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THE
ELEMENTS
OF
PHYSIOLOGY.

[titlePage_recto] [titlePage_verso]

LONDON:
printed by A. & R. Spottiswoode,
New-Street-Square.

[titlePage_recto]
THE
ELEMENTS
OF
PHYSIOLOGY,

TRANSLATED FROM THE LATIN OF THE FOURTH AND
LAST EDITION,
AND SUPPLIED
WITH COPIOUS NOTES,
BY
JOHN ELLIOTSON, M. D. Cantab.
fellow of the royal college of physicians;
physician to, and lecturer on the practice of medicine in,
st. thomas’s hospital.

FOURTH EDITION.

Quaeramus optima, nec protinus se offerentibus gaudeamus:
adhibeatur judicium inventis, dispositio probatis.
(Quintilian.)

LONDON:
printed for
LONGMAN, REES, ORME, BROWN, AND GREEN,
paternoster-row.
1828
.
[titlePage_verso]

TO
PROFESSOR BLUMENBACH.

[Seite v]

My dear Sir,

Some few persons I do envy, and you are of the
number. In a green old age, still enjoying great
mental activity and a most cheerful disposition, living,
like so many of your scientific countrymen, in a little
village, with the utmost simplicity, a stranger to the
desire of wealth and the absurd ambition of worldly im-
portance, but holding highly responsible offices in an
illustrious though humble university, – you are cele-
brated in every country for an extensive and profound
knowledge of natural history, for the number of facts
which you have yourself contributed, for a perfect
acquaintance with all the writings of others, for the
production of numerous works, translated into various
languages, and distinguished by copiousness and
[Seite vi] accuracy of information, sound opinions, and a con-
ciseness, perspicuity, and elegance that are seldom
seen; and no less for the powerful impulse which
you gave to the study of natural history, and espe-
cially of the Natural History of Man, almost before
the present generation existed.

To you I take the liberty of dedicating this work,
and with the more delight, as I know from the hap-
piness of personal acquaintance your liberal and
amiable disposition, your attachment to England,
and admiration of whatever is English.

Believe me,
My dear Sir,
Your very faithful friend and servant,

JOHN ELLIOTSON.
LONDON, March 1st, 1828.

TRANSLATOR’S PREFACE.

[[vii]]

Since the last publication of this work, a new
edition of the original has appeared. The text con-
tains no additions, and very few alterations, but
the references are augmented. According to this,
the present edition is re-modelled, and the whole
translation has been carefully revised.

The notes are doubled in amount, and indeed may
be almost considered perfectly new. Many points
are for the first time examined, former notes are
modified and enlarged, and the numerous and im-
portant discoveries lately made in physiology are
introduced.

Every opinion defended is that which seems to
me the fairest conclusion from our facts relative
to the subject. I can never bow to authority in
matters of investigation, but feel myself compelled
sentire quae velim; and, when a necessity for ex-
pressing an opinion exists, I hope always to have
courage sufficient dicere quae sentiam.

[Seite viii]

I have taken great pains to make myself master of
all important physiological facts, and to reason cor-
rectly from them; to give every author the credit of
originality which he deserves; and to be accurate in
my references. But after all I may frequently have
failed. If my inaccuracies cannot be excused on
the ground of the number and diversity of the points
examined, or my almost constant occupation with
another branch of medicine, both as a lecturer and a
public and private practitioner, I can only assure my
readers that the detection of any failure in reasoning
or inaccuracy of statement will be gratefully received,
and that my highest object and happiness are the ac-
quisition and dissemination of truth.

JOHN ELLIOTSON.

Grafton Street, Bond Street,

March 1. 1828.

THE AUTHOR’S PREFACE
TO
THE LAST EDITION.

[[ix]]

Whenever my booksellers have informed me that
a new edition of any of my works was required, my
greatest pleasure has been at having an opportunity
of correcting inaccuracies arising either from care-
lessness or the imperfection of human nature, and of
adding in some places and altering in others; in
short, of sending forth the production of my abilities
in as improved a state as possible.

In preparing this new edition of my Institutions
of Physiology for the press, the same anxious wish
has been considerably heightened by the importance
of the subject, and by the approbation evidently
bestowed upon the last edition from its translation
[Seite x] into various languages,a not to mention other proofs
of its favourable reception. I have endeavoured,
therefore, to enrich it not so much with an addition
of pages, as of various matter, and to render the
whole as useful to students as possible.

The little figure which I have thought a very
appropriate ornament for the title-page of the work,
viz. a representation of the human body, made by
Prometheus, but animated by Pallas, I borrowed
from the relievo of a sarcophagus in the Capitoline
Museum.b

May 7. 1821.

THE AUTHOR’S PREFACE
TO
THE FIRST EDITION.

[[xi]]

The same considerations which led Boerhaave, and
after him Haller, to write their Compendiums of
Physiology, induced the Author to compose these
Institutions.

The former says, ‘“that a teacher succeeds better
in explaining his own thoughts than in commenting
upon a work written by another, – that his instruction
will be clearer, and his language generally animated,
”’
&c.a

The latter, ‘“That, although he formerly used
Boerhaave’s work as a text-book, he afterwards
lectured upon one written by himself because anatomy
[Seite xii] had been so improved since the time of
Boerhaave,
as to have become almost a new science.”’b

What Haller said at that period respecting ana-
tomy, will be allowed to apply much more forcibly
at present to Physiology, by any one who considers
the most important parts of the science, – the princi-
pal purpose of respiration, animal heat, digestion,
the true nature and use of the bile, the function of
generation, &c.

More, therefore, must be ascribed to the age than
to the Author, if in these Institutions, after so many
modern physiological discoveries, he has delivered
doctrines more sound and natural than it was in the
power of his most meritorious predecessors to
deliver.

Whatever he can claim as his own, whether really
new or only presented in a new view, will easily be
discovered by the learned and impartial reader:
especially from the notes, in which he has treated
some of these subjects rather more minutely than
was compatible in the text with the conciseness of
his plan.

[Seite xiii]

He has been at great pains in arranging the
subjects, so that the sections might succeed naturally
and easily, and arise, as it were, one out of another.

He has not quoted a dry farrago of books, but a
select number, in doing which, he has been desirous
both of pointing out to students some excellent au-
thors not commonly known, especially those who
have professedly treated on particular branches of
the subject, and of opening, besides medical sources
of information, others not yet applied, he conceives,
to Physiology, as they deserve.

He has referred to the best anatomical plates;
most frequently to those of Eustachius, because he
would wish every medical student to possess Albinus’s
edition of them, as the richest and most perfect work
of the kind, or rather, he should say, as a treasure
which can never be praised sufficiently.

He has indeed given some original engravings of
parts either not represented at all by Eustachius, or
not in the same point of view.c

[Seite xiv]

His grand object has been to deliver, in a faithful,
concise, and intelligible manner, the principles of a
science inferior in beauty, importance, and utility, to
no part of medicine, if the words prefixed by the
immortal Galen to his Methodus Medendi, are true,
as they most certainly are: – ‘“The magnitude of a
disease is in proportion to its deviation from the
healthy state; and the extent of this deviation can be
ascertained by him only who is perfectly acquainted
with the healthy state.
”’

CONTENTS.

[[xv]]

Sect.

page

The Translator’s Notes follow the section to which the subject
of each respectively belongs.

The note on the characteristics and varieties of mankind, being
an independent addition, is placed last, and begins at p. 539.

THE
ELEMENTS
OF
PHYSIOLOGY. SECT. I.
OF THE LIVING HUMAN BODY IN GENERAL.

[Seite 1]

1. In the living human body, regarded as a peculiar
organisation, there are three objects of consideration.a

The materials of its subsistence, afforded by the fluids;
The structure of the solids, containing the fluids;
Lastly, and principally, the vital powers, by which the solids
are enabled to receive the influence of the fluids, to propel
the fluids, and to perform various other motions; and which,
as they, in a certain sense, constitute the essence of the living
machine in general, so, likewise, are of very different orders,
some being common to animals and vegetables, some peculiar
to animals and intimately connected with the mental faculties.

[Seite 2]

2. But these three, although really distinct, and, therefore,
distinctly considered by us, are so closely connected in the
living system (the phenomena, conditions, and laws of whose
functions, in the healthy state, are the object of physiology),
that no one can be contemplated but in its relation to the
rest.

For the materials of the body, although originally fluid,
are naturally disposed to become solid; and, on the other
hand, the solids, besides having been formed from the fluids,
abound, however dry they may appear, in various kinds of
fluid constituents, both liquid and permanently elastic, – gasi-
form, as they are termed; lastly, it may probably be affirmed
that no fibril, during life, is destitute of vital power.

3. We shall now examine each of these separately; and,
first, the materials afforded by the fluids, which form both
the fundamental and most considerableb portion of our
bodies.


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 fibresc 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: –

1. Cellular, 12. Fibro-cartilaginous,
2. Nervous, of animal life, 13. Muscular, of animal life
3. Nervous, of organic life, 14. Muscular, of organic life,
4. Arterial, 15. Mucous,
5. Venous, 16. Serous,
6. Exhalant, 17. Synovial,
7. Absorbent, with its glands, 18. Glandular,
8. Osseous, 19. Dermoid,
9. Medullary, 20. Epidermoid,
10. Cartilaginous, 21. Pilous.e
11. Fibrous (tendino-fibrous),

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

Cellular, Tendinous,
Horny, Vascular,
Cartilaginous, Muscular, and
Osseous, Nervousf

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

[Seite 4]

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

xxx

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,

[Seite 5]

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: –

Sugar,
Starch,
Lignin,
Gum, mucus, jelly,
Extractive, colouring matters, bitter
principles,
Gluten,
Oils, fixed and volatile,
Resins,



} All subject to endless
variety as occurring in
different plants.

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.

SECT. II.
OF THE FLUIDS IN GENERAL, AND PARTICULARLY OF THE
BLOOD.

[Seite 6]

4. The fluids of the bodya may be conveniently reduced
to three classes.

A. The crude; viz. the chyle, contained in the primae viae
and destined to become blood; and matters absorbed on the
surface and conveyed to the chyle.

B. The blood itself.

C. Those secreted from the blood, whether inert and ex-
crementitious, like the urine; or intended for certain pur-
poses in the economy: the latter may be permanently liquid,
as the bile; or disposed to solidity, as the osseous and other
plastic juices.

5. Of the first and third of these classes we shall hereafter
speak, in treating of chylification, secretion, and the other
functions to which each fluid appertains. At present our
attention shall be devoted to the bloodb – the chief and pri-
mary fluid –the vehicle of those successions of oxygenous
and carbonaceous particles, that cease with life only – the
nourisher of the frame – the source of almost every fluid –
that into which the crude fluid is converted, and from which
all the secretions are derived – and which, with the excep-
tion of some exsangueous parts, as the epidermis, the arach-
noid, the amnion, &c., the vitreous substance of the teeth, the
body of the crystalline lens, &c., is universally diffused
through the system; in various proportions, indeed, according
[Seite 7] to the various natures of parts, v. c. abundantly in the muscles,
and still more so in certain viscera, as the spleen, placenta,
and uterus at an advanced period of pregnancy; very spar-
ingly, on the other hand, in the tendons and cartilages.c

6. The blood is a fluid sui generis, of a well known colour
and peculiar odour; its taste is rather saline and nauseous;
its temperature about 96° of Fahrenheit; it is glutinous to
the touch; its specific gravity, though different in different
individuals, may be generally estimated as 1050, water being
1000; when fresh drawn and received into a vessel, it ex-
hibits the following appearances:d

7. At first, especially while still warm, it emits a vapour
which has of late been denominated an animal gas, and shown
to consist of hydrogen and carbon, suspended by caloric.e
This, if collected in a bell glass, forms drops resembling dew,
of a watery nature, but affording a nidorous smell, which is
most remarkable in the blood of carnivorous animals, is
peculiar, and truly animal. Much of this watery liquor still
remains united with the other parts of the blood, hereafter to
be mentioned. (C)

8. In the mean time the blood, when its temperature has
fallen to about 78° Fahr., begins to separate into two portions.
A coagulum is first formed, from the surface of which exudes,
[Seite 8] as it were, a fluid of a yellowish slightly red colour, denomi-
nated serum: the more abundantly this exudes, the greater is
the contraction of the glutinous coagulum, which has received
the appellations of crassamentum; and, from some resemblance
to the liver in colour and texture, of hepar sanguineum; of
placenta; and, from the circumstance of its being surrounded
by the serum, of insula. (D)

9. The crassamentum may, by agitation or repeated ablu-
tion, be easily separated into two constituent parts – the
cruor, which gave to the blood its purple colour, – and the
lymph, which on washing is forsaken by the cruor, and called,
from its greater solidity, the basis of the crassamentum. The
stronger affinity of the cruor for the lymph than for the serum,
is proved by the necessity of violence to effect their disunion.
By the removal of the cruor the lymph becomes gradually
paler, till it is at length merely a white tenacious coagulum.
(E)

10. Besides the watery fluid first mentioned, these are the
three constituents of the blood, viz. the serum, the cruor, and
the lymph, of each of which we shall presently treat more
particularly. These, however, while perfectly recent, and in
possession of their native heat, are intimately mixed, and
form an equable, homogeneous fluid. Their relative propor-
tion is astonishingly diversified, according to age, tempera-
ment, diet, and similar circumstances which constitute the
peculiar health of each individual.

