on the practice of medicine at Guy’s Hospital, concluded, without
doubt hypothetically, from some microscopic experiments which
he had made on inflammation in the presence once of Mr. Charles
Bell and once of Mr. Travers, that the circulation is indispensably
facilitated by a sort of electric repulsion between the vessels and
their contents, and that in inflammatory accumulation, the tone
of the vessels being impaired, this repulsion is diminished and the
blood passes onwards with difficulty in consequence.^m

(H) These oscillations are quite imaginary, and now disallowed.
Although variations of dilatation must affect the course of the blood
through vessels, it is difficult to conceive how any regular action
of them can assist it, while the blood is propelled and drawn by the
heart; and the influence of the heart was seen by Dr. Hastings in
some microscopical experiments, in which partial obstruction was
produced, to extend to arteries, capillaries, and veins, as the blood
in them all received a sensible impulse at each contraction of the
ventricles. Indeed we have ocular proof that the capillaries do
not contract on the blood in the ordinary state of things, for the
blood in them, as well as in the arteries and veins, may be seen for
an hour together in the frog’s foot, under the microscope, to move
in a stream unvarying, – neither becoming finer alternately nor
experiencing impulses.ⁿ

In foetuses without hearts,^o it is not proved that the vascular
system carries on the circulation by its own power, because a
twin without a heart has never been seen unless accompanied by
a perfect foetus, whose heart might circulate the blood of both; for
the placentae often communicate, so that one child has died of
haemorrhage from the chord of the other: and in the only case
where the matter was ascertained,^p the akerious foetus was ac-
tually injected by the navel-string of the perfect foetus.^q When,
however, the blood is not moved by the heart, the capillaries do
impel it. Dr. Wilson Philip once saw it moving freely in some
mesenteric capillaries of a rabbit for an hour and a quarter after
the excision of the heart;^r and Haller and Bichat made similar
observations.

Mr. Burns,^s anxious to prove that the arteries are of more
importance than the heart, that they themselves circulate the
blood which they receive,^t and that the auricles are of more
importance than the ventricles, mentions, among other ex-
amples of diseased heart, one in which both ventricles were
as completely ossified as the cranium, except about a cubic
inch at the apex, and in which there had been no palpi-
tation or pain in the heart. As bony ventricles could not con-
tract, nor easily be moved, palpitation could not readily have
occurred, and pain rarely attends the ossification of any part.
That the circulation was deranged is proved by the woman having
experienced great dyspnoea, and expectoration, and dropsy. The
auricles were healthy and thicker than usual, and had evidently
performed the duty of the ventricles, through which, as an un-
changing reservoir between the auricles and the pulmonary artery
and aorta, the auricles drove the blood. The invariable languor
of circulation in cases where the action of the heart is languid,
proves the power of the heart in the circulation.

On the other hand, the large arteries of the extremities are
continually found ossified without any apparent deficiency of cir-
culation. I have seen long tracts of vessels in the lower ex-
[Seite 106] tremities ossified, where no such circumstance had been suspected.
Mr. Burns himself mentions an instance ‘“of the arteries of the
head, pelvis, legs, and arms, being almost entirely ossified,^u”’ the
heart and aorta being healthy; and yet the man clearly died of
diseased liver induced by hard drinking, hot climate, &c.

The ventricles are certainly of more importance than the
auricles, because these are absent in many animals, and are only
reservoirs to supply the ventricles.^x

(I) In a young lady whom I attended for chronic bronchitis ac-
companied by violent cough, and who ultimately recovered, all
the veins of the back of the hands and fore-arms distinctly puls-
ated synchronously with the arteries. An universal pulsation of
the veins synchronous with that of the arteries, occurred for some
days twice in a young man who died of cerebral disease, with
constriction of the mouth of the aorta;^y once in a middle-aged
man with affections of the head and abdomen, who recovered;^z
once in a middle-aged man who died with dropsy and palpitation,^a
and lately in a girl who died with symptoms of hydrocephalus.^b
In a case of epidemic fever, the same was observed by Weitbrecht
for twenty-four hours;^c and he had previously seen a similar case,
but doubted his senses. Haller’s remark upon it is, ‘“Ego quidem
non intelligo.”’^d

In venesection at the bend of the arm I have frequently seen
the jet regularly stronger at each pulsation of the heart, and
Hunter mentions the same thing, and states it to be more ob-
servable at the head or foot, saying, ‘“The fact is, however, that
there is a pulsation in the veins.”’^e

Yet ordinarily there is, speaking of the veins in general, no venous
pulsation, and the stream in the veins, though caused mainly by
the left ventricle, – as may be seen by tying all the vessels of an
extremity but the artery, and wounding the vein, when the jet from
the vein may be regulated by pressing the artery, – is perfectly
uniform. By the infinite subdivisions and great increase of ca-
[Seite 107] pacity of the arterial system, the blood which is moved in jerks
in the larger arteries, giving a pulse, and, if the vessel is wounded,
flowing more forcibly at the heart’s pulsation, gives no pulse in the
small vessels, and, if they are wounded, flows regularly; and in
the capillaries, through the augmentation of space, experiences no
increased momentum at the heart’s pulsation. When the capilla-
ries unite into veins, and the capacity of the whole vascular chan-
nel diminishes, the blood moves more quickly again through the
diminished space;^f but though the smaller space augments its
flow again, the impulses of the heart lost in the capillaries cannot
be felt in the veins, and the current in them is smooth. Neither,
generally speaking, is it by any means so rapid as in the arteries,
because much of the heart’s force is expended, and the veins are
generally so much more numerous than the arteries, and the
space therefore, however less than in the capillaries, still much
greater than in the arteries. Neither ought the momentum to be
strong when the veins have all united into the cavae, because it has
only to reach the heart where there is no resistance, but, on the
contrary, more than one source of vacuum prepared; whereas in
the aorta it ought to possess a force sufficient to carry it a great
distance, and surmount great obstacles.

When the veins have pulsated, the action of the heart must
have been very violent, or some obstruction occurred, which, in
Dr. Hastings’s experiments, was seen to cause the heart’s action to
be sensible in the capillaries and veins.^g

There is always a pulsation in the large veins near the heart, as
we shall see when considering respiration, but that arises from a
different circumstance.

The heart of mammalia and birds has no peculiarity necessary
to be mentioned here. In most amphibious animals, the arteries
of the system as well as of the lungs spring from the right ventricle,
with which the left, that sends off no vessel, communicates: hence
their circulation continues under water. In amphibious mammalia
and diving birds, some vessels, especially one vena cava, are dilated
to form a receptacle during the suspension of respiration. The
heart of fish is extremely small, and has but one auricle and ven-
[Seite 108] tricle, the latter propelling the blood to the gills, from which it
streams to the system through a large artery. Neither blood-
vessels nor absorbents have been discovered in insects, yet a
large tube, close throughout, pulsates in their back; and Professor
Carus has lately discovered a circulation in them through a gra-
nular substance. With respect to the mollusca: the cuttle fish
has three detached hearts, consisting of a ventricle only, two for
the gills and one for the aorta; the rest have a simple heart, the
blood of the cava passing through the gills before it reaches the
heart. The same is the case with the crustacea, and their heart
has no auricle. Worms have circulating vessels distinctly con-
tracting and dilating, but no heart, and their veins communicate
with the general cavity of the body, and probably absorb. Zoo-
phytes have no heart, nor circulating system, properly so called.
In the echinus, indeed, there are two vessels that run along the
intestines, and are thought to be an aorta and vena cava.