11. The serum is a peculiar fluid, the chief cause of the
viscidity of the blood, and easily separable by art into dif-
ferent constituent principles. If subjected to a temperature
of 150° Fahr. a portion is converted into a white scissile sub-
stance, resembling boiled albumen: the rest exhibits, besides
the watery fluid so often mentioned, a turbid fluid of a gela-
tinous,
or rather mucousf nature, which on cooling appears a
tremulous coagulum. The serum is remarkable for the
quantity of soda (mineral alkali) which it contains. (F)

[Seite 9]

12. The cruor has many peculiarities, in regard to both
the colour and the figure of its particles.

It consists of globules, which in recent blood are of a con-
stant form and size, and said to be 1/3300 of an inch in diame-
ter. Their form, indeed, has been a subject of dispute, but
I am disposed to consider it as much more simple than some
writers of great celebrity have imagined. I have always
found it globular, and could never discover the lenticular
shape which some have asserted that they remarked.

It has been likewise advanced, that the globules change
their form while passing through a vessel of very small capa-
city, – that, from being spherical, they become oval; and,
when they have emerged into a vessel of larger area, that
they resume their globular shape.g This, although I would
by no means deny it, I cannot conceive to occur during the
tranquil and healthy motion of the blood, but should refer it
to a spasm of the small vessels.

Their globular figure can be seen in a living animal only,
or in blood very recently drawn: for they are soon unobserv-
able, becoming a shapeless mass which resembles serum in
every circumstance excepting colour.h

13. Their colour is red, and from it is derived the colour
of the blood. In intensity it varies infinitely; paler in ani-
mals which have been poorly nourished or have suffered
from haemorrhage; more florid, when oxygenisedi (rendered
arterial, to use the common phrase) by exposure either to
[Seite 10] atmospheric air, or, more especially, to oxygen; darker when
carbonised (in common language, rendered venous) and
placed in carbonic acid gas or hydrogen.k The redness is
most probably to be ascribed to the oxide of iron,l the quan-
tity of which, however, is so minute, that it has been most
variously estimated. (G)

14. The last constituent principle of the blood to be
noticed, is the plastic lymph, formerly confounded with the
serum. This has been called the basis of the crassamentum,
the glutinous part, the fibre or fibrous matter of the blood,
and, like the caseous part of milk, and the gluten of veget-
ables, been discovered by late analysis to abound in carbon
and azote. (H)

15. It is properly denominated plastic, because it affords
the chief materials from which the similar parts, especially the
muscles, are immediately produced; nourishes the body
throughout life; repairs wounds and fractures in an extraor-
dinary manner; fills up the areae of large blood vessels when
divided;m and forms those concretions which accompany
inflammations,n and that remarkable deciduous membrane
found in the recently impregnated uterus for the attachment
of the ovum.

16. Thus much have we said respecting the constituent parts
and nature of the blood, the most important fluid of the
animal machine, – a fluid which excites the heart to contrac-
tion; which distributes oxygen to every part, and conveys
away the carbon to the excretory vessels, giving rise, by this
change, to animal heat; which supplies the materials of the
[Seite 11] solids originally, and ever afterwards their nourishment; and
from which all the other fluids, with the exception of the
crude (4), are, secreted and derived. Of the multifarious im-
portance of the blood, we shall speak particularly hereafter.


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.

[Seite 12]

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 resultsb, 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 coagulationc; 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 thinnerh, 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 Hewsonm 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

Horse, in from 2 to 15
Ox, 2 to 10
Dog, 1/2 to 3
Sheep, hog, rabbit, 1/2 to 1 1/2
Lamb, 1/2 to 1 1/2
Fowls, 1/2 to 1
Mice, in a moment,
Fish, according to Huntero, also in a moment.
[Seite 16]

(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, lactatep, 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 moistenedr), 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 noticedp, 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

[Seite 18]

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

[Seite 19]

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
othersx, (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.

Hewsonz 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.

SECT. III.
OF THE SOLIDS IN GENERAL, AND OF THE MUCOUS WEB IN
PARTICULAR.

[Seite 23]

17. The solidsa are derived from the fluids. In the first
rudiments of the gelatinous embryo, they gradually commence
in their respective situations, and differ infinitely in their
degreesb of cohesion, from the soft and almost pulpy medul-
lary matter of the brain, to the vitreous substance of the
corona of the teeth.

18. Besides the gelatinous (11) and glutinous (14) parts
of the solids, earth enters more or less into their composi-
tion, and is principally lime united with phosphoric acid,
whence it is commonly termed phosphate of lime. The bones
possess this in the greatest abundance, particularly in ad-
vanced age: whereas in childhood the gelatinous matter
abounds.

19. With respect to texture, the majority of the similar
parts of the body, as the ancients called them,c consist of
fibres more or less parallel. This may be observed in the
bones, especially of foetuses,d in the muscles, tendons, liga-
[Seite 24] ments, aponeuroses, and in certain membranes, as the dura
mater, &c.

20. In other parts no fibres can be discovered, but the
texture is peculiar, has been called parenchyma from the time
of Erasistratus, and differs in different viscera, especially the
secreting, – of one kind in the liver, for example, and of
another in the kidneys.

21. But in all these structures, whether fibrous or paren-
chymatous, there is interwoven a general mucous web,e com-
monly styled cellular, but improperly, because it rather is
continuous, equal, tenacious, ductile, sub-pellucid, and glu-
tinous.f By handling, it is easily converted into a cellular
and vesicular membrane, and demands a place among the
most important and remarkable constituents of the body. (A)

22. For, in the first place, many solid parts, v. c. most
membranes and cartilages, may, by long-continued maceration,
be resolved into it alone. With some it is so intimately
united, as to afford a receptacle and support for other con-
stituents: v. c. the hardest bones consisted at first of cartilage,
which itself was a dense mucous web originally, though
subsequently distended by the effusion of bony matter into its
substance, and rendered more lax and cellular. In fact, it is
universally present in the solids, if we except the epidermis,
nails, hairs, and the vitreous exterior of the corona of the
teeth, in which I have never been able to discover it by em-
ploying the strongest acid.

23. To the muscles and membranes especially it serves for
separation from other parts; to the vessels and nerves espe-
cially for support; and to every part it acts as the common
medium of connection.

24. From these facts, two inferences may be drawn.

First: That this membrane is so fundamental a constituent
[Seite 25] of our structure, that, were every other part removed, and it
to retain its position, the body would still preserve its form.

Secondly: That it forms a connection and sort of passage
between all parts of the system, however different from each
other in nature, or remote in situation: – a circumstance
worthy of attention, as putting an end to the verbal disputes
respecting the continuation of membranes, and affording an
explanation of many morbid phenomena.

25. As most of the solids owe their existence to this mem-
brane, so again its origin is derived from the lymph of the
blood, for I have seen lymph transuded on the surface of
inflamed lungs, and changed into this mucous web, which,
by forming false membranes, unites these organs to the pleura.

26. We shall now consider some varieties of this membrane.

First: its strength is not the same in every part.

In general, it is more delicate, caeteris paribus, in man than
in brutes, – a distinguishing prerogative, by which our sense
is rendered more delicate, and our motions and other func-
tions more perfect.g

Among different individuals, it varies much in laxity and
firmness, according to age, sex, temperament, mode of life,
climate, &c.

Finally, it varies in different parts; – more lax in the pal-
pebrae and praeputium, and behind the fraenum of the tongue;
less so around the ears.

27. Besides the purposes before mentioned (22, 23,) it
is destined for the reception of several kinds of fluids.

Its chief use in this respect is to receive the serous halitus
which moistens and lubricates every part. This, when formed
by the blood vessels, it imbibes like a sponge, and delivers
over to the lymphatics, thus constituting the grand connec-
tion between these two systems of vessels.

28. In certain parts its office is to contain peculiar fluids;
v. c. in the eye, existing as the vitreous membrane, it contains
the vitreous humour:

[Seite 26]

In the bones, as the medullary membrane (improperly
denominated internal periosteum), the marrow:

In soft parts, it is in great abundance, and contains the
rest of the fat, of which we shall speak hereafter. (B)


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

CHAP. IV.
OF THE VITAL POWERS IN GENERAL, AND PARTICULARLY OF
CONTRACTILITY.

[Seite 27]

29. Hitherto we have spoken of the solids as the con-
stituents of the system; we now shall view them as endowed
with vitality, – capable of receiving the agency of stimuli,
and of performing motions.

30. Although vitalitya is one of those subjects which are
more easily known than defined, and usually, indeed, rendered
obscure rather than illustrated by an attempt at definition, its
effects are sufficiently manifest and ascribable to peculiar
powers only. The epithet vital is given to these powers,
because on them so much depend both the actions of the whole
body during life and those which remain in some parts for a
short time after death, that they are not referable to any
qualities merely physical, chemical, or mechanical.

31. The latter qualities, however, are of great importance
in our economy. For instance, by physical powers, depen-
dent on the density and figure of the humours of the eye,
the rays of light are refracted to the axis; by mechanical,
the epiglottis is elastic; by chemical affinity, the changes of
respiration are effected. But the perfect difference of these
dead powers from those which we are now about to examine,
is evident on the slightest comparison of an organised eco-
[Seite 28] nomy with any inorganic body, in which these inanimate
powers are equally strong.

32. Indeed, the energy and strength of the vital powers are most
conspicuously manifested by their resistance and superiority
to the others; v. c. during life, they so strongly oppose the
chemical affinities which induce putrefaction, that Stahl and
his followers referred their notion of life to this antiseptic
property;b they so far exceed the force of gravity, that,
according to the celebrated problem of Borelli, a dead muscle
would be broken asunder by the very same weight, which
it could easily raise if alive, &c.

33. As, on the one hand, the vital properties are com-
pletely different from the properties of dead matter, so, on
the other, they must be carefully distinguished from the
mental faculties, which will form the subject of the next chap-
ter: between them, however, there exists an intimate and
various relation, observable in many phenomena, but espe-
cially in the diversity of temperament.

34. The vital energy is the very basis of physiology, and has
therefore been always noticed, though under different appel-
lations.
The titles of impetum faciens, innate heat, archaeus,
vital spirit, brute life, head of the nervous system, active
thinking principle, vital tonic attraction, have been bestowed
upon it by different authors.

35. Nor has there been less variety in the notions and de-
finitions to which it has given rise; though in this one point
all have agreed, – that its nature and causes are most
obscure.

36. As to the question so long agitated by physiologists, –
whether the diversity of the phenomena exhibited in the
similar parts of the living solid is to be attributed to mo-
difications only, or to distinct species, of the vital energy, we
think it best to establish distinct orders of the vital powers,
[Seite 29] according to the variety of phenomena by which they are
manifested.

37. These phenomena are threefold. – Organic formation
and increase; motion in the parts when formed; sensation
from the motion of certain similar parts.

38. The first requisite involved in the name and notion of
an organised body, is a determinate form designed for certain
ends. That species, therefore, of the vital powers is most
general, which produces the genital and nutritive fluids and
prepares them for organic nature, and which we have deno-
minated the nisus formativus, since it is the source of all
generation, nutrition, and reproduction, in each organised
kingdom.

39. Those vital powers which are manifested by motion, (37)
properly so called, in parts already formed, may be divided
into common and proper. The common are those belonging
to similar parts which are widely distributed: v. c. contrac-
tility to the mucous web; irritability to the muscular fibre.
The proper are those possessed by some singular organs only,
for the purpose of peculiar and anomalous motions.

40. Contractility is as generally distributed as the mucous
web, which it may be said to animate; and therefore would
perhaps not improperly be called the vis cellulosa. It is
characterised by a simple and not very perceptible effort of
the mucous web to contract and react upon its contents, espe-
cially upon its source of moisture, – the serous vapour, and
to propel this into the lymphatic system.c

41. Irritability, we mean the irritability of Haller, is pecu-
liar to the muscles, and may, therefore, be called the vis mus-
cularis.
It is marked by an oscillatory or tremulous motion,
distinguished from the action of simple contractility, both by
occurring far more easily on the application of any pretty
[Seite 30] strong stimulus,d and by being attended with a much more
considerable constriction.

42. Such are the common (39) moving vital powers. But
some organs differ from the rest so much in their structure,
motions, and functions, as not to come under the laws of the
common orders of vital powers.

We must, consequently, either reform the characters of
these orders, institute new ones, and extend their limits; or,
till this be done, separate these peculiar motions from the
common orders, and designate them by the name of vitae
propriae.
e

As examples may be adduced, the motions of the iris; the
erection of the nipple; the motions of the fimbriae of the Fal-
lopian tubes; the action of the placenta; and of the womb
during labour; and probably the greater part of the function
of secretion.f

43. So much in regard to the vital powers displayed by
motion. (37. 39–42.)

We have now to speak of sensibility, which is peculiar to
the nervous medulla communicating with the sensorium. It
bears the title of vis nervea, and is the cause of perception in
the mind when irritation is excited in parts to which it is
distributed.g

44. The order which we have followed in enumerating the
vital powers (38–43) is that in which they successively arise
both during our formation and after birth.

[Seite 31]

The nisus formativus must take place before we can ascer-
tain the existence of the new conception.

Then contractility is exerted in the gelatinous substance of
the embryo.

When the muscular fibres are produced, they have
irritability.

Next, in those few organs whose motions cannot properly
be referred either to contractility or irritability, there exists a
vita propria.

Finally, after birth, sensibility is superadded.

45. Similar also is the order, according to which these vital
powers, both common and proper, are distributed to the
organised bodies of each kingdom.h

The formative power must be most universal; without it,
indeed, organisation cannot be conceived to exist.

Contractility likewise is common to each kingdom.

Irritability and sensibility, in the sense above explained,
are peculiar to animals.

Lastly, the vita propria is variously observable in some
organs, particularly the generative, both of certain animals
and vegetables.

46. It is scarcely necessary to remark that most of these
modes of vital energy, though necessarily distinguished into
orders, are intimately connected; v. c. the mucous web,
forming the basis of so many organs and the seat of their
contractility, is interwoven also with the irritable muscular
fibresi and the sensible nerves.

47. Whatever may have been the opinions of physiologists
respecting the difference or similarity of the vital powers, it is
universally agreed that they exist in the similar solid parts,
as the ancients called them, of which the organs or dissimilar
parts are composed.

[Seite 32]

But it has been disputed, and particularly of late, whether
vitality is peculiar to the solids, or common also to the fluids;
and, the latter being granted, whether or no the blood only is
so endowed.

48. As to the first question, the whole natural history of
each organic kingdom, as far as it has hitherto been cultivated,
abundantly shows that the living parts, however delicate, of
all known animals and vegetables, are solid; – a circumstance
necessarily implied in their determinate figure destined for
certain uses. For, not to speak of entire animals (which,
however simple, as worms, are, nevertheless, supplied with
enveloping membranes), the newly-laid egg, though at first
sight merely fluid, on a more careful examination is discovered
to consist of different membranes, of the halones, the cica-
tricula, &c.

Humidity is, indeed, necessary in the living solid for the
exertion of vitality. But that vitality exists in the solid, as
solid, is proved by the well-known instances of animalcules
and the seeds of plants, in which, although long dried, the
vital principle is so entire, that they again live and germinate.

49. With respect to the supposed exclusive vitality of the
blood, I candidly confess that no fact has been adduced in its
favour since the time of Harvey, which might not, I think, be
more easily, simply, and naturally explained on the contrary
supposition.

For example, the incorruptibility of the blood during life,
is far more explicable by the perpetual changes which it
undergoes, especially in respiration.

That the blood is the material from which the living solids
are produced, is no stronger an argument of its vitality than
the formation of nymphaeae, and of so many other remarkable
plants, would be for the vitality of river water.

It is difficult to comprehend how the coagulation of the
lymph of the blood when drawn from a vein can demonstrate
its vitality. The organisation of this lymph in generation,
nutrition, and reproduction, depends not upon the lymph
[Seite 33] itself, as lymph, but upon the action of the nisus formativus
(38) upon it.

50. Those who formerly contended that the blood acquires
in the lungs from the air a certain principle to be universally
distributed during circulation, for the purpose of imparting
motion, &c. to the organs, were right, if they regarded that
principle (analogous to the oxygen of the moderns) as the
stimulant of the living solid; wrong, if they regarded it as
vitality itself.k

51. For it is on all hands agreed, that no motion occurs but
upon the action of stimuli, to receive which action the vital
powers are naturally adapted and intended.

52. These stimuli,l however multifarious, are conveniently
reduced to three classes; – chemical, mechanical, and mental.
For the present, we shall say nothing of their various modes
of action, – in some instances direct, – in others indirect, by
sympathy and sensorial reaction. It is sufficient at present to
cite a few examples of functions, to which each class of stimuli
conspires; such is the increased secretion of tears, saliva, bile,
&c. and the venereal turgescence of the genitals.

53. If the nature of stimuli is infinitely various, no less so
are their effects, according to their nature, intensity, or con-
tinued and repeated application to the living solid. Hence
they are generally divided into exciting and depressing.

54. The power of certain stimuli in increasing the effects
of others, is very remarkable: v. c. the power of caloric, upon
which probably national temperament chiefly depends.m That
of joy, a most energetic mental stimulus, is similar.n Like-
[Seite 34] wise perhaps that of oxygen, (50) by whose chemical stimulus
the vital powers, particularly irritability, are greatly excited,
and more disposed to react upon the impulse of other stimuli.

55. Not less considerable than the variety of stimuli, is that
mare minute discrepancy of the different organs, and of the
same organs in different individuals, according to age, sex,
temperament, idiosyncrasy, habit, mode of life, &c., to which
are owing the diversified effects of the same stimuli upon dif-
ferent organs of the same body,o and even upon the same in
different individuals, and upon which depends what the
English have lately termed specific irritability.p

56. Lastly, the influence of stimuli by means of sympathy,
is very extraordinary: by its means, if one part is excited,
another, frequently very remote, consents in feeling, motion,
or some peculiar function.q

The primary and most extensive cause of sympathy must
be referred to the nerves,r and indeed chiefly to the sensorial
reaction;
s that if one nervous portion is excited, the sen-
sorium is affected, which, reacting by means of the nerves on
another part, draws it into consent with the first, although
there exist between them no immediate nervous connection.
Such is the sympathy of the iris, when the retina is stimulated
by light; and of the diaphragm during sneezing, when the
Schneiderian membrane is irritated.

There are other examples of sympathy, in which the nerves
[Seite 35] have, if any, but a more remote and accessory share:t among
these must be placed the sympathy along the blood vessels,
strikingly instanced, especially in advanced pregnancy, be-
tween the internal mammary and epigastric arteries, from
their anastomosis; that along the lymphatic vessels,u also most
remarkable during pregnancy and suckling; and again, that
dependent on analogy of structure and function, v. c. the sym-
pathy of the lungs with the common integuments and in-
testines. (A)

57. So much with respect to the vital powers in general.
They will be hereafter separately considered, under the distinct
heads of our subject:

The nisus formativus under the head of Generation;

Irritability under that of the Muscles;

Sensibility under that of the Nervous System;

The vita propria whenever occasion requires.

58. Besides our former brief remarks (40) upon contrac-
tility,
a few more minute will at present be very appropriate.

It prevails universally, (40) wherever the mucous tela is
discoverable.

It is consequently most abundant in parts, destitute of
proper parenchyma, but composed almost entirely of mucous
tela, v. c. in certain membranes. For no one will deny their
contractility, who reflects upon the spastic motions of the
dartos, the male urethra, or of the gall bladder, which after
death has often been found closely contracted upon any calculi
it may contain.

It appears also in those viscera which consist chiefly of this
tela, v. c. in the lungs, whose external surface we have found
[Seite 36] on frequent living dissection very contractile, but by no means,
as Varnier asserted, truly irritable. (B)

The presence of contractility, even in the bones, is demon-
strated by the shrinking of the alveoli after the loss of the
teeth, and by the process of necrosis, by which the new bone,
when the dead portion is extricated from its cavity, gradually
contracts to its natural size and figure.

The vitreous substance of the teeth, being destitute of this
tela (22), possesses no contractility, as I think appears from
the circumstance of its not shrinking, like the alveoli, if a
portion is separated by caries or fracture.

59. This contractility of the mucous tela (C) is the chief
cause of strength, health, and beauty; since on it depend the
vital elasticity and fulness,x and indeed the tone, of parts, so
elegantly described by Stahl; for by its means, the mucous
tela, to mention one only of its functions, absorbs, during
health, the serous fluid (27) like a sponge, and propels it into
the lymphatic vessels: in disease, on the contrary, having lost
its tone, it is filled with water, giving rise to oedema and
similar cachexies.

60. Finally, the great influence of this contractility upon
the other vital powers, is manifest from its universal existence,
and its effect in producing the peculiar constitution and tem-
perament of individuals; and from its infinite varieties and
degrees in different persons.


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 divisionz 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, occursc; 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-
cupiedd; 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)

SECT. V.
OF THE MENTAL FACULTIES.

[Seite 40]

61. Man, whom we have found possessed of a body, an-
swering completely, both in matter and texture, as well as in
vital powers, the purposes of its formation, is endowed like-
wise with a mind, a ‘“divinae particula aurae,”’ intimately con-
nected with the body, and developing by education and
exercise various kinds of faculties, which we shall concisely
enumerate, as far as they belong to our subject.a

62. The sensibility of the nerves, mentioned above among
the vital powers, (43) constitutes, as it were, the medium
which propagates the impressions of stimuli upon sensible
parts, and especially upon the organs of sense (the functions
of each of which we shall hereafter examine), to the sensorial
portion of the brain, in such a manner that they are perceived
by the mind.

63. The mental faculty to be first enumerated, and indeed
to be placed at the bottom of the scale, is the faculty of per-
ception,
by means of which the mind takes cognisance of im-
pressions made upon the body, and chiefly upon the organs
of sense, and becomes furnished with ideas.

64. This faculty is assisted by another of a higher order, –
attention, which so directs the mind, when excited, to any
idea, that it dwells upon that idea alone, and surveys it fully.

65. To preserve and recall the marks of ideas, is the office
[Seite 41] of memory – the part of the mind, that, in the language of
Cicero, is the guardian of the rest.

66. Imagination,b on the contrary, is the faculty of the
mind, that represents not merely the signs, but the very images
of objects, in the most lively manner, as if they were present
before the eyes.

67. Abstraction forms general notions more remote from
sense.

68. Judgment compares and examines the relations both of
the ideas of sense and of abstract notions.

69. Lastly Reason – the most noble and excellent of all the
faculties, draws inferences from the comparisons of the judg-
ment.c

70. The combination of these constitutes the intellectual
faculty.
But there is another order, relating to appetency, the
word being taken in its most extensive meaning.

71. For since we are impelled by various internal stimuli
to provide food and other necessaries, and also to satisfy the
sexual instinct, and are impelled the more violently, in pro-
portion as we are inflamed by imagination, desires, properly
so called, are thus produced; and if, on the other hand, the
mind becomes weary of unpleasant sensations, aversions occur.

72. Finally, that faculty which selects out of many desires
and aversions, and can at pleasure determine to perform
functions of the body for certain purposes, is denominated
volition.

73. Our order of enumeration corresponds with that of
[Seite 42] the developement of the faculties, and with the relation in
which those which were first mentioned, – common to man
and brutes, and those more or less peculiar to man, stand to
each other.


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

[Seite 49]

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.

SECT. VI.
OF HEALTH AND HUMAN NATURE.

[Seite 50]

74. Since health,a which is the true subject of physiology,
depends upon such an harmony and equilibrium of the matter
and powers of the system, as is requisite for the due perform-
ance of its physical functions, it is very evident how the four
principles, examined above, contribute to its support.