Vegetables have no central organ of circulation. The sap rises
in tubes, called common vessels, up the wood, is distributed in thin
minute ramifications over the surface of the leaves, experiencing
changes by its exposure to air and light, and descends through
other tubes, called proper vessels, in the inner layer of bark,
affording the various peculiar secretions of the plant. The power
of the common vessels is such, that if a piece of the stem is cut
out, they entirely empty themselves; and the sap has been found
to flow from the extremity of a branch with a force sufficient to
overcome a column of water 43 feet 3 1/3 inches in height.^h

(K) It would not be right to terminate this section without a note
upon the discovery of the circulation of the blood; – a truth of
which the ancients are thought to have remained ignorant, from
finding the arteries empty after death; but it was known that these
contained blood during life.ⁱ The discovery was made by our
countryman, Dr. Harvey, Physician to St. Bartholomews Hos-
pital, and promulgated by him, at the age of forty-one, in an
anatomical and surgical course of lectures at the College of
Physicians, in 1619. He is entitled to the glory of having made
it, says Hume,^k ‘“by reasoning alone, without any mixture of
[Seite 109] accident.”’ He informed Boyle, that he was led to it by reflect-
ing on the arrangement of the valves of the heart and veins, as
exhibited by his master Fabricius. Nothing, he knew, was
planned in vain, and they clearly allowed a fluid to pass but
one way. By this argument, and the fact of a ligature upon an
artery causing the blood to accumulate in it on the side nearest
the heart, and, upon a vein, beyond the ligature; and that animals
bleed to death by wounds in arteries or veins, he chiefly established
his doctrine. After his time it was demonstrated with the
microscope in cold-blooded animals. His immediate reward was
general ridicule and abuse, and a great diminution of his practice;^l
and no physician in Europe who at the time had reached forty
years of age, ever, to the end of life, adopted his doctrine of the
circulation of the blood.^m When the truth could be denied no
longer, he was pronounced a plagiarist; the circulation was de-
clared to have been known to Plato, nay, more, to king Solomon.ⁿ
The circulation through the lungs had certainly been imagined
by Servetus, a Spanish physician, who was slowly burnt to death
by Calvin for not being of the same opinion as himself upon a
point in divinity.

NOTES.

(A) A correct notion can scarcely be formed from this descrip-
tion. The pleurae are two closed sacs, one of which lies over each
lung, one portion of the sac adhering closely to it, and one lying
over this again; the internal surfaces of both portions are always
in contact, because, if the parietes of the thorax expand and
draw with them the external portion, the lung at the same time
expands with air and forces forwards the internal in the same de-
gree. It is commonly said that a quantity of fluid (not vapour)
exists in serous membranes for the purpose of lubrication. Dr.
Marshal, from many experiments, believed that this is not the
case, but that whenever fluid is discovered, we must regard it as
the effect of either disease or the struggle of dying. His experi-
ments were made on the ventricles of the brain, the theca ver-
tebralis, the pleura, and the pericardium;^f yet, when Dr. Magendie
has opened the membranes of the brain or spinal marrow, I have
myself seen a colourless clear fluid instantly escape.

The serous membranes during life and health are translucent.
M. Richerand tells us, that, on removing a portion of the thorax
when cutting away a cancer, he saw the heart through the peri-
cardium.^g

(B) The best treatise with which I am acquainted upon the
lungs, is the prize commentary of Reisseisen, published by the
Royal Academy of Sciences at Berlin in 1808, and printed in
1822, with six beautiful coloured engravings, and a Latin version,
under the care of Professor Rudolphi.^h

He asserts, 1st. That the subdivisions of the
bronchiae occur more and more thickly, the
twigs proportionally decreasing in diameter
and length, and that each ultimate twig ends
in a close bulbous extremity, or cell, com-
municating with other bulbous extremities
only in an indirect manner, – by means of
the twigs which end in them. Malpighi had
described them as round, and mere dilatations
[Seite 118] in the course as well as at the ends of the bronchial twigs.ⁱ
2d. That, as Malpighi proved, and contrary to the subsequent
opinion of Helvetius and others, these ramifications and cells
have no connection with the surrounding common cellular mem-
brane. 3d. That they consist of, – 1. mucous membrane, behind
which lies, – 2. a coat of elastic white fibres, their existence being
visible as far as the canals can be traced, and the regular discharge
of any fluid injected into the bronchiae after death proving the
existence of elasticity in the bronchial ramifications; – 3, a coat of
muscular fibres, transverse relatively to the course of the canals, and
visible by the aid of a magnifier as far as the size of the canals will
allow them to be traced. He conceives the muscularity of the twigs
and cells to be shown also from the necessity for its existence in
them no less than in the large trunks and trachea, where it is
visible; from their evident contraction in the experiments of
Varnier, who irritated them by the injection of stimulating liquids
and gases and by mechanically stimulating the surface of the
lungs;^k and from the circumstance of the lungs shrinking much
more if an opening is made in the thorax of a living than of a dead
animal, in the latter of which it can shrink from elasticity only.
4th. That the ramifications of the bronchial and pulmonary arteries
freely anastomose both in the air-passages and on the surface of
the lungs, and that the bronchial arteries run chiefly direct to the
pulmonary veins. 5th. That the air-passages and blood-vessels of
the lungs are most abundantly supplied with nerves from the par
vagum, whose conjunctions with the sympathetic take place ex-
ternally to the lungs.

Some other conclusions are drawn, but unimportant or un-
satisfactory.

(C) Although each lower rib must execute a greater extent of
motion from being longer than the one above, yet the first is
asserted by Magendie to be absolutely more moveable than the
second, the second than the third, &c.: and this because the
first has but one articular surface, is articulated with but one
vertebra, and possesses neither internal nor costo-transverse liga-
ment and has the posterior ligament horizontal, and because
slight shades of difference exist in the disposition of the ligaments
of the six other ribs.^l

(D) Dr. Carson gives the following account of the mechanical
part of respiration.

The substance of the lungs is highly elastic, and constantly
kept in a forced state of distention after birth by the pressure
of the atmosphere.^m This is evident also from the lungs collaps-
ing upon our puncturing the walls of the thorax, – a circum-
stance arising from the atmospheric pressure on the one hand
becoming counterbalanced on the other, so that their elasticity,
experiencing no opposition, becomes effective.ⁿ During inspiration,
the intercostal muscles raise and draw out the ribs, and the dia-
phragm descends: the enlargement of the thoracic cavity is
instantly followed of necessity by the greater distention of the
substance of the lungs from the diminished resistance to the
atmosphere gravitating in the bronchiae. The diaphragm and
intercostal muscles ceasing to act, the substance of the lungs
exerts its elasticity with effect, recovers its former dimensions,
and drives out the additional volume of air just admitted, and
the passive diaphragm follows the shrinking substance of the
lungs, offering, from its relaxation, no resistance to the atmo-
sphere pressing on the surface of the abdomen. Thus expiration
is produced. The muscular power of the diaphragm and inter-
costal muscles is far greater than the elastic power of the lungs,
and therefore, when exerted, overcomes it, producing inspiration:
but, ceasing to be exerted, the elastic power gains efficiency, and
produces expiration.

To the elastic, Reisseisen adds the muscular, contraction of the
bronchial ramifications and cells. ‘“Thorace ampliato, aër va-
cuum in pulmone spatium occupat, victisque fibris, fistulam spirit-
alem quaquaversum extendit, ultra modum, quo quiescit, explicari
coactam, unde fibrae elasticae resilire, circulares sese contrahere
nituntur, quo fit ut desidente thorace omnes simul ad expellendum
spiritum vires intenduntur. Sunt autem, thoracis undique desi-
dentis pressio, turn fibrarum fistulam spiritalem in brevius contra-
hentium vis elastica, denique muscularium illam constringentium
irritabilitas.”’

‘“The contractile power of the diaphragm (and intercostal
muscles) in conformity with the laws of muscular motion,”’ says
Dr. Carson^o, ‘“is irregular, remitting, and sometimes altogether
quiescent. The elasticity of the lungs, on the other hand, is
equal and constant. The superior energy of the former is
balanced by the permanency of the latter. By the advantage
which the inferior power, from the uniformity of its operations, is
enabled to take of the remissions of its more powerful antagonist,
the ground which had been lost is recovered, and the contest pro-
longed; that contest in which victory declaring on one side or
the other is the instant death of the fabric.”’

In the common account of respiration, the elasticity and mus-
cularity of the lungs are unnoticed, and expiration is ascribed to
the elasticity of the cartilages of the ribs, and to the contractions
of the abdominal muscles emptying the lungs by pressure. Now,
according to Dr. Carson, in the first place, the elasticity (and
muscularity) of the lungs is of itself sufficient for the purpose; in
the second, there is no proof of the agency of the abdominal
muscles in expiration, – it proceeds equally well in cases of ina-
nition, when their contraction would rather enlarge than diminish
the abdominal cavity, and in experiments when they are entirely
removed from animals, – a child was born without them, and had
lived eighteen months at the time of the publication of its case,
and was very well;^p – and, I may add, thirdly, that, although the
elasticity of the cartilages of the ribs must conspire with that of
the lungs, numerous cases are recorded of immobility of the ribs,
by ossification of their connections, where respiration was not
materially impeded.^q These cases are adduced to show that the
diaphragm is the chief instrument of respiration; but as its
elasticity cannot produce expiration, they show that this was
accomplished entirely, or in a great measure, by the lungs them-
selves. Even where there is no ossification, the motion of the ribs
has very little share in respiration, and Dr. Bostock considers the
chief use of the intercostals to be that of giving a fixed point for
the action of the diaphragm, and the operation of the abdominal
muscles in expiration to be nearly passive.^r It is commonly
[Seite 121] known, however, that if the pleura is wounded, air rushes into
the chest during inspiration only, and is in some measure ex-
pelled again during expiration. Galen showed this, notwithstand-
ing his object was different, by wounding the chest, and fixing
a bladder upon the wound. The bladder shrunk at inspiration,
and became distended at expiration.^s Were the ascent of the
diaphragm and descent of the ribs in expiration the effect of
solely the contraction of the lungs, – of a tendency to vacuum
occasioned by their shrinking, – air and fluids should stream to the
chest as much during expiration as inspiration, – should rush to
fill up the vacuum as much as the diaphragm should ascend and
the ribs descend for that purpose: nor should air be expelled
from the wounded pleura; for we may regard the thoracic cavity
as bounded above by the surface of the lungs, and always in the
sound state possessing the same dimensions, – the expansion of
the lungs being commensurate with the descent of the diaphragm
and ascent of the ribs, and the descent of the diaphragm and
ascent of the ribs commensurate with the shrinking of the lungs.
The fact that air does not stream into the wounded pleura in
expiration, but even streams from it, while the ribs are moveable
and the abdominal muscles active, proves, I think, that the descent
of the ribs and ascent of the diaphragm, one or both, in ordinary
expiration, do partly occasion, by compression,^t the diminution of
the lungs, or, at least, are not its passive effect, but coincide with
it by independent powers, – which are, the elasticity of the elevated
ribs (and displaced abdominal organs?) if not the contraction
of the extended abdominal muscles. We shall presently see another
reason for believing that the organs of the chest are really
compressed during expiration. Haller refers expiration to the
pressure of the lungs by the elastic ribs, and the abdominal and
other muscles, and to the elastic and muscular contraction of the
lungs themselves, which he considers more forcible than the
compression. It appears to me that he is right; but that, never-
theless, either the lungs alone, or the walls of the chest alone,
[Seite 122] are able, when unassisted by the other, to produce expiration.
The change in the situation of the ribs is, moreover, trifling
compared to that of the diaphragm, and respiration often proceeds
very well by the diaphragm alone. Animals which are remarkable
for swiftness and perseverance in the race scarcely employ the
intercostal muscles, using the diaphragm almost solely.^t

The beautiful contrivance in the shape of the thorax deserves
attention. By its being conical, every degree of motion in the
diaphragm produces a greater effect on the capacity of the chest
than could occur were it of any other shape.

The passage of the air into the cells may be distinctly heard
on applying the ear to the corresponding part of the chest, and
is called by Laennec the respiratory murmur. It is much louder
in children, and in them the cells are far more numerous and
small. Whence an equal portion of lung from an infant a few
days old weighs fourteen times more than from a man of seventy.^u

The elasticity and muscularity of the lungs are not sufficiently
great to expel the whole of their air in expiration. Thus they
remain constantly in a certain degree of distention.^x

I now recur to the subject of the circulation of the blood, as
promised in note (E) of the last section.

The vacuum constantly threatening in the chest, according to
Dr. Carson, either from the shrinking of the lungs or the con-
traction of the inspiratory muscles, and I may add from the ex-
pulsion of blood from the ventricles of the heart, will evidently be
prevented, not only by the falling of the ribs and the ascent
of the diaphragm in the former case, and ingress of additional air
into the bronchiae in the latter, but also by the flow of venous
blood into the auricles: for the venous blood, being subject to
the full atmospheric pressure without the chest, will necessarily
be driven into the chest to prevent a vacuum; the blood of the
pulmonary artery and aorta is under the same circumstances, but
the propelling force of the ventricles at one moment, and the
action of their valves during their relaxation, prevent its retro-
gression. The atmospheric pressure on the blood-vessels creates
a necessity for greater strength in the ventricles, as it impedes
[Seite 123] the progress of blood from the heart; but it also facilitates the
return. Thus the smaller pressure on the heart acts, by the in-
tervention of the blood, as an antagonist to its contracting fibres,
assisting to dilate them when they become relaxed.

That the blood is drawn towards the heart during inspiration
has been long acknowledged. ‘“In my experiments,”’ says Haller,
‘“if you open the chest, abdomen, neck, or fore-extremities of an
animal, and lay bare the great veins, the superior and inferior
cava, the jugular, subclavian, brachial, or mammary, you will see
the blood return to the heart whenever the animal inspires, and
these veins recede some lines from it, become empty and pale,
flat and bloodless:”’ – depleri, pallescere, explanari, exsangues
fieri.”^y In the words of Dr. Magendie, sixty years afterwards,^z
‘“when the chest dilates, it inspires the blood of the cavae, and
successively that of the veins ending in them; much in the
same way as it does the air into the trachea.”’ Were Dr.
Carson’s account of respiration correct, as a vacuum would be
threatening in the chest equally during expiration and inspira-
tion, the shrinking of the lungs should occasion the blood to
stream towards the heart as much during the one as the other,
to fill up the vacuum. But this is not the fact, any more than,
as we saw, that air rushes into the wounded pleura during
expiration. The coincidence of the effect of inspiration on the
venous blood, and, when the pleura is wounded, on the air,
[Seite 124] prevents us from supposing that inspiration affects the circulation
merely by giving a free passage of blood through the lungs.
‘“The great venous trunks of the head, neck, chest, abdomen,
fore-extremities,”’ says Haller, ‘“swell during expiration, from
the blood either being obstructed or retrograding, and at
inspiration are emptied of it from its flowing freely to the heart.”’^a
Or, in the words of Magendie, ‘“when the chest contracts, the
blood is driven back into the cavae by the pressure experienced
by all the organs of the chest.”’ That the blood does really
retrograde during expiration, appears by an experiment of Ma-
gendie’s, in which a hollow bougie was passed into the great
veins as far as the cava, or auricle itself, and the blood flowed
from its extremity during expiration.^b This fact seems to show
compression of the thoracic organs during expiration, and there-
fore is an additional argument that ordinary expiration is not the
effect solely of the elastic and muscular shrinking of the lungs.
Such, indeed, is the pressure of expiration, that the heart during it
propels the blood more violently into the arteries, and even into
the veins; and, on the other hand, less forcibly during inspiration.^c
[Seite 125] A continuance in refraining to inspire after a violent expiration, of
course almost suspends the circulation by depriving the heart of
blood,^d which is no longer drawn to the heart by inspiration, and
has been squeezed out by expiration: a continuance in refraining
to expire after a deep inspiration has the same effect, but more
slowly. In both cases the blood is no longer drawn to the heart
by inspiration, and does not experience those chemical changes
in the lungs which are indispensable to its free passage through
them; though, they being, in the former, filled with air, and empty
in the latter, it can continue to pass through them much longer in
the former.