75. Fluids properly prepared are the first requisite; in the
next place, solids duly formed from the fluids; then the invi-
gorating influence of the vital powers upon the solids; lastly,
a sound mind in this sound body.

76. These four principles act and react perpetually upon
each other. The fluids are stimuli to the solids; these again
are calculated by their vital powers to experience the influence
of these stimuli, and to react upon them. In reference to the
intimate union of the mind with the body, suffice it at present
to remark, that it is far more extensive than might at first
be imagined. For instance, the influence of the will is not con-
fined within the narrow limits of those actions designated
voluntary in the schools of physiology; and the mind, on
the other hand, is influenced by the affections of the body, in
many other ways than by the perceptions of sense, properly
so called.b

77. From the endless variety and modification of the con-
ditions belonging to these four principles, it may be easily
[Seite 51] understood what great latitudec must be given to the notion
of health.

For since, as Celsus long ago observed, almost every one
has some part weaker than the rest, Galen may in this sense
assert with truth, that no one enjoys perfect health.

And even among those who, in common language, we say
are in good health, this is variously modified in each indi-
vidual.d

78. Upon this endless modification is founded the differ-
ence of temperaments;e or, in other words, of the mode and
aptitude of the living solidf in each individual, to be affected
by stimuli, especially the mental; and again, of the mental
stimuli, to be excited with greater or less facility.

79. So various are the differences of degree and combin-
ation in the temperaments, that their divisions and orders may
be multiplied almost without end. We shall content our-
selves with the four orders commonly received:g – The san-
guineous,
– excited most readily, but slightly; The choleric,
excited readily and violently; The melancholic, – excited
slowly, but more permanently; And the phlegmatic, – excited
the most slowly of all, and indeed with difficulty. (A)

This division, although built by Galen upon an absurd
foundation derived from an imaginary depravation of the
[Seite 52] elements of the blood, appears, if made to stand alone, both
natural and intelligible.

80. The predisposing and occasional causes of the diver-
sity of temperaments are very numerous, v. c. hereditary ten-
dency, habit of body, climate, diet, religion, mode of life, and
luxury.h

81. Besides the variety of temperaments, circumstances
to which every individual is exposed, increase, by influencing
the number, as well as the energy and vigour, of the functions,
the latitude (77) in which the term health must be received.
In regard to age, the health of a new-born infant is different
from that of an adult; in regard to sex it differs in a mar-
riageable virgin and an old woman past child-bearing, and
during menstruation and suckling; in regard to mode of life,
it is different in the barbarous tribes of North America and in
effeminate Sybarites. Moreover, in every person, custom
(whose great power has obtained for it the title of second
nature) has an extraordinary influencei over every function,
v. c. sleep, diet, &c.

82. The more functions flourish simultaneously in the
body, the more considerable is its life; and vice versâ. Hence
life is the greatest when the functions have attained their
highest exaltation in adult age; and least when the functions,
although very perfect according to the course of nature, are
fewer and more sluggish, v. c. in the newly conceived embryo;
life is for the same reason less vigorous during sleep than
during the opposite state, &c.

83. The functions have been long divided by physiologists
into four classes.k This division, although not unexception-
[Seite 53] able, nor exactly conformable to nature,l may assist the me-
mory.m

1. The first class comprehends the vital functions, so
termed, because their uninterrupted and complete perform-
ance is necessary to life; such are the circulation of the blood
and respiration.

2. The second comprehends the animal functions, by which
animals are chiefly distinguished from vegetables; such is the
communication of the mind with the body, especially sense,
and muscular motion.

3. The third is the natural, by means of which the body is
nourished.

4. The fourth, the genital, intended for the propagation of
the species.

We shall now examine each of these separately; beginning
with the vital. (B)


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
applicationq; 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

[Seite 57]

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 alivez, 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, showsd 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

[Seite 72]

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.

[Seite 73]

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 difficultiesz (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, –

‘“–––– this pleasing hope, this fond desire,’
‘This longing after immortality,’
‘–––– this secret dread and inward horror’
‘Of falling into nought,”’d

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

[Seite 80]

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

SECT. VII.
ON THE MOTION OF THE BLOOD.

[Seite 81]

84. The blood, to whose great and multifarious import-
ance in the system we have slightly alluded (16), is conveyed,
with a few exceptions (5), into the most internal and extreme
recesses. This is proved by the minute injection of the ves-
sels, and by the well known fact of blood issuing from almost
every part on the smallest scratch.

85. This red fluid does not, like an Euripus, ebb and flow
in the same vessels, as the ancients imagined, but pursues a
circular course; so that being propelled from the heart into
the arteries, it is distributed throughout the body, and returns
again to the heart through the veins.a

86. We shall, therefore, say something at present of the
vessels which contain the blood; and afterwards, of the powers
by which they propel and receive it.

87. The vessels which receive the blood from the heart
and distribute it throughout the body, are termed arteries.

These are, upon the whole, less capacious than the veins:
but in adult, and advanced age especially, of a texture far
more solid and compact, very elastic and strong.

88. The arteries consist of three coats:b

[Seite 82]

I. The exterior, called, by Haller, the tunica cellulosa
propria
; by others, the nervous, cartilaginous, tendinous, &c.
It is composed of condensed cellular membrane, externally
more lax, internally more and more compact: blood vessels
are seen creeping upon it:c it gives very great tone and
elasticity to the arteries.

II. The middle coat consists of transverse fibres,d lunated
or falciform, and almost of a fleshy nature: hence this has the
name of muscular coat, and appears to be the chief seat of
the vital powers of the arteries.

III. The inner coat lining the cavity of the arteries is
highly polished and smooth.

This is much more distinct in the trunks and larger
branches than in the smaller vessels.

89. Every artery originates, either

From the pulmonary artery (the vena arteriosa of the
ancients), which proceeds from the anterior ventricle of the
heart and goes to the lungs;

Or from the aorta, which proceeds from the posterior ven-
tricle and is distributed throughout the rest of the system.

These trunks divide into branches, and these again into
twigs, &c.

90. According to the commonly received opinion, the
united capacity of the branches in any part of the sanguiferous
system, is greater than that of the trunk from which they
arise. But I fear that this is too general an assertion, and
even that the measure of the diameter has been sometimes
improperly confounded with that of the area. I myself have
never been able to verify it, although my experiments have
been frequently repeated, and made, not on vessels injected
with wax, after the bad example of some illustrious physiolo-
gists, but on the undisturbed vessels of recent subjects, v. c.
on the innominata and its two branches – the right carotid
[Seite 83] and subclavian, on the brachial and its two branches – the
radial and ulnar.e

The inconstancy of the proportion between the capacity of
the branches and that of the trunks is clearly shown by the
various sizes of the vessels under different circumstances, v. c.
by the relative capacity of the inferior thyreoid artery in the
infant and the adult; of the epigastric artery in the virgin
and the mother near her delivery; and also of the uterine
vessels in the virgin and the pregnant woman; of the omental
vessels during the repletion and vacuity of the stomach.f

91. The arteries, after innumerable divisions and important
anastomosesg connecting different neighbouring branches,
terminate at length in the beginning of the veins. By this
means, the blood is conveyed back again to the heart. The
distinction between artery and vein, at the point of union,
is lost.

In the present state of our knowledge, the umbilical vessels
are to be regarded as the only exception to the termination of
arteries in veins. We shall show that they are connected
with the uterine vessels by the intervention of a spongy sub-
stance, called parenchyma.

92. Another description of vessels arise universally from
the arteries, and are called colourless, from not containing pure
blood, either on account of their minuteness, or of their
specific irritability which causes them to reject that fluid.
Such are the nutrient and other secretory vessels: of which
hereafter.

[Seite 84]

The blood conveyed from the heart throughout the
body by the arteries is carried back by the veins.h

These are very different in function and structure from the
arteries, excepting, however, the minutest of both systems,
which are indistinguishable.

94. The veins, except the pulmonary, are universally
more capacious than the arteries; more ramified; much
more irregular in their course and division; in adult age,
softer and far less elastic, but still very firm and remarkably
expansile.

95. Their coats are so much thinner that the blood appears
through them. They are likewise less in number, being
solely a cellular external, somewhat resembling the nervous
of the arteries; and a very polished internal, also nearly
agreeing with that of the arteries.

A muscular coat exists only in the trunks nearest the
heart.

96. The interior coat forms, in nearly all veins of more
than a line in diameter, very beautiful valves, of easy play,
resembling bags, generally single, frequently double, and
sometimes triple, placed with their fundus towards the origin
of the vein and their edge towards the heart.

These valves are not found in some parts; not in the
brain, heart, lungs, secundines, nor in the system of the vena
portae.

97. The twigs, or, more properly, the radicles, of the
veins, unite into branches, and these again into six principal
trunks: viz.

Into the two cavae, superior and inferior:

And the four trunks of the pulmonary vein (the arteria
venosa of the ancients).

The vena portae is peculiar in this, that, having entered
the liver, it ramifies like an artery, and its extreme twigs pass
[Seite 85] into the radicles of the inferior cava, thus coalescing into a
trunk.

98. That the blood may be properly distributed and circu-
lated through the arteries and veins, nature has provided the
heart,i in which the main trunks of all the blood vessels
unite, and which is the grand agent and mover of the whole
human machine, – supporting this – the chief of the vital
functions, with a constant and truly wonderful power, from
the second or third week after conception to the last moment
of existence.

99. The heart alternately receives and propels the blood.
Receiving it from the whole body by means of the superior
and inferior vena cava, and from its own substance through
the common orifice of the coronary veins, that is supplied
with a peculiar valve,k it conveys that fluid into the anterior
sinus and auricle, and thence into the corresponding ventricle,
which, as well as the auricle, communicates with both orders
of the heart’s own vessels by the openings of Thebesius.l

100. From this anterior, or, in reference to the heart of
some animals, right, ventricle, the blood is impelled through
the pulmonary artery into the lungs: returning from which,
it enters the four pulmonary veins and proceeds into their
common sinus and the left, or, as it is now more properly
termed, posterior, auricle.m

101. The blood flows next into the corresponding ventricle;
and then, passing into the aorta, is distributed through the
arterial system of the body in general and the coronary vessels
of the heart itself.n

[Seite 86]

102. Having proceeded from the extreme twigs of the
general arterial system into the radicles of the veins, and
from the coronary arteries into the coronary veins, it finally
is poured into the two venae cavae, and then again pursues
the same circular course.

103. The regularity of this circular and successive motion
through the cavities of the heart is secured, and any retrograde
motion prevented, by valves, which are placed at the prin-
cipal openings, viz. at the openings of the auricles into the
ventricles, and of the ventricles into the pulmonary artery and
aorta.

104. Thus the ring, or venous tendon, which forms the
limit of the anterior auricle and ventricle, descending into the
latter cavity, becomes these tendinous valves.o These were
formerly said to have three apices, and were, therefore, called
triglochine or tricuspid: they adhere to the fleshy pillars,
or, in common language, the papillary muscles.

105. In a similar manner, the limits of the posterior auricle
and ventricle are defined by a ring of the same kind, forming
two valves, which, from their form, have obtained the appel-
lation of mitral.p

106. At the opening of the pulmonary arteryq and aortar
are found the triple semilunar or sigmoid valves,s fleshy and
elegant, but of less circumference than the mitral.

107. It is obvious how these differently formed valves must
prevent the retrocession of the blood into the cavities which
it has left. They readily permit the blood to pass on, but
are expanded, like a sail, against it, by any attempt at retro-
grade movement, and thus close the openings.

[Seite 87]

108. The texture of the heart is peculiar: fleshy, indeed,
but very dense and compact, far different from common
muscularity.t

It is composed of fasciculi of fibres, more or less oblique,
here and there singularly branching out, variously and
curiously contorted and vorticose in their direction, lying
upon each other in strata, closely interwoven between the
cavities, and bound by four cartilaginous bands at the basis
of the ventricles, which thus are, as it were, supported and
are distinguished from the fibres of the auricles.u

109. These fleshy fibres are supplied with very soft nerves,x
and an immense number of blood vessels, which arise from
the coronary arteries, and are so infinitely ramified,y that
Ruysch described the whole structure of the heart as com-
posed of them.z

110. This universal vital viscus is loosely contained in the
pericardium,a which is a membraneous sac, arising from the
mediastinum, very firm, accommodated to the figure of the
heart, and moistened internally by an exhalation from the
arteries of that organ. Its importance is evinced by its
existence being, in red blooded animals, as general as that of
the heart; and by our having but two instances on record of
its absence in the human subject.b

111. By this structure the heart is adapted for its perpetual
[Seite 88] and equable motions, which are an alternate systole and
diastole, or contraction and relaxation of the auricles and
ventricles in succession. (A)

112. Thus, as often as the auricles contract to impel the
blood of the venae cavae and pulmonary veins into the
ventricles, the latter are at the same moment relaxed, to
receive the blood: immediately afterwards, when the distended
ventricles are contracting to impel the blood into the two
great arteries, the auricles relax and receive the fresh venous
supply.