And this leads me to observe, that the mere suspension of
respiration impedes the circulation through the heart by causing
obstruction in the lungs, and that, consequently, inspiration, by
giving free passage to the blood through those organs will
accelerate its course through the veins, independently of a
vacuum; although the influence of the vacuum is shown by the
effect of inspiration upon the contents of tubes inserted, not into
the veins, but merely into the cavity of the pleura or pericardium.
Whether respiration is suspended after an expiration or an in-
spiration, the effect is the same: – the blood accumulates in the
lungs and right side of the heart, if the windpipe is tied, whether
the lungs be empty or full at the time of the ligature; and there-
fore it is not merely the mechanical condition of the lungs that
produces the obstruction in this case, as was once supposed,
but the want of chemical changes.^e

But for this consideration, the effects of the thoracic vacuum
on the circulation might be overrated; and, indeed, that too high
an estimate has been formed of it is very certain: for,

1. In the foetus, and in animals which do not respire at all, or
not by a thoracic vacuum, the vacua arising from the dilatation of
the heart’s cavities, and from its diminished bulk under contraction,
only can occur.^f

2. If we suspend respiration and prevent the influence of both
sources of vacuum, the circulation continues till the want of chemi-
[Seite 126] cal changes arrests it; and if the vena cava, or any great vein, is
obstructed so as to cut off connection with the heart, it becomes
distended with blood^g coming up towards the heart; and if wounded
between the ligature and the extremities, the blood flows, whatever
the position of the animal, till death ensues.^h In these cases no
vacuum assists. If the pericardium is laid bare, so that no vacuum
can occur, except that from the dilatation of the heart’s cavities,
and the trachea tied, the right ventricle swells enormously with the
arriving blood,ⁱ – a fact not to be explained, even by the heart’s
own vacuum. The influence of the left ventricle upon the
course of the blood in the veins, was also shown by Magendie,
who firmly tied every part of a dog’s leg, except the great artery
and vein, and then tied the latter and wounded it below the
ligature, when the blood was projected to some distance, and
continued to be so, except when the artery was compressed;
and as long as the circulation continued, the stream from the
vein was regulated at pleasure by compressing or liberating the
artery.^k – If a turgid vein in the hand is compressed, it will not
become empty above, as it should if suction from one or all of
the three sources mentioned, were considerable; and the jet of
blood from an artery was found by Hales to be greater during a
deep inspiration,^l (probably from the more abundant supply to
the left side through the lungs,) showing the action of the ven-
tricle to be proportionably greater than the power of the thoracic
vacuum at the moment of inspiration to oppose the discharge of
blood from it. Still the effects of the vacuum are such as we
have seen, and it must lessen the labour of the heart.

The empty condition of the arteries after death, has been
ascribed by Dr. Carson to the thoracic vacuum. He states, that
if an animal is destroyed by admitting air into each pleura, the
arteries are found as turgid as the veins;^m but the same results
have not been obtained by others;ⁿ and I presume that the obstruc-
tion in the lungs from the want of chemical changes, gradually
[Seite 127] lessening the supply to the arteries and producing accumulation
in the veins, together with the superior contractile powers the of
arteries, are, jointly, quite sufficient to explain the circumstance.
The effect of the obstruction in the lungs while the left ventricle
continued to propel blood, was strikingly shown by Bichat, who
produced enormous congestion of the lungs, liver, spleen, &c.,
by strangling animals slowly, and found much less if respiration
was completely arrested at once, so that the left ventricle ceased
to propel blood very soon after the obstruction in the lungs took
place.^o The greater the space into which the former blood can
flow from the arteries, the less blood will they contain. Hence, if
a ligature is passed round the cavae, some quantity of blood is
found in the arteries; if around the pulmonary artery, less; and
when the lungs have been kept distended after death by artificial
inflation, after opening the chest, so that all their vessels might
be unfolded, the arteries have been found quite empty, though
there was no thoracic vacuum,^p and though the effect of the left
ventricle of the heart was destroyed by a ligature on the aorta.

Hence, if Dr. Carson’s experiments on this point are accurate,
I should ascribe the turgidity of the arteries when the pleurae were
filled with air, and the lungs compressed, to the diminution; and
when this was not done, the emptiness of the arteries, to the
largeness, of the pulmonary space into which the blood could pass.

The influence of suction has been thought by Dr. Carson to
assist in explaining venous absorption.^q

Dr. Carson ascribes the effects experienced in elevated situa-
tions to the rarity of the atmosphere, by which it cannot compress
the blood sufficiently to aid the return of this fluid towards the
heart. Saussure^r says, that when he was on the summit of the
Alps he experienced extreme fatigue and loss of muscular power,
and irresistible, rapid, and violent palpitation, and difficulty of
breathing, all which soon ceased on his assuming the horizontal
posture, in which, of course, the blood circulates more easily.
His guide, a slim old man, was unaffected, and climbed with
ease like a goat; and many unaccustomed to such elevations
have been equally unaffected, for habit and a strong heart will
render the influence of pressure but little necessary.

Gravity has been thought by Dr. Carson, as well as by older
writers, materially to aid the circulation: – ‘“by the stroke of the
heart, a quantity of fluid is withdrawn from one end of the
column, and by the synchronous vibration of the arteries an
equal quantity is added to the other.”’ ‘“A perpetually repeated
generation of motion must be produced through the different
parts of the venous system by gravity, and this motion must be
from the ends of the veins to the trunks.”’^s ‘“The simplest
weight of a column of blood in any descending artery is suffi-
cient to raise the blood through open capillaries to an equal
height in the corresponding vein, according to the hydrostatical
law, that fluids attain the same level in all communicating ves-
sels.”’^t Yet, in the horizontal posture, there can be no assistance
from gravity, but the circulation proceeds perfectly well; and,
indeed, gravity, on the whole, seems to impede the circulation,
for if the arms hang down for a length of time, or the legs are
not rested horizontally, they ultimately swell. Nothing assists
the heart more than a horizontal posture, as seen in syncope, in
which the restoring effects are perfectly explicable by its mecha-
nical aid to the heart, without reference to the brain.^u The
effects of posture are necessarily greater in tall persons. In the
horizontal posture, the heart having less to do, beats more slowly,
and in very tall persons the pulse has been found 12 or 20 beats
quicker in the upright posture.

The operation of exercise is very material. If an extremity is
not exercised, its circulation always becomes languid, it resists ex-
ternal temperature with difficulty, and wastes, and, if gravity also
co-operates by a vertical position, it swells; and exercise will pre-
vent the congestive agency of a continued vertical position. Violent
exercise causes proportionate violence of circulation. The action
of muscles evidently operates by compression, and chiefly of the
veins, as the coats of the arteries are so much stronger. The
blood can go but one way. The stream behind, and the valves
in the veins of the extremities, determine the effects of the
pressure to be in the course of the circulation. The compressed
vessels are at once nearly emptied, and the instant that the pres-
sure is alternately removed are again filled; and the momentary
[Seite 129] impediment during the compression is immaterial, on account of
the innumerable venous anastomoses. The progress of the blood
cannot but be accelerated. The dyspnoea that is felt arises from
the force with which the blood drives through the lungs, and
which renders frequent respiration necessary.