113. The systole of the ventricles, upon which is said to
be spent 1/3 of the time of the whole action of the heart, is
performed in such a way that their external portions are
drawn towards their septum, and the apex of the heart
towards the base.a This at first sight seems disproved by the
circumstance of the apex striking against the left nipple, and,
consequently, appearing elongated, – a circumstance, how-
ever, to be attributed to the double impetus of the blood
flowing into the auricles and expelled from the ventricles,
by which double impetus the heart must be driven against
that part of the ribs. (B)

114. The impulse imparted by the heart to the blood, is
communicated to the arteries, so that every systole of the
heart is very clearly manifested in those arteries which can
be explored by the fingers and exceed 1/6 of an inch in the
diameter of their canal, and in those also whose pulsation can
be otherwise discovered, as in the eye and ear. The effect
upon the arteries is called their diastole, and is perfectly
correspondent and synchronous with the systole of the heart.

115. The quickness of the heart’s pulsations during health
varies indefinitely; chiefly from age, but also from other
conditions which at all ages form the peculiar constitution of
an individual: so that we can lay down no rule on this point.
I may, however, be permitted to mention the varieties which
[Seite 89] I have generally found in our climateb at different ages,
beginning with the new-born infant, in which, while placidly
sleeping, it is about 140 in a minute.

Towards the end of the first year, about 124
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . second year 110
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . third and fourth year 96
When the first teeth begin to drop out 86
At puberty about 80
At manhood about 75
About sixty 60

In those more advanced, I have scarcely twice found it
alike.

116. The pulse is, caeteris paribus, more frequent in
women than in men, and in short than in tall persons. A
more constant fact, however, is its greater slowness in the
inhabitants of cold climates.c

Its greater frequency after meals and the discharge of
semen, during continued watchfulness, exercise, or mental
excitement, is universally known. (C)

117. The heart rather than the arteries is to be regarded
as the source of these varieties, which we have, therefore,
detailed here.

Its action continues in this manner till death, and then all
its parts do not, at once, cease to act; but the right portion,
for a short period, survives the left.d

For, since the collapsed state of the lungs after the last
expiration impedes the course of the blood from the right
[Seite 90] side, and the veins must be turgid with the blood just driven
into them from the arteries, it cannot but happen that this
blood, driving against the right auricle, must excite it to
resistance for some time after the death of the left portion of
the heart.

118. This congestion on the right side of the heart affords
an explanation of the small quantity of blood found in the
large branches of the aorta.

Weiss,e and after him Sabatier,f ascribe to this cause
likewise the comparatively larger sizeg of the right auricle
and ventricle after death, especially in the adult subject.

119. The motion of the blood is performed by these two
orders of vessels in conjunction with the heart. Its celerity
in health cannot be determined. For this varies not only in
different persons, but in different parts of the same person.

Generally, the blood moves more slowly in the veins than
in the arteries, and in the small vessels than in the large
trunks, although these differences have been overrated by
physiologists.

The mean velocity of the blood flowing into the aorta is
usually estimated at 8 inches for each pulsation, or about 50
feet in a minute.

120. Some have affirmed that the globules of the cruor
move more in the axis of the vessels, and with greater rapidity,
than the other constituents of the blood. I know not whether
this rests upon any satisfactory experiment, or upon an im-
proper application of the laws of hydraulics; improper,
because it is absurd to refer the motion of the blood through
living canals, to the mere mechanical laws of water moving in
an hydraulic machine. I have never been able to observe
this peculiarity of the globules.

My persuasion is still more certain that the globules pass
[Seite 91] on with the other constituents of the blood, and are not
rotated around their own axis; – that besides the progressive,
there is no intestine motion in the blood, although indeed
there can be no doubt that the elements of this fluid are
occasionally divided, – where they are variously impelled
according to the different direction, division, and anastomoses
of the vessels.

121. The moving powers of the sanguiferous system are
now to be examined: first, those of the heart, by far the
greatest of all; afterwards, those which are only subsidiary,
though indeed highly useful.

122. That the powers of the heart cannot be accurately
calculated is clear, upon reflecting that neither the volume of
the blood projected at each pulsation, nor the celerity nor
distance of its projection, much less the obstacles to the powers
of the heart, can be accurately determined, &c.

123. A rough calculation may be made by taking every
probable conjecture together: v. c. if the mean mass of the
blood is considered as 10 pounds, or 120 ounces; the puls-
ations 75 in a minute, or 4500 in an hour; and the quantity
of blood expelled from the left ventricle at each contraction,
as 2 ounces; it follows that all the blood must pass through
the heart 75 times every hour.

The impetus of the blood passing from the heart, may be
conceived by the violence and altitude of the stream projected
from a large wounded artery situated near it. I have seen the
blood driven at first to the distance of above 5 feet from
the carotid of an adult and robust man.h

[Seite 92]

124. This wonderful, and, while life remains, constant,
strength of the heart, is universally allowed to depend upon
its irritability, (41) in which it very far surpasses, especially
as to duration,i (98) every other muscular part.k

That the parietes of the cavities are excited to contraction
by the stimulus of the blood, is proved by the experiment of
Haller, who lengthened at pleasure the motion of either side
of the heart, by affording it the stimulus of the blood for a
longer period than the other.l (D)

125. Since a supply of nerves and blood is requisite to the
action of the voluntary muscles, it has been enquired whether
these, both or either, are requisite to the heart also.m

The great influence of the nerves over the heart, is demon-
strated by the size of the cardiac nerves, and by the great
sympathy between the heart and most functions, however dif-
ferent. A convincing proof of this, is the momentary sym-
pathy of the heart during the most perfect healthn with all
the passions, and with the primae viae in various disorders.

The great importance of the blood to the irritability of the
heart, is evident from the great abundance of vessels in its
muscular substance.

[Seite 93]

Nevertheless it is very probable, that the importance of the
nerves in this respect is greater in the voluntary muscles, and
of the blood in the heart.

126. Besides these powers of the heart, there is another,
which is mechanical, dependent on structure, and contributing
greatly, in all probability, to sustain the circulation. For,
when the blood is expelled from the contracted cavities, a
vacuum takes place, into which, according to the common
laws of derivation, the blood from the venous trunks must
rush, being prevented, by means of the valves, from regur-
gitating.o (E)

127. We must now enquire what powers are exerted by
other organs in assisting the circulation. The existence of
some secondary powers and their ability to assist, or even in
some cases to compensate for, the action of the heart, are
proved by several arguments: v. c. the blood moves in some
parts to which the influence of the heart cannot reach, – in
the vena portae and placenta; not to mention instances of the
absence of the heart.p

128. The principal of these powers is the function of the
arteries, not easy indeed to be clearly understood and demon-
strated. 1. It is well known that they have a peculiar coat,
which is all but muscular. (88) (F) 2. That they are irri-
table, has been proved by repeated experiments.q 3. The
size of the soft nerves arising from the sympathetic, and sur-
[Seite 94] rounding the larger arterial branches with remarkable net-
works, particularly in the lower part of the abdomen,r argues
the importance of these vessels in assisting the motion of the
blood.s

129. All know that the arteries pulsate, and indeed vio-
lently, so that if, v. c. we place one leg over the other knee, we
find not only that it, but even a much greater weight, may be
raised by the pulsation of the popliteal. Hence an alternate
systole and diastole, corresponding with those of the heart,
have long been assigned to them.

But this, although commonly believed on the evidence of
sense, is open to much question:t it may be asked, especially,
whether this pulsation is referable to the power of the artery,
or only to the impulse given by the heart to the blood pro-
pelled into the aorta.

130. And indeed, after all, it appears that the diastole of
an artery is owing to a lateral distension given by the impetus
of the blood, so that the coats are expanded, and, by their
elasticity, the next moment reacquire their natural thickness.
To the same impulse may be ascribed the lateral motion
of the axis, observable in the larger arteries, if serpentine
and lying in loose cellular substance. (G)

The genuine systole, produced by a contraction of their
substance, scarcely occurs, probably, while the heart acts
with vigour, but may, when they are unusually influenced
by local stimulants; whence the pulse during illness is very
different in different arteries of the same person at the same
time; or when the action of the heart itself fails, &c.

[Seite 95]

131. Since Whytt,u especially, and other illustrious physi-
ologists have been convinced that the influence of the heart
could not reach the extreme arteries and the origins of the
veins, they have ascribed the progression of the blood in
those vessels to a kind of oscillation, and have happily em-
ployed this to demonstrate the nature of inflammation.

Many kinds of phenomena, both physiological, as those re-
garding animal heat, and pathological, as those observed in
spasms and particularly in fevers, favour the supposition of
this oscillatory faculty, but it is not demonstrable during life
to the eye, even aided by glasses. (H)

132. It remains for us now to examine the aid given to the
returning blood by the veins, their radicles not being taken into
the account. We should conclude at first sight that they have
far less active powerx than the rest of the sanguiferous system,
and that the return of their purple blood to the heart is
chiefly ascribable to the impetus a tergo of the arterial blood,
and to their valvular structure which prevents any reflux.
The efficacy of the valves in this point of view, is shown by
the distensions and infarctions of the veins in the lower part
of the abdomen, which are found destitute of valves.y

The existence of vital powers in the venous trunks is pro-
bable,z from the example of the liver and placenta (127), and
from experiments instituted on living animals. We formerly
mentioned the muscular layer in the extreme veins near the
heart (95). (I)

[Seite 96]

133. These are the chief powers which move the blood and
depend upon the structure and vitality of the sanguiferous
system. We say nothing of the effect of gravity, attraction,
and other properties, common to all matter. The more
remote assistance derived after birth from particular functions,
v. c. respiration and muscular motion, will appear in our
account of those functions. (K)


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 Senacf 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; – Verschuirc 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

[Seite 105]

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.

SECT. VIII.
OF RESPIRATION AND ITS PRINCIPAL USE.

[Seite 110]

134. The lungs,a closely connected with the heart both by
proximity and by relation of function, are two viscera, large
after birth, so light as to swim in water, and composed of a
spongy, and, as it were, spumous, but pretty tenacious and
elastic,b parenchyma.c

135. They fill each cavity of the chest, and are contiguous
to the sacs of the pleurae, to which, as well as to the other
contents of the thorax, they model and apply themselves. (A)

136. They, in a manner, hang from the wind-pipe, usually
called the aspera arteria, which, besides its interior coat always
smeared with mucus, and the subjacent very sensible nervous
coat, consists of another which is muscular, surrounding the
latter, and divided, except posteriorly, by an indefinite number
of cartilaginous falciform arches.

137. The aspera arteria, having entered the thorax, is
bifurcated into the trunks of the bronchiae, and these, the
more deeply they penetrate into the lobes and lobules of the
lungs, are the more and more ramified, losing both their car-
tilaginous rings and muscular coat, until their extreme di-
visions terminate in those cells which form the chief part of
the substance of the lungs, and alternately receive and emit the
air we breathe.

[Seite 111]

138. The shape and magnituded of the air-cells are various.
The former is generally polyedrical. The latter, in regard
to surface, is scarcely to be defined:e though, indeed, the
capacity of the lungs of an adult, during a strong inspiration,
is about 120 cubic inches. The immense size to which the
lungs may be inflated, when the chest has been opened, has
no relation to our present subject.

139. The cells are invested and connected by the common
but delicate mucous web – the general vinculum of the
body, and must be carefully distinguished from it. In healthy
and very recent lungs, I have found the cells so unconnected
that they were distended in one insulated spot by air cauti-
ously inflated into a fine branch of the bronchiae, while neither
the neighbouring cells nor the cellular membrane, which lies
between the cells, admitted the smallest portion. If air is
forcibly thrown in, the air-cells are ruptured and confounded
with the cellular membrane, and both parts distended.

140. The mucous web surrounding the air-cells of the
lungs is supplied with innumerable blood-vessels – di-
visions of the pulmonary artery and four pulmonary veins,
the branches of which accompany the ramifications of the
bronchiae,f and, after repeated division, form at length an
immense collection of most delicate and reticulated anasto-
moses. This extraordinary network, penetrating the mucous
web on every side, closely surrounds the air-cells, so that the
prodigious quantity of blood existing in the pulmonary vessels
is separated from the contact of the air by very fine mem-
branes only, which Hales estimated as scarcely 1/1000 of an
inch in thickness.

141. As each ramification of the bronchiae possesses its
own bunch or lobule of air-cells (139), so again each of these
possesses a peculiar system of blood-vessels, the twigs of
[Seite 112] which anastomose in the wonderful net-work with one an-
other, but scarcely at all with the blood-vessels of the other
lobules, as is proved by microscopic observations on living
frogs and serpents, by minute injections, and by the pheno-
mena of vomicae and other local diseases of the lungs. (B)

142. The common membrane investing the lungs is the
chief seat of a remarkable net-work of lymphatic vesselsg
which run to numerous lymphatic or conglobate glands,h
carefully to be distinguished from a neighbouring order of
glands, called bronchial, that are supplied with an excretory
duct and are of the conglomerate kind.i

143. The thorax, which contains the lungs, has an osseous
and cartilaginous base, somewhat resembling a bee-hive,
throughout very firm and stable, but in every part more or
less movable for the purpose of respiration.k

This holds good chiefly with the six pairs of true ribs
below the first, each of which is more movable than the one
above in proportion to the greater length both of its own
body and of its cartilaginous appendix. The cartilages are
united by a kind of amphiarthrosis to the margin of the ster-
num on each side. (C)

144. Between the edges of the ribs lie two strata of inter-
costal muscles, differing in the direction of their fibres, but
conspiring to produce the same motion.

At the base of the thorax, the diaphragml is subtended in
in the form of an arch. It is a considerable muscle, and, in
the words of Haller, next in importance to the heart. Its
utility in the mechanical part of respiration was long since
[Seite 113] shown, by the excellent experiments of Galenm upon living
animals, to depend chiefly on the phrenic nerve.n

Its antagonists are the abdominal muscles, especially the
two sets of oblique and the transverse.

145. The thorax, thus constituted, is, after birth, dilated
by inspiration, and subsequently reduced to a smaller capacity
by expiration.

During the former act, the thorax is enlarged laterally and
inferiorly, so that the bodies of the six ribs mentioned above
(143) are elevated and their inferior margin drawn somewhat
outwards; the arch of the diaphragm is at the same time
rather depressed and flattened.

I have never observed the inferior extremity of the sternum,
in the tranquil respiration of health, to be thrust forwards, as
some have asserted. (D)

146. This alternate motion of the chest continues, during
health and freedom from restraint, from the moment of birth
till death. Its object is, that the lungs may be expanded to
admit the air and contracted to expel it, in perpetual altern-
ation. This alternation occurs, in an adult at rest, about 14
times in a minute, – once to about five pulsations of the
heart.

147. For man, in common with all warm-blooded animals,
cannot long retain the inspired air, but is compelled to dis-
charge it and take in a fresh supply of this pabulum of life, as
it always has been denominated.o Common observation
teaches, that, however pure may be the air entering the lungs,
it instantly undergoes remarkable changes, by which it is con-
[Seite 114] taminated and rendered unfit for another inspiration, unless it
is renewed.p

148. It may be asked, what are the changes which the air
experiences during inspiration, and which consist not in the
loss of elasticity, as was formerly imagined, but in the decom-
position of its elements.q For the atmospheric air, which we
breathe, is a peculiar mixture of constituents, differing very
much in their nature from each other; and, not to mention
heterogeneous matters, such as odorous effluvia, various other
besides aqueous exhalations, and innumerable other matters
which are generally present, is always impregnated with
aqueous vapour, electric and magnetic matter, and generally
with carbonic acid gas; and is itself composed of unequal
parts of two aëriform fluids, viz. 79 of azotic gas, and 21 of
oxygen gas in 100.

149. In the first place we know for certain, that, at every
inspiration (the fulness of which varies infinitely in different
persons of the same age, breathing placidlyr), besides the
quantity of azotic gas being somewhat diminisheds, the oxy-
gen gas is in a great measure converted into carbonic acid
gas or fixed air; so that the air of expiration, if collected, in-
stantly extinguishes flame and live coals, precipitates lime
from lime water, and is specifically heavier than atmospheric
air, and rendered unfit for inspirationt; it also contains much
[Seite 115] aqueous vapour, which is condensed in a visible form by a
temperature not exceeding 60° of Fahr.u

150. There is, consequently, no doubt that the carbonic
acid of the expired air is derived from the venous blood
carried to the lungs from the right side of the heart.x But
it has been of late disputed, whether the inspired oxygen
goes wholly to form carbonic acid in the bronchial cells,y
or whether it is in part united with the arterial blood and
distributed through the arterial system.z Many weighty
arguments seem to favour the latter opinion, as well as the
phenomena of both kinds of blood in the living body,a
compared with the changes which this fluid experiences when
exposed to these two kinds of air. (F)

151. This perpetual change of elements occurring in re-
spiration after birth, we shall show to be very differently
[Seite 116] accomplished in the foetus, viz. by means of the connection of
the gravid uterus with the placenta.

But, when the child is born and capable of volition, the
congestion of blood that takes place in the aorta, from the
obstruction in the umbilical arteries; the danger of suffoca-
tion from the cessation of those changes of the blood, in
regard to oxygen and carbon, (13) hitherto produced in the
uterine placenta; the novel impression of that element into
which the child, hitherto an aquatic being, is conveyed; the
cooler temperature to which it is now exposed; and the many
new stimuli which are now applied, seem to induce new
motions in the body, especially the dilatation of the chest and
the first inspiration.

The lungs, being for the first time dilated by inspiration,
open a new channel to the blood, so that, being obstructed in
the umbilical arteries, it is derived to the chest.

Since the inspired air becomes hurtful and unpleasant to
the lungs by the decomposition which it experiences, I should
ascribe to the most simple corrective powers of nature, the
subsequent motion by which the poisonous mephitis, as it
may be called, is expelled and exchanged for a fresh supply.

The consideration of all these circumstances, especially if
the importance of respiration to circulation, demonstrated by
the well-known experiment of Hookeb, be remembered, will,
in my opinion, explain the celebrated problem of Harvey,c
betterd than most other attempts of physiologists. (G)e

[Seite 117]

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

xxx

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

[Seite 119]

(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.”’

[Seite 120]

‘“The contractile power of the diaphragm (and intercostal
muscles
) in conformity with the laws of muscular motion,”’ says
Dr. Carsono, ‘“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 bloodg 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. Saussurer 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.

[Seite 128]

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.

[Seite 130]

(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
Galloisx and Dr. Delarochey 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 Spallanzania 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. Edwardse
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. Ellisf 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. Fyfes 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

[Seite 136]

Dr. Edwards advances, contrary to Morozzo,b that every warm-
blooded animal perishes instantlyc 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.”’

SECT. IX.
OF THE VOICE AND SPEECH.

[Seite 139]

152. We have described the chief use of respiration. We
shall hereafter mention how far it contributes to the con-
version of the chyle into blood, and to the support of almost
the whole class of natural functions. Its other uses are at
present to be considered.

And first, respecting the voice.a This begins after birth,
and proceeds from the lungs, as was observed long ago by
Aristotle, who called those animals only vocal, which breathed
by means of lungs. The voice is, properly speaking, a sound,
formed, by means of expiration, in the larynx, which is a
most beautifully constructed organ, fixed upon the top of the
windpipe, like a capital upon a pillar.b

153. The larynx is composed of various cartilages, which,
being united together in the form, as it were, of a little box,c
and supplied with a considerable and wonderful apparatus of
muscles,d may be moved altogether, or separately, according
to the variations of the voice.

154. The part of the larynx most concerned in producing
the voice, is the glottis, or narrow opening of the windpipe,
having the epiglottis suspended, and, in a manner, fixed upon
it. It is clearly ascertained, that the air, expired from the
lungs, and striking properly upon the margins of the glottis,
becomes sonorous.

[Seite 140]

155. But it has been disputed what changes the glottis
undergoes in modulating the voice: whether it is alternately
widened and contracted, as Galen and Dodart supposed, or
whether, according to Ferrein, the variations of voice are
effected rather by the tension and relaxation of its ligaments.

The latter, consistently with his opinion, compared the
larynx to a violin; the former, more consistently with nature,
to a flute.e

Every thing considered, we must conclude that the glottis,
when sounding, experiences both kinds of changes; since the
grave and acute modulation of the voice must depend very
much upon the alterations produced in the glottis by the
ligaments, especially the inferior thyreo-arytenoids – the vocal
chords
of Ferrein, and by the corresponding modification of
the sinuses or ventricles of the larynx.f (A)

156. That every degree of motion in the glottis is directed
by the numerous muscles of the larynx, is proved by the
beautiful experiment of tying or dividing the recurrent nerves,
or par vagum,g and thus weakening or destroying the voice
of animals. (B)

157. Man and singing-birds have the power of whistling.
In the latter, it is accomplished by a larynx placed at each
extremity of the wind-pipe and divided into two portions.
[Seite 141] The former, though possessing a single and undivided larynx,
has learned, I imagine, to imitate birds by the coarctation of
his lips.h (C)

158. Singing, which is compounded of speech and a musical
modulation of the voice, I conceive to be peculiar to man and
the chief prerogative of his vocal organs. The power of
whistling is innate in birds; many of them may easily be
taught to pronounce words, and instances have been known
of this even in dogs. But it is recorded, that genuine singing
has once or twice only, and then indeed but indifferently and
with the utmost difficulty, been taught to parrots; while, on
the other hand, scarcely a barbarous nation exists, in which
singing is not common.i

159. Speech is a peculiar modification of the voice, ad-
justed to the formation of the sounds of letters by the expir-
ation of air through the mouth or nostrils, and in a great
measure by the assistance of the tongue, applied and struck
against the neighbouring parts, the palate and front teeth in
particular, and by the diversified action of the lips.k (D)

The difference between voice and speech is therefore evi-
dent. The former is produced in the larynx; the latter
by the peculiar mechanism of the other organs above
described.

Voice is common to both brutes and man, even imme-
diately after birth, nor is absent in those unfortunate infants
who are born deaf. But speech follows only the culture
and employment of reason, and is consequently, like it,
[Seite 142] the privilege of man in distinction to the rest of animal
nature. For brutes, natural instinct is sufficient: but man,
destitute of this and other means of supporting his existence
independently, enjoys the prerogative of reason and language;
and following, by their means, his social destination, is en-
abled to form, as it were, and manifest his ideas, and to com-
municate his wants to others, by the organs of speech.

160. The mechanisml of speech and articulation is so
intricate and so little understood, that even the division of
letters and their distribution into classesm are attended with
much difficulty.

The division, however, of Ammann,n into 1. vowels, 2.
semi-vowels, and 3. consonants, is very natural:

I. He divides the vowelso into simplea, e, i, y, o, u,

And mixed – ä, ö, ü.

These are formed by the voice only.

The semi-vowels and consonants are articulated by the
mechanism of speech.

II. The semi-vowels are nasalm, n, ng (n before g,
which is nearly related to it), that is, the labio-nasal m, the
dente-nasal n, and the gutture-nasal ng;

Or oral (lingual) – r, l, that is, r with a vibration of the
tongue, or l with the tongue less moved.

III. The consonants he distinguishes into sibilant (pro-
[Seite 143] nounced in succession) – h, g, ch, s, sh, f, v, ph, that is h,
formed in the throat, as it were a mere aspiration; g and ch,
– true consonants; s, sh, – produced between the teeth;
f, v, ph, – formed by the application of the lower lip to the
upper front teeth:

And explosive (which are, as it were, suddenly exploded,
by an expiration, for a time suppressed or interrupted), viz. k,
q,
– formed in the throat; d, t, – about the teeth; p, b,
near the lips;

And double (compound) – x, z. (E)

161. We must just mention certain other modifications of
the human voice, of which some, as hiccup and cough, belong
more properly to pathology than to physiology, but are very
common in the most healthy persons; and others, as crying
and laughing, appear peculiar to the human race.

162. Many of these are so closely allied, as frequently
to be converted into each other; most also are variously
modified.