In the foetus the case is analogous, although Dr. Carson has
imagined it different, and thought it necessary to frame a little
hypothesis to reconcile circumstances. The foetal lungs, ex-
periencing no atmospheric pressure, are contracted to the utmost,
and the diaphragm, suffering no stimulus from the will on account
of uneasy sensation arising from want of breath, is completely
relaxed, and forced upwards to remove the vacuum; and the
venous blood without the thorax must be drawn forcibly into the
right auricle, preventing the vacuum which the discharges of blood
from the left ventricle tend to produce. In the foetus, moreover,
the blood is propelled into the aorta by both ventricles, as Mr.
John Bell remarks, and, therefore, the circulation less requires
other assistance. The vacuum from the dilatation of the cavities
of the heart occurs in the foetus and all animals which have a heart:
but in those which have no such respiration as the human, there
can be no assistance to the circulation by thoracic vacuum.

The ordinary cause of the first inspiration appears to be the novel
impression of cool air upon the surface; for if at any time we are
suddenly exposed to a cold wind, or plunge into cold water, the
diaphragm and intercostal muscles instantly contract, and a sudden
inspiration takes place. The blood rushes into the expanded
lungs, and, being afterwards obstructed when the inspiratory
muscles cease to act and the elastic lungs shrink, gives rise to
an uneasy sensation, which is instinctively removed by another
inspiration, and thus respiration afterwards continues through life.
The fact of respiration commencing before the chord is tied,
shows that neither congestion in the aorta, nor deficiency of
chemical changes, is the cause of the first inspiration. If an
animal is born under warm water, its respiration begins at the
moment you choose to bring it up into the air. Buffon proved this
by causing a bitch’s accouchment to take place in a tub of
warm water, and allowing the pups to remain there for half an hour.

The power of excitement of the surface to cause inspiration
has been recently shown by Beclard and others, who, on me-
chanically irritating foetal kittens still enclosed in the membranes,
found inspiratory efforts take place at each irritation.

(B) After much uncertainty, it was thought ascertained by the
experiments of Messrs. Allen and Pepys that no oxygen is
absorbed in ordinary respiration, but that what disappears goes
entirely to unite with the carbon of the blood and produce carbonic
acid, the latter being exactly equal in bulk to the oxygen which
disappears, – about 27 1/2 cubic inches per minute, or 39,534 in
twenty-four hours, according to the experiments of these gentle-
men, – a quantity containing about 11 oz. troy of solid carbon,
and, perhaps, about double the average result of most other
experiments.

But Dr. Edwards has since shown that, however correct were
these results, it was erroneous to generalise from them; that more
oxygen is continually consumed by brutes than goes to the form-
ation of carbonic acid; and that this excess varies from above 1/3 of
the volume of the latter to almost nothing.^u The variation depends
not only upon the species, but upon the developement relative
to the age, and upon individual differences in adults.

He therefore finds that the bulk of the air is not unaffected by
respiration, but that generally a diminution takes place. Dr. Le
Gallois^x and Dr. Delaroche^y also found that oxygen disappeared
in greater quantity than carbonic acid was formed.

Allen and Pepys observed, that if the same air was breathed
repeatedly, some oxygen was absorbed and some azote discharged,
and that if nearly pure oxygen was employed in the case of
guinea-pigs, carbonic acid was produced and a portion of the oxy-
gen replaced by azote, this portion decreasing, however, as the
experiment proceeded.

Dr. Edwards ascertained that respiration causes sometimes an
increase of azote, sometimes a diminution, and sometimes no im-
portant difference in its quantity. He thinks that it is always being
absorbed and discharged, and that the proportion of these processes
differs under different circumstances. Its discharge exceeds at all
times in very young animals, as guinea-pigs; and in spring and sum-
mer; while its absorption exceeds in autumn and winter, as far as his
experiments upon adult sparrows and yellow-hammers go; though
occasional exceptions occurred from unappreciated circumstances,
powerful enough to overbalance the effect of season.^z The differ-
[Seite 131] ence in the proportion of the inspired and expired azote never
equalled the greatest differences observed between the oxygen
which disappeared and the carbonic acid formed. Cold-blooded
quadrupeds were shown by Spallanzani^a to absorb azote, and fish
by Humboldt and Provençal.^b Sir Humphrey Davy had already
ascertained the absorption of azote in his own person.

Dr. Edwards’s reasons for believing azote to be constantly both
absorbed and discharged are: –

1. That if an animal is made to breathe oxygen mixed with 1/20 of
azote, azote is discharged in abundance, as was found by Allen and
Pepys, so that when there is little or no azote to be absorbed,
its exhalation at once shows itself: and we may conclude that in
common respiration its exhalation may be as great, but not ob-
servable because nearly an equal quantity is absorbed:

2. When a mixture of oxygen and hydrogen was employed by
those chemists, and pure hydrogen by Dr. Edwards, not only was a
large quantity (much exceeding the bulk of the animal) given
out, but a considerable quantity of hydrogen was absorbed, – in
Dr. Edwards’s experiment equal to the azote given out,^c proving
that exhalation and absorption can proceed together: and he
asks why, if hydrogen is absorbed, not much more so azote,
which is more fit for respiration and the support of life; and
concludes that its absorption may be as great in common re-
spiration, but not observable because a nearly equal quantity is
discharged.^d

Carbonic acid itself is shown by Spallanzani and Dr. Edwards^e
to be exhaled from the lungs independently of the operation of
oxygen; – when snails, frogs, fish, or very young kittens are im-
mersed in hydrogen.

Mr. Ellis^f contends that the carbon is excreted by the pul-
monary vessels, and unites with the oxygen externally, and
Dr. Prout thinks this opinion corroborated by the fact,^g – that,
[Seite 132] when phosphorus dissolved in oil is injected into the blood-
vessels, vapours of phosphorous acid stream from the mouth and
nostrils, – what would hardly have occurred if the acid had been
formed in the vessels, as it would probably have remained in
solution in the blood, not being volatile. The phosphorus was
probably excreted from the vessels in minute subdivision, and
united with the oxygen of the atmosphere upon coming in contact
with it, producing phosphorous acid; and the same may be
imagined respecting the carbonic.^h

There can be no reason to adopt this hypothesis on account
of the supposed difficulty of the air and blood acting upon
each other through the vessels, because we saw in Sect. II. note
(G), that they do so, through moistened bladder, out of the body.
The well-known secretion and absorption of air by membranes,
shown by the existence of air in the air-bladder of fish, the
sudden formation of air in the alimentary canal in disease, the
separation of carbonic acid gas and of azote in the lungs,
the absorption of azote and oxygen in the experiments of
Dr. Edwards, the absorption of air in emphysema, and the
occurrence of emphysema without injury of the lungs,ⁱ together
with the evolution of carbonic acid gas from the blood under the
air-pump or when hydrogen only is breathed,^k – all show the
possibility of oxygen being absorbed by the blood, and carbonic
acid given out from it in the lungs, ordinarily, in respiration, as a
secretion. Dr. Edwards contends that, since so much carbonic
acid is given out from the blood in the respiration of pure hydro-
gen; and that, since the quantity given out in hydrogen is as great
as is observed in common air, there can be no reason to doubt that,
in common air, the carbonic acid proceeds from the same source
as in hydrogen, viz. – is exhaled; more especially as carbonic acid
exists largely in the blood: and that the oxygen, therefore, must be
absorbed by the blood. But whether mere carbon leaves the blood
and forms carbonic acid with the oxygen externally to the
vessels, or the oxygen unites with, and the carbonic acid separates
from, the blood, much of the affair would appear chemical, – nei-
ther all the carbon nor all the carbonic acid gas to be secreted;
because when venous blood is exposed to oxygen out of the body
[Seite 133] it becomes florid, and oxygen disappears and is replaced by car-
bonic acid.