In laughter there is a succession of short, and, as it were,
abrupt expirations.p

Coughing is a quick, violent, and sonorous expiration, fol-
lowing a deep inspiration.q

Snoring is a deep, sonorous, and, as it were, tremulous
inspiration, from the vibration of the velum palati during deep
sleep with the mouth open.

Sneezing, generally the consequence of an irritation of the
mucous membrane of the nostrils, is a violent and almost
convulsive expiration, preceded by a short and violent in-
spiration.r

Hiccup, on the contrary, is a sonorous, very short, and
almost convulsive, inspiration, excited by an unusual irritation
of the cardia.s

[Seite 144]

In crying there are deep inspirations, quickly alternating
with long and occasionally interrupted expirations.t

Sighing is a long and deep inspiration, and the subsequent
expiration is sometimes accompanied by groaning.u

Nearest in relation to sighing is gaping,x which is produced
by a full, slow, and long, inspiration, followed by a similar
expiration, the jaws at the same time being drawn asunder,
so that the air rushes into the open fauces and the Eustachian
tubes. It occurs from the blood passing through the lungs
too slowly: v. c. when the pressure of the air on the body is
diminished, as upon very high mountains. A peculiar feature
of gaping is the propensity it excites in others to gape like-
wise; arising, no doubt, from the recollection of the pleasure
it produced. (F)


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.

xxx

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.

[Seite 149]

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.

xxx
[Seite 150]

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

SECT. X.
OF ANIMAL HEAT.

[Seite 154]

163. Man, other mammalia, and birds, are distinguished
from the rest of animals by the natural temperaturea of their
bodies greatly exceeding that of the medium in which they are
accustomed to exist. Man is again distinguished from these
classes of animals by possessing a much lower temperature
than they; so that in this climate it is about 96° of Fahr.,
while in them, and especially in birds, it is considerably
higher.b (A)

164. This natural temperature in man, is so constant,
equable,c and perpetual, that, excepting slight differences
from variety of constitution, it varies but a few degrees in the
coldest climate and under the torrid zone. For the opinion
of Boerhaave, – that man cannot live in a temperature ex-
ceeding his own, has been refuted, since the admirable observ-
ationsd of H. Ellis, the celebrated traveller, and formerly the
governor of Georgia, by the remarkable experimentse of
[Seite 155] many excellent physiologists.f (B) The striking prerogative
of man in this respect is evinced by his being restricted to no
climate, but inhabiting every part of the earth from Hudson’s
bay, where Mercury freezes, and from Nova Zembla, to the
scorching shores of Senegal. (C)

165. The explanation of this equable and perpetual tem-
perature is particularly simple and natural, and founded on
the doctrine which makes the lungs the grand focus, and the
decomposition of the oxygenised portion of the air (148)
which we breathe, the fomes, of our heat.

166. For, as the oxygenous part of the inspired air is de-
composed in the air-cells of the lungs, in such a way that its
base, viz. oxygen, which by its union with latent caloric was
before aëriform, now separates from this caloric; it would ap-
pear that, by this decomposition, one portion of the caloric is
rendered sensible in the bronchiae, while the other enters in a
latent form into the blood while circulating in the innumerable
and delicate net-works of the pulmonary vessels.g

167. When the oxygenised blood thus charged with latent
heat circulates through the aortic system, it acquires carbon
in the small vessels and sets free much of the latent heat which
it had received: in this way is our animal temperature prin-
cipally produced and modified.h (D)

168. Its production and regulation, however, appear much
influenced by the secretion of the various fluids from the blood,
[Seite 156] and by digestion as well as other functions of the animal
economy.

169. Since the changes are effected by the energy of the
vital powers only, the great influence of these in supporting
our temperature must be easily perceived.i

170. Many arguments render it probable, that the action
of the minute vessels is dependent upon the varied excite-
ment or depression of the vital principle, and the conver-
sion of oxygenised into carbonised blood, again, upon this.

For the remarkable phenomena of the stability of our tem-
perature,k (proved by the thermometer, and not by the sense
of touch, which may be fallacious) – that it is scarcely in-
creased by the heat of summer, or diminished by the cold of
winter, but found sometimes even to increase on immersion in
cold water,l demonstrate that the action of the minute vessels
varies according to the temperature of the medium in which
we are placed: so that, when exposed to a low temperature
(by which their tone is probably augmented) more oxygen is
exchanged for carbon and more heat evolved, while in a high
and debilitating temperature this exchange is diminished and
less heat evolved.m

[Seite 157]

171. The corium, which covers the body, and the internal
surface of the alimentary canal, eminently contribute, if we are
not much mistaken, to regulate our temperature.n For both
these organs are supplied with an immense number of blood-
vessels, being analogous in this respect to the lungs, and are
so intimately connected with the lungs by means of sym-
pathy,o as to be able to perform a part, and, for a time, the
whole, of some of their functions in their room. This is ex-
emplified in adults labouring under nearly total consumption
or other violent affections of the lungs, and nevertheless,
existing for a length of time almost without respiration.p

172. This opinion respecting the action of the cutaneous
vessel in exciting, moderating, or almost extinguishing, our
heat, receives much support from the physiological and pa-
thological facts of some parts being frequently of a higher or
lower temperature than the rest of the system.

Thus we must attribute the coldness of the dog’s nose to
the specific action of its own vessels being modified differ-
ently from that of the rest; so on the other hand, the burning
at one time of the cheeks and of another of the palms of the
hands in hectic fever, to a similar locally increased action of
vessels; besides other phenomena of the same description,
v. c. the heat of the genitals during the venereal oestrum, and
the obstinate coldness of the feet in so many invalids.

173. The alimentary canal is the only internal part, besides
the lungs, exposed to the contact of the atmosphere. There
is scarcely occasion to prove that it is so exposed, and that
we swallow a considerable quantity of air.

The air, when swallowed, is decomposed in the stomach
and intestines, so that, during health, it soon loses its elastic
form: not, however, when the capillaries of the canal are de-
bilitated, nor when it exists in too great quantity.

[Seite 158]

The immense congeries of blood-vessels in the intestines
on their internal surface which is usually thought equal to
the external surface of the body, agrees very well with this
idea.


NOTES.

(A) All animals, as far as can be ascertained, and even vege-
tables, have a tendency to preserve a temperature more or less
distinct from that of the surrounding medium; yet the difference
among them in this respect is so great that they have been di-
vided into warm and cold-blooded. To the former belong the
more complicated, those whose pulmonary apparatus is most ela-
borate, – man and mammiferous quadrupeds and birds. To the
second, oviparous quadrupeds, fish, and most of the invertebrate.
Birds have the highest temperature, – 107° to 110°; mammiferous
quadrupeds, 100° to 101°; man 96° to 98 1/2°. There is some va-
riety, not only in individuals, but according to age, season, and
climate. It is less in the young, according to Dr. Edwards and
Despretz:q the former states the human temperature in infancy
to be 94 1/4°; the latter asserts, that while in birds it is 105° in
winter, it is nearly 111° in summer, gradually increasing in spring
and decreasing in autumn. In the high temperature to which we
shall see Dr. Fordyce and his friends were exposed, the temper-
ature of the body rose two or three degrees, and Dr. Delaroche in
a vapor-bath at near 120°, found the heat under his tongue in-
creased but about five degrees at the end of seventeen minutes.r
In sparrows and yellow-hammers Dr. Edwards found it five or six
degrees higher in summer than in winter; and Dr. Davy one or
two degrees higher in Ceylon than in England.s In disease it will
fall, and on the other hand rise; in fever it has been noted at 107°,
in tetanus at 110°,t and probably, on some occasions, it rises still
higher, at least, locally. In old age it is not so high as in the
[Seite 159] age of full vigour; nor in remote parts as in those nearer the
heart.u John Hunter made observations on the heat of cold-
blooded animals.v The thermometer in the stomach and under
the skin of the abdomen of the frog and toad stood at 40°, when
the atmosphere was 36°; in the lungs of snails at 35°, 36°, 37°,
38°, when the atmosphere was 28°, 30°, 30°, and 34°; the heat
of earth-worms was 58 1/2°, when the atmosphere was 56°. Fish
are not above two degrees warmer than the water.w Cold-blooded
animals placed in an elevated temperature are much more in-
fluenced by surrounding media than the warm-blooded. Yet
frogs are but at 80° or 82° in a medium of 110° or 115°.x The
heat of insects when congregated is considerable: J. Hunter
found the thermometer rise to 93° or 98° in a hive of bees in
spring; to 104° in summer; to be at 82° when the air was at 40°;
and at 73° in winter.

The same tendency in vegetables is shown by the greater
difficulty with which the juices in their stems and branches are
frozen than lifeless fluids; by ice thawing when roots shoot into
it;y and by snow upon the leaves or stems of plants thawing
sooner than that which lies on surrounding inanimate bodies.
J. Hunter observed a branch of growing fir and a bean leaf thaw
the part of the surface of a freezing mixture on which it was
placed, and the fir subsequently another to which it was removed.z
When the sheath of the arum maculatum and cordifolium is burst-
ing and the cylindrical body just peeping forth, it is said, by
Sennebier, to be so hot for some hours as to seem burning;a and
twelve of them placed round the bulb of a thermometer to have
raised the mercury from 79° to 143°.

Even eggs are cooled and frozen with more difficulty than equal
masses of inanimate matter; although, when once frozen and their
life destroyed, they freeze readily.b

[Seite 160]

(B) Dr. Fordyce, one of the most eminent of my predecessor
at St.Thomas’s Hospital, went successively into three rooms heated
to 90°, 110°, and 120°. In the first he staid five minutes, and
sweated gently. – In the second, he sweated more profusely, and
remained ten minutes. – In the third, after remaining twenty
minutes, the thermometer under the tongue and exposed to the
urine was at 100°; the pulse 145°; the veins of the surface were
enlarged, and the skin red. He afterwards entered a room heated
to 130°, and staid 15 minutes: the thermometer under the tongue,
in the hand, and exposed to the urine, was at 100°.

Sir Joseph Banks, Sir Charles Blagden, and Dr. Solander, went
subsequently into rooms heated to between 96° and 211°, – the
temperature of boiling water, and remained several minutes. If
they breathed on the thermometer it sunk several degrees, and
every expiration felt cold to the scorched nostrils: the thermo-
meter under the tongue was 98°, and the body felt cold to the
touch, though at 98°. Sir C. Blagden remained eight minutes in
an apartment heated to 260°. The air felt hot, and for seven
minutes the breathing was natural, but anxiety and oppression
then came on; the sensible heat of the body varied but little.
Dr. Dobson went into a room heated to 224, and felt no op-
pressive heat, though every metal about him speedily became
hot. A bitch of moderate size was subjected to a heat of 220°.
In ten minutes the only sign of distress was that of holding out the
tongue, and when taken out at the end of half an hour, the tem-
perature being at 236°, the bottom of the basket was found wetted
with saliva. The thermometer applied to her flank was only 110°,
i. e. 9° above the natural standard.

In these rooms, eggs on a tin plate were roasted hard in twenty
minutes; beef steaks cooked in thirty-three minutes; and if the
air was impelled upon them in a stream, they were cooked dry in
about thirteen minutes.

Tillet and Duhamel relate that the young female servant of a
baker at Rochefoucault went habitually into ovens heated to 276°,
and remained without great inconvenience for twelve minutes,
taking care not to touch the oven. These gentlemen themselves
bore a heat of 290° for nearly five minutes. Dr. Delaroche and
Dr. Berger found various warm and cold-blooded animals support
from 108° to 113° for an hour and a half in heated dry air; but
an elevation of about 30° beyond this kill them all except a
[Seite 161] frog, in from half an hour to two hours. They themselves expe-
rienced a sense of scalding in a vapour-bath of 122°, and could not
bear it more than about ten minutes; while M. Lemonnier could not
bear a water-bath of 113° above eight minutes.c Hence, at the
very same high temperature of the surrounding medium, there is
more secretion by the skin in a vapour-bath than in dry air, and
more in a water-bath than in a vapour-bath.