With respect to the change of arterial to venous blood, although
exposure to hydrogen or carbonic acid – positive substances, will
effect it, and the fact of the separation of carbon occurring when
the florid colour is acquired looks as though the presence of
carbon were the cause of the dark hue; yet arterial blood,
inclosed in vials or in vacuo, grows purple,^l – a proof that the
mere action of the constituents of the blood upon each other is a
sufficient cause. And the circumstance of venous blood remaining
dark, though by the air-pump carbonic acid is evolved from it, looks
rather as if the florid colour were dependent on the operation of
oxygen.

The generality of respiration or something analogous among
living beings,^m and all the circumstances attending its perform-
ance, induce Dr. Prout to believe that it does something more
than effect chemical changes.ⁿ He considers galvanism as an
instrument extensively used by the vital principle, and since gal-
vanic operations probably occur in the action of the constituents
of the blood on each other, especially when oxygen is pre-
sent; and the combination of carbon with oxygen resembles the
union of the more oxidisable metal and oxygen in the galvanic
[Seite 134] battery, – a great additional purpose of respiration is, in his
opinion, to supply or excite galvanism.

Dr. Crawford observed that less carbonic acid was formed in pro-
portion to the height of the temperature;^o Dr. Jurine, that more
was produced when the circulation was quickened, – during the
hot stage of fever, digestion, or exercise, and less in the cold stage;^p
and his results were confirmed by Lavoisier and Seguin.^q Dr. Ed-
wards has found less formed in summer than in winter.^r

Dr. Prout and Dr. Fyfe^s have found the quantity of carbonic
acid gas diminished by mercury, nitric acid, vegetable diet, tea,
substances containing alcohol, depressing passions, long fasting, and
fatigue, and probably by sleep. Dr. Prout found that it under-
goes in himself an increase from day-break till noon, and a de-
crease from noon till sun-set, remaining at the minimum till day-
break. In the experiments of Allen and Pepys, the formation of
carbonic acid gas slackened when their guinea-pigs fell asleep.
Dr. Prout also observed that an increase or decrease from the
maximum or minimum was followed by a proportional decrease or
increase during a diurnal period. It would appear, also, that less
is formed in infancy, and more as the adult age is approached, in
brutes.^t

The average number of respirations in a minute, in adults is
probably twenty, but the absolute number, and the number re-
lative to the pulse, vary both in different individuals, and in the
same under different circumstances.

The common quantity of air taken in at each inspiration is
about 16.5 cubic inches, and the quantity remaining after death
in the lungs of a stout adult man, about 100 cubic inches, accord-
[Seite 135] ing to Allen and Pepys. Dr. Bostock, agreeing with Dr. Menzies
and many others, believes 40 cubic inches to be the average inspir-
ation, and thinks that 160 or 170 remain in the lungs after ordinary
expiration,^u for these organs are never emptied by expiration.

The ordinary quantity of aqueous vapour emitted by the lungs,
trachea, throat, and mouth, may be about 20 oz. in 24 hours.^x

Camphor, phosphorus, ether, diluted alcohol, gases, and various
odorous substances, when introduced into the system, escape in a
great measure by the lungs: whence they are perceived in the
breath. Dr. G. Breschet and Dr. Milne Edwards, conceiving that in
the dilatation of the lungs by inspiration, the enlarged space would
cause not only the air to rush in, but the exhalation from the sur-
face of the air-cells and pleura to increase and exceed that from
other parts, have made several experiments which prove this to
be the case. On injecting a small quantity of oil of turpentine
into the crural vein, the breath instantly smelt strongly of it,
and the pleura on being cut open did the same; while no odour
of it arose on exposing the peritonaeum. If a larger quantity was
employed, it impregnated every part. If, instead of natural re-
spiration, artificial was instituted, in which the air does not enter
the lungs by the formation of a vacuum on the expansion of the
chest, but is forced into them and itself expands the chest, no
more exhalation of odorous substances took place from the lungs
than from other parts; and, indeed, if a cupping-glass was applied
over another denuded part, the odorous substance was given out
there, while the lungs afforded no sign of it.^y

(F) When the air is not changed, death in general occurs long
before all the oxygen is consumed, through the carbonic acid
which is formed; but bees, some worms and mollusca, completely
deoxidize it.^z

Lavoisier removed the carbonic acid by potash as quickly as it
was produced, and found that a guinea-pig could live in air con-
taining but 6.66 per cent. of oxygen, and with still less became only
drowsy.^a

Dr. Edwards advances, contrary to Morozzo,^b that every warm-
blooded animal perishes instantly^c when placed in the air in which
another has died through want of renovation, and that all of the
same class among them deoxidize it equally, though in different times.
This time will occasionally differ 1/3, notwithstanding the size of the
body and the movements of the chest be equal in them, and the car-
bonic acid be removed as quickly as formed. The young deoxidize
it more slowly than adults; and the young, if quite deprived of air,
die later than adults.^d Indeed, Buffon found, and Dr. Le Gallois
and Dr. Edwards have confirmed his discovery, that new-born
animals of many species, as dogs and rabbits, will live a long time
without air, even after they have been allowed to respire. This
period lessens as the animal’s temperature rises with age; and in
those whose temperature is at birth high, as guinea-pigs, it is
very short.^e They live longer than adults also in a limited quan-
tity of air.^f Amphibious animals likewise live long without air.^g

Persons have been said to be able, by habit, to live without air
a considerable time. Death generally occurs at the latest in one or
two minutes, when respiration is suspended; but by habit some few
divers of the swimming school at Paris can remain under water
three minutes.^h If the system is in an extraordinary nervous
[Seite 137] state of insensibility, the absence of air, like the absence of food
or the administration of strong agents, may be borne for a very
long time. Even fainting renders submersion less dangerous.

Whether venous blood differs from arterial in containing more
carbon or less oxygen, it is not calculated for life. When injected
into the carotids, the brain becomes affected, as if poisoned, and
death gradually ensues; and when it circulates through the
coronary arteries of the heart, – the action of which organ will con-
tinue though its left cavities are supplied with venous blood, – the
heart’s motion ceases, and the functions of each organ are impeded
and at length cease if venous blood circulates through its arteries.ⁱ
When death occurs by impediment to the functions of the lungs,
the heart loses its irritability by its substance becoming penetrated
with venous blood and ceases to propel the blood of its cavities;
and the brain, becoming powerless from the same cause, ceases
both to perceive uneasiness in the lungs from the want of fresh
air and to be able to will inspiration. If the death of the body
arise from the brain, it is by the brain being unable to continue
respiration.

Some suppose that respiration is very instrumental in prevent-
ing the putrefaction of the living body; and this by carrying off
its carbon, – the substance which, in the spontaneous decomposi-
tion of animals, is the first rejected, and unites with the oxygen
[Seite 138] of the atmosphere; and indeed Spallanzani found, that the
dead bodies of animals deoxydated the air after death, and often
as much as during life, before decomposition was perceptible.^k
He says also, that torpid animals, whose respiration had entirely
ceased, also carbonated it. As the latter fact cannot be ascribed
to the separation of carbon to the lungs, nor to the mere chemical
changes of decomposition, it probably arises from the functions
of the skin.

From the chyle entering the venous blood about to arrive at the
lungs, respiration has been thought to assist in assimilation.
More carbonic acid, however, is not found after every meal, nor
less during fasting, till it proceeds to the length of debility.
Many animals sleep after feeding; yet in sleep less is produced.

(G) The experiment consisted in laying the lungs completely
bare, and reviving the animal by artificial respiration. Hooke
varied it by pricking the surface of the lungs and forcing a con-
tinued stream of air through them.

The following are the words of Harvey: ‘“It would appear that
the use of expiration is to purify and ventilate the blood, by sepa-
rating from it these noxious and fuliginous vapours.”’

NOTES.

(A) Numerous explanations have been attempted of the me-
chanism of the human voice, but these, having been formed at a
time when the laws of sonorous bodies were but very imperfectly
understood, are all more or less unsatisfactory. The recent in-
vestigations of Dr. Savart, have enabled him to explain the con-
struction of the vocal organs from principles which had hitherto
escaped the observations of experimentalists. The facts adduced
by him prove that the production of the voice is analogous to that
of the sound of wind instruments, and that the short column of
air contained within the larynx is susceptible, from the nature of
the elastic sides which confine it and from the manner by which
it is excited, of rendering sounds, both of a peculiar nature and
much graver than its dimensions would seem to indicate. After
establishing the preliminary facts by numerous experiments, he
thus accounts for the formation of the voice.

The vocal organ, composed of the larynx and the cavity of the
[Seite 145] mouth may be considered a conical tube, in which the air is
put in motion in a similar manner as in flute organ-pipes; this tube
is so constructed that, notwithstanding its small dimensions, it is
capable of rendering a great variety of sounds, some of which are
very grave; its inferior part being composed of elastic sides capa-
ble of different degrees of tension, whilst the mouth opening more
or less, and thus changing the dimensions of the column of air,
exercises a considerable influence on the number of its vibrations.
By constructing a pyramidal tube of nearly the same length and
capacity as the vocal tube, and membranous at its lower part, all
the sounds of an ordinary voice can be produced from it, either
by varying the tension of the membranes, or by altering the size
of its orifice. The trachea is terminated at its upper part by a
narrow opening which may be diminished or increased by the
approximation or recession of the arytenoids, and by the contrac-
tion of the thyreo-arytenoid muscles. This opening performs the
same office as the lumière (sound-hole) of organ-pipes. But, for
the sound thus produced to unite all the known qualities, the
tension of the extensible parts of the sides of the vocal tube
must be proportionate with that of the sides of the ventricle, as
well as that of the superior and inferior ligaments; and the orifices
through which the air escapes must be susceptible of varying and
of adapting themselves so as to give the best possible result. For
these purposes nature has formed these parts of elastic or mus-
cular tissues. The thyreo-arytenoid constitutes itself the inferior
and external sides of the ventricles; the uses of this muscle (of
which Dr. Savart gives a very accurate description), are the follow-
ing: when it contracts it gives the proper degree of tension for
the sound required, to the lower part and external side of the ven-
tricle, as well as to the edge of the orifice through which the air
passes from the trachea; by means of the extremities of its
oblique fibres it acts also on the fold of mucous membrane which
forms the upper part of the extensible portion of the vocal tube.
Its action upon this part is aided by that of a small muscle which
should be called the superior thyreo-arytenoid, for it extends
obliquely from the external and lower part of the arytenoid, up-
wards and forwards, to the rounded angle of the thyreoid carti-
lage, to which it is attached by very short tendinous fibres. The
office of this muscle is to increase the tension of the external side
of the ventricle, conjointly with the oblique fibres of the thyreo-
[Seite 146] arytenoid, several fibres of which are interwoven with it, and to
which it serves as a support. After death, these two muscles
being more or less relaxed, the external and internal sides of the
ventricles collapse together, and the folds of the mucous mem-
brane are found relaxed. The superior ligaments have no
peculiar muscle, and they are sufficiently rigid and thick to dis-
pense with this aid. The two folds of mucous membrane placed
at the upper termination of the larynx, and which float in the air
which vibrates around them, are susceptible of a variable tension
which also influences the sound.^x

(B) Dr. Le Gallois ascertained that the division of the recurrent
nerves frequently proves even fatal to animals. This effect, how-
ever, varies with the species and age. The danger diminishes as
the animal is older; and, after a certain age, little inconvenience
follows, because the (anterior part of the?) opening of the glottis
is larger proportionally to the capacity of the lungs, not merely in
some species than in others, but in old than in young animals.^y

(C) In whistling, the coarctation of the lips only serves as an
embouchure to the column of air contained within the mouth and
larynx. The varieties of intonation entirely depend on the altera-
tions of the tongue and on the corresponding motions of the larynx.
For the higher sounds the tongue is brought forwards and the
larynx raised, and for the lower sounds the tongue recedes and
the larynx is depressed.

(D) I am indebted to the powerful Dr. Conyers Middleton for
the knowledge of two cases of distinct articulation with at least
but little tongue.^z In his exposure of the pious deceptions of
weak and wicked Christians during the first centuries of the
Christian era, he notices a pretty tale of an Arian prince cutting
out the tongues of some of the orthodox party and these being as
able to talk as before; nay one (O hominum impudentia !), who
had been dumb from his birth, gained the faculty of speech by
losing his tongue. Granting the fact, and even that the tongues
were completely extirpated, he refers, for the purpose of proving
[Seite 147] there was no miracle in the case, to two relations of similar in-
stances by medical men.^a Professor Thomson found the speech
little impaired after the bullets had carried away more or less of
the tongue.^b Louis, Richter, Huxham, Bartholin, and Tulpius
mention similar cases. An instance of good articulation after the
loss of the apex and body of the tongue quite down to the os
hyoides occurred in this country, and was seen by the Royal
Society.^c

(E) For this note, as well as (C) I am indebted to my excellent
friend, Mr. Charles Wheatstone, who has already contributed so
much to science as to justify the highest expectations.

The elements of which all the spoken languages of mankind
are composed, consist of the modifications given sometimes
to the breath, and at other times to the voice, during their pas-
sage through the cavity of the mouth; these modifications are
principally effected by the altered positions of the lips and tongue
with respect to the fixed parts of the containing cavity.

The classification of these articulations into vowels and conso-
nants has been generally recognised.

The vowels are formed by the voice, modified, but not inter-
rupted, by the varied positions of the tongue and lips. Their
differences depend on the various proportions between the aper-
ture of the lips and the internal cavity of the mouth, alterable by
the different elevations of the tongue. The vowel aw (as pro-
nounced long in all, and short in got) is formed by augmenting
the internal cavity by the greatest possible depression of the
dorsum of the tongue, and, at the same time, enlarging the sepa-
ration of the lips. Departing from this sound there are two
series: 1st. In which the external aperture remains open, and
the internal cavity gradually diminishes by the successive alter-
ations of the tongue. 2d. In which the positions of the tongue
are successively the same as in the first series, but the aperture
of the lips is diminished. The approximation of the lips produces
[Seite 148] a more sensible effect as the inner cavity is more enlarged;
hence two modifications of the first sounds of the second series are
easily recognised, whilst only one variety of the others is readily
appreciable, as will be shown in the following table.^d Each of
these vowels may be long or short, according to the duration
of its sound in a syllable.

TABLE OF VOWELS.

Each series formed by the gradual elevation of the tongue.

^e

The above table exhibits all the most usually pronounced vowel
sounds, but practised ears might distinguish others intermediate
in each series. When these vowels are sounded, the soft palate is
raised so as to prevent the voice from issuing through the nasal
channels; when, on the contrary, the soft palate is depressed
the partial escape of the breath through the nostrils modifies all
the preceding sounds in a very evident manner. To distinguish
these two modes of articulating the vowel sounds, we may adopt
Dr. Darwin’s terms, orisonant and narisonant vowels.

Consonants may be divided into continuous (sometimes called
liquids or semi-vowels,) and explosive. For the latter, the breath
or voice is stopped in its passage through the mouth; for the
former, it is allowed a free passage, though the apertures are
more narrowed than for the vowels.

But the most comprehensive and important division of these
articulations is into aspirates and sonants; meaning by the former
term, the modifications of the breath, and by the latter, those of
the voice. In ordinary speaking these are mingled together to
form the elementary syllables of language. The aspirates, or
sounds indicated by the characters p, f, sh, s, th (in thing), t,
k, ll, (Welsh), differ from the sonants, or those represented by
b, v, z (in azure), z (in puzzle), th, (in the), d, g (in gay), l, only
by the latter being accompanied with the vocal sound.

Every sonant has its corresponding aspirate, though many of
the latter are unknown to the English language, such are the
aspirates corresponding to the sonants r, m, n, ng (in song), &c.

When forming the component parts of syllables, the aspirates,
as well as the sonants, are always articulated with sonant vowels.
An aspirate vowel, followed by its vocal enunciation, is always
represented by the character h, but it is never pronounced
separately, except in whispering.

The consonants, like the vowels, are divided into orisonant and
narisonant. The only narisonant consonants in our language, are
those corresponding to the orisonant explosives b, d, and g
(in gay), – viz. m, n, and ng (in song). By this mode of pronun-
ciation the sounds are rendered continuous.

TABLE OF CONSONANTS.

This table shows that for all the consonants employed in the
English language, only ten positions of the mouth are required,
the modifications being effected by other means. Among the
modifications not already described, may be particularised the
reduplication of the 10th, 11th, and 12th sounds; the first occa-
sioned by the vibratory motion of the lips, the others by that of
the tongue.

Observations: – 1. The lower lip presses on the upper teeth,
but allows the air to escape between them; a similar sound is
produced by allowing the breath to pass through the lips when
nearly closed: – 2, 3, 4, 5. These sounds may be considered as
the continuation of the first series of vowel sounds; for placing
the mouth in the position for e (5.), and continuing to elevate the
back part of the tongue, and, at the same time, to curl its tip,
these sounds will be successively produced: – 6, 7, 8. These
sounds differ from the preceding four, inasmuch that the back part
of the tongue does not approximate to the palate; the mouth being-
placed for the second vowel, the front of the tongue is elevated
so as to touch the palate just above the teeth; for the r, the
point is drawn back, so as to allow the air to escape; and for the
l, the point is firmly pressed against the palate, and the breath
escapes by the two sides: – for the l, (in fille), the air escapes with
more difficulty: – 9. These are used in the Gaelic and German,
but not in English: – 10, 11, 12. These sounds are produced by
the forcible escape of the breath, or voice, after a complete
obstruction by the lips or tongue. The obstruction by the lips
gives p, or b; that by the front of the tongue above the upper
teeth, t, or d; and that by the back of the tongue against the
palate, k, or g; these different articulations may therefore be
distinguished as Labial, Dental, and Palatal. When the sound
escapes through the nostrils it becomes continuous; the m, n, and
ng are therefore not explosives.

The alphabetic characters invented as visual and permanent
representations of the articulations of speech, are very inadequate
to effect the purpose intended. In the English language there
are but five characters to indicate all the varieties of the vowels,
viz. a, e, i, o, u; of these, one only is pronounced when un-
combined, as a pure vowel; this is e, – the 5th sound in the table
of vowels; the other four are diphthongs or combinations of
two vowels; a is the 4th and 5th; i is the 3d and 5th; o is
[Seite 151] the 6th and 11th; and u is the 5th and 11th. When constituting
parts of syllables, the same character represents many different
vowel sounds.

The consonantal characters are not quite so arbitrary, though
among these there are some simple sounds expressed by two let-
ters, and others which have no character to denote them; and on
the other hand there are several redundant letters representing
two simple sounds, f, v, r, l, p, t, k, b, d, m, and n, are generally
constant in their signification. The simple sounds represented by
two characters are sh, th (in think), th (in the), and ng (in song). The
single characters representing more than one sound are s (in sea,
his, sure, and vision); z (in zany and azure), g (in gay and George).
The redundant letters are, c (having the sound either of s or k),
q (k followed by the eleventh vowel); j (compounded of d and
the second pronunciation of the z, and the same as the g in George),
and x (standing for ks, or z). y, as generally pronounced, and
w, are not consonants; the first represents the 5th, and the second
the 11th vowel of the table, when immediately succeeded by
another vowel.

The consonants will be best compared by articulating them all,
uniformly preceded or followed by the same vowel; as fe, she, se,
the, pe, te, ke, &c. or ef, esh, es, eth, ep, et, ek, &c.

It is by no means improbable that the progress of modern art
may present us at some future time with mechanical substitutes for
orators and preachers. For, putting aside the magic heads of
Albert the Great and Roger Bacon, Kratzenstein actually con-
structed an instrument to produce the vowels,^f and De Kempelin
has published a full account of his celebrated speaking machine
which perfectly imitated the human voice.^g The celebrated
French mechanician, the Abbé Mical, also made two heads of
brass which pronounced very distinctly entire phrases; these
heads were colossal, and their voices were powerful and sonorous.
The French government refusing, it is said, in 1782, to purchase
these automata, the unfortunate and too sensitive inventor, in a
paroxysm of despair, destroyed these master-pieces of scientific
ingenuity.

Having fully explained the various articulations used in oral
[Seite 152] language, it now only remains to investigate the difference between
the inflexions of the voice in singing and in speaking.

The various muscular adaptations of the larynx renders it capable
of producing every inflexion of musical tone within a certain com-
pass, seldom exceeding that of two octaves. In singing, sounds,
each constant in its degree of tune, follow each other according to
the rules of melody: whilst in speaking, the voice slides up and down,
and ‘“does not dwell distinctly, for any perceptible space of time,
on any certain level or uniform tone, except the last tone on which
the speaker ends or makes a pause.”’ Provincial dialects, and even
individual modes of speaking, differ much in the extent and nature
of these slides. Steele has endeavoured to establish a system
of notation for these inflexions, and other modifications of the
voice necessary to be observed by the orator, and has by this
means proposed to perpetuate the most splendid specimens of his-
trionic, forensic, and senatorial eloquence.^h To proceed farther
with this subject would be an infringement on the province of
philology.

(F) I know no reason to believe that the tendency to gaping on
seeing others do so, arises from the recollection of the pleasure it
affords; or that hiccup is produced by an irritation of the cardia
more than of any other part of the stomach. Gaping occurs
chiefly during fatigue or hunger; when we are but half awake,
either before or after sleep; and in ague and hysteria. In
hiccup, I think, that, after the inspiration has proceeded a
certain length, the glottis closes, and the diaphragm endeavours
in vain to contract farther.

In laughter, there is more or less noise at each little expiration,
from a mere sort of rustling sound to loud peals; the mouth
is more or less lengthened, and its angles drawn up, and in extreme
laughter it is opened still more by the descent of the lower jaw;
if hearty, the tears run over, the head shakes, and even the body,
and respiration is interrupted, and actual pain of the sides and
diaphragm is felt. Some of our comedians have absolutely ago-
nized me. It arises from drollery, the anticipation of gratification,
or actual gratification, or tickling; it is also common in hysteria.

In coughing, the mouth opens that the air may rush in that
[Seite 153] direction, since the current is not required in the nostrils as in
sneezing, and these would not afford sufficient vent. The
glottis lessens just before the expiration.

In sneezing, the opening of the fauces is lessened, and the head
bent back, that the current may be directly through the nostrils,
in which the irritation generally exists.

Haller is well worth reading on these subjects.ⁱ

Although brutes have no articulate sounds, they have a lan-
guage perfectly intelligible to one another. They make one noise
to express joy, another terror, another to summon their young,
&c., and comprehend the meaning of sounds made by us, not only
of an inarticulate kind, but also articulated. The sagacity of
some dogs in this respect is astonishing. ‘“They learn to under-
stand not merely separate words or articulate sounds, but whole
sentences expressing many ideas. I have often spoken,”’ continues
Gall, ‘“intentionally of objects which might interest my dog,
taking care not to mention his name, or make any intonation or
gesture which might awaken his attention. He, however, showed
no less pleasure or sorrow, as it might be; and, indeed, manifested
by his behaviour that he had perfectly understood the conversation
which concerned him. I had taken a bitch from Vienna to Paris;
in a very short time she comprehended French as well as German,
of which I satisfied myself by repeating before her whole sen-
tences in both languages.”’^k