(C) At Sierra Leone the mean temperature is 84°, and Watt
and Winterbottom frequently saw it 100° and even 103° in the
shade. At Senegal it has been 108 1/2° and even 117 1/2°. During
the sirocco it is 112°, in Sicily; Humboldt saw it 110° and 115°
near the Orinoco, in South America. On the other hand, at Nova
Zembla the cold is so intense that when the sun sinks below the
horizon the polar-bear is no longer seen, the white fox only endur-
ing the cold. Yet the Dutch, who wintered there under Hemskerk
(76° N. L.) withstood the cold if moving about and previously in good
health. When some of our countrymen were on Churchill river,
in Hudson’s Bay, lakes ten or twelve feet deep were frozen to the
bottom, and brandy froze in their rooms, though provided with fires.
They suspended in their rooms red hot twenty-four pounders, and
kept an immense fire; but if these went down, the walls and beds
were covered with ice three inches thick.d Yet in Hudson’s Bay the
Canadians and Esquimaux live and hunt in the coldest weather.
Gmelin, sen. witnessed at Jenisiesk, in 1735, a cold of 120° below
zero, that froze mercury and killed all the sparrows and jays.e
Captain Parry once observed a temperature of 52° below zero.
When the air was at – 49° the party used to walk on the shore.
It was usually at – 32°. The temperature of eleven out of six-
teen foxes was from 100° to 106 3/4, of four about 100°, and of one
only 98°, although the air was from – 3° to – 32°. No relation was
observable between the temperature of the body and of the atmo-
sphere;f it thus appearing that the temperature is more steady
under cold than heat. Some cold-blooded animals bear heat very
badly. Dr. Edwards says that frogs die in a few seconds in water at
107°.g Yet a species of taenia has been found alive in a boiled carp;
[Seite 162] but then the carp which it inhabits will live in water as hot as
human blood.h Some of the lowest animals appear intended for
high temperatures. Dr. Reeve found living larvae in a spring at
208°; Lord Bute, confervae and beetles in the boiling springs of
Albano, that died when plunged into cold water.

The germs of many insects, &c. are unaffected by a great range of
temperature. I know a gentleman who boiled some honey-comb
two years old, and, after extracting all the sweet matter, threw the
remains into a stable, which was soon filled with bees. Body lice
have appeared on clothes which had been immersed in boiling water.
Spallanzani found long ebullition in the open air favourable to the
appearance of the animalcules of vegetable infusions, and the
application of great heat in close vessels, although it prevented the
appearance of a larger kind of animalculae, did not that of a smaller.
The eggs of silk-worms and butterflies hatch after exposure to a
cold of 24° below zero. On the other hand, insects may be
frozen repeatedly, and recover as soon as thawed, as we shall
see when speaking of torpidity.

(D) No phenomenon in living bodies is more remarkable than
their peculiar temperature, and no one was of more difficult
explanation before the modern progress of chemistry. Dr. Mayow
had indeed advanced, that it depended on respiration, and that this
was a process similar to combustion, and so far from cooling the
blood, as others believed, supplied it with heat.

If two different bodies are placed in a temperature higher or
lower than their own for a certain length of time, they will, at
the end of the period, be found not of the same, but of different
temperatures. That which has the higher temperature is said
to have a smaller capacity for caloric; that which has the lower,
a greater capacity. To raise the former to a given temperature,
therefore, requires less caloric than to raise the latter to the same
degree.

The temperature of solids is more easily affected by a given
quantity of caloric, than that of fluids, and the temperature of
fluids than that of aëriform bodies: or, in other words, solids
have a smaller capacity for caloric than fluids, and fluids than
aëriform bodies. If, therefore, a solid becomes fluid, or a fluid aëri-
form, it absorbs a great quantity of caloric, notwithstanding its tem-
perature remain precisely the same. And the converse holds
[Seite 163] equally good, – if an aëriform substance becomes liquid, or a
liquid solid, the caloric which it before contained is now (from its
diminished capacity) much more than sufficient for the tempera-
ture which before existed, and the temperature of the body
accordingly rises.

In respiration, the dark blood of the pulmonary artery parts
with a portion of its carbon and acquires a florid hue. Oxygen
disappears and carbonic acid is expired with the other constituent
of the atmosphere, – nitrogen or azote, which appears generally
to have experienced little or no change from inspiration.

The celebrated Dr. Crawford of St. Thomas’s Hospital appeared
to prove, by his experiments, that the arterial blood has a larger
capacity for caloric than the venous, and common air than car-
bonic acid gas. When, therefore, the carbonic acid appears in
the lungs, the smaller capacity of this than of common air for
caloric, must cause an increase of temperature; but the blood,
having changed from venous to arterial, has acquired a greater
capacity than before, and absorbs the heat given out by the car-
bonic acid. The blood, of course, does not become warmer, be-
cause the caloric is not more than sufficient to render its tem-
perature equal to what it was previously; and indeed, according
to some, it is not quite sufficient for this, since the temperature
of the arterial blood of the pulmonary veins has appeared two
degrees lower than that of the pulmonary artery to some experi-
menters, although the greater number have found it a degree or
two higher than the venous.

The body in this way acquires a fund of caloric, and yet the
lungs, in which it is acquired, do not experience any elevation of
temperature, or if they do, this is very inconsiderable.

The arterial blood, charged with much caloric, which, as it
circulates through the small vessels, is not sensible, becomes
venous, – acquires a dark hue, and its capacity for caloric is
diminished; consequently its temperature rises, – the caloric
which was previously latent, is, from the decrease of capacity,
sufficient to raise its temperature, and is evolved. In this mode,
the loss of caloric which occurs from the inferior temperature of
the medium in which we live, is compensated. The fresh supply
is taken in at the lungs, and brought into use in the minute
vessels.

Of late this theory has fallen into some discredit.

[Seite 164]

All experiments upon the capacities of bodies for heat are very
delicate and liable to error; and the conclusions of Crawford on
this point have been denied by Drs. Delaroche and Berard, with
respect to gases, and by Dr. Davy, with respect to arterial and
venous blood.i

The experiments of these chemists have led them to believe
the difference of capacity less than Crawford supposed, and in-
sufficient to account for animal temperature. With respect to
the gases, Dr. Bostockk justly remarks, that the objection does
not apply more to the doctrine of animal heat, than to the theory
of combustion in general. Whenever carbon unites with oxy-
gen, and carbonic acid is produced, caloric is liberated, whe-
ther in fermentation, or combustion, &c. With respect to the
blood, he declares, and Dr. Bostock’s reputation for accuracy and
soundness in chemical matters is not little, that ‘“after attentively
perusing the experiments of Crawford, and comparing them with
those that have been performed with a contrary result, he con-
fesses that the balance of evidence appear to him to be greatly in
favour of the former, though he acknowledges that they are of so
delicate a nature as not to be entitled to implicit confidence,
and that it would be extremely desirable to have them carefully
repeated.”’

If, however, it were true that Dr. Crawford’s statement of the re-
lative capacities is incorrect, still the fact of heat being necessarily
evolved on the disappearance of oxygen in the lungs, and the ap-
pearance of carbonic acid, would stand unaffected, and we should
only be obliged to adopt the doctrine of Mayow, that the lungs are
the focus of the heat of the body. This was relinquished on the
objection that the lungs should then be hotter than other parts.
But when we consider that the blood is incessantly streaming to
the lungs from all parts, and again leaving them, we may, I think,
presume that the blood will always convey away their heat, and
prevent their temperature from rising above that of other parts.
The heat of all parts is, caeteris paribus, commensurate with the
quantity of blood circulating through them. This is equally ex-
plicable on either supposition. If their heat is derived from the
heat of the blood conveyed to them, the more blood streams
through them, the hotter will they be; if from chemical changes
[Seite 165] in the blood while in them, the more blood streams through them,
the greater will be the amount of chemical change, and the
greater the extrication of caloric. The quantity of blood is ineffi-
cient unless constantly renewed, on either supposition. On the
first, fresh blood must come incessantly from the lungs with its
high temperature; on the second, if not renewed, the chemical
changes will cease, having already occurred.

A host of circumstances show that our temperature depends
upon respiration, and therefore upon chemical changes.

In high temperatures we have less necessity for the evolution
of heat; in low temperatures, more. Accordingly, in the former,
the arterial blood remains arterial, – is nearly as florid in the veins
as in the arteries, and the inspired air is less vitiated; in low
temperatures, the venous blood is extremely dark, and the in-
spired air more vitiated.l Some have imagined that the body
remains at its standard high temperature by the refrigeration of
the evaporating sweat. But though this must contribute, it is not
the sole cause:m for frogs lose as much proportionally to their size
by evaporation as any other animal, yet they follow pretty closely
the surrounding temperature. Whenever, on the other hand, the
body itself heightens its temperature, as in fever, more oxygen is
consumed by the lungs;n (in the cold stage of fevers we saw that
less was consumed). The temperature of the various classes of
animals, and their vitiation of the air, are always proportional; and
inverse to the length of time they can live without air.

The temperature of young animals is lower than of adults, or
rather they maintain a peculiar temperature much less, and they
vitiate the air less, and require respiration less, proportionally,
than adults.o As they proceed to vitiate it more, and require
respiration more, their calorific power increases. While their ca-
lorific powers are weak they breathe, if they are exposed to cold,
quicker, so as to keep up their temperature as much as possible.p
The same is also found in adult warm-blooded animals, not of the
hybernating family, when exposed to cold.q

[Seite 166]

Dr. Edwards found that habit has great influence on the calo-
rific powers of animals; – that a given low artificial temperature
in winter will reduce the animal heat much less than in summer:r
and that with the habit of evolving more heat in winter, is
acquired the habit of consuming and requiring more oxygen, so
that animals supplied with a given quantity of air, and placed in
a given warm temperature in winter, die much sooner than in
summer.s Yet the momentary application of heat or cold has a
different effect: the former heating less if the body has been
subjected to a low, and the latter cooling less if the body has
been subjected to a high, temperature. We all feel the cold less
quickly on leaving the house in winter if well warmed first, than
if we leave it already chilly.

When animals hybernate, their temperature falls, and respira-
tion is nearly or entirely suspended.t Their consumption of air
lessens as the temperature falls, whence they consume less in
November than in August.u If hybernating animals, while torpid
and still placed in the same temperature, are stimulated mecha-
nically to breathe, their temperature rises with the progress of
respiration.x

If the cold to which they are exposed is so intense that it
threatens death, it actually no longer depresses respiration, but
for a time, excites it, and their temperature rises proportionally.y
Man, and other non-hybernating animals, breathe more quickly
when exposed to cold, no doubt for the purpose of supplying
heat, till the powers become exhausted.z

The higher the temperature of the animal, the more extensive
is the aggregate surface of the air-cells, the more blood passes
through its lungs, and the more necessary to its existence is re-
spiration. – The lungs of cold-blooded animals are not subdivided
into minute cells, but formed into vesicles; and birds, which have
the highest temperature among animals, are drowned the soonest.a

[Seite 167]

The changes of the air by the blood, are seen to be effected
entirely by the red particles. Prevost and Dumas found that the
number of red particles is proportionate to the temperature.

If the blood circulates without being first properly changed in
the lungs, the temperature is below the natural standard. Those
who have the blue disease (coeruleansb), as Blumenbach notices
(p. 155), are cold: and coldness is a symptom of hydrothorax, and
of the repletion of the air-cells with mucus in chronic bronchitis;
in the former of which affections the lungs cannot fully expand,
and in the latter the air is prevented from coming fully in contact
with the air-cells.

In cold climates, and in temperate ones in cold weather, animal
food is desired and taken in abundance; in hot climates, and
during the summer in temperate regions, light vegetable food is
preferred, and the appetite is less. We may conceive the former
diet more calculated to support a process similar to combustion,
and under the former circumstances we have seen that the changes
of the air in the lungs are actually more considerable.

The temperature of parts falls if not maintained by a constant
stream of blood from the lungs through the aorta and its rami-
fications, and is, caeteris paribus, in exact proportion to this
supply.

Whether Crawford’s theory be correct or not, the production
of animal heat must be as evidently a chemical process, as changes
of temperature among inanimate bodies; yet some ascribe it to
nervous energy. I cannot imagine nervous energy to cause heat
any more than to cause chemical affinity. As it may bring sub-
stances together which have an affinity for each other, and thus
produce their union, so it may effect those changes which are,
according to physical laws, accompanied by changes of tempera-
ture; but caloric in the body must, I apprehend, like affinity, follow
the same laws, and no others, as out of the body. This, however,
does not prevent animal temperature from deserving the epithet
vital, because it is regulated by the vital powers of the system, al-
though through the instrumentality of chemical changes. If the high
temperature of an inflamed part is owing to the increased momen-
tum, – the increased sum of the quantity and velocity of its blood,
– yet this increased momentum is produced by the vital powers.

[Seite 168]

Mr. Brodie removed the brain of animals, and continued re-
spiration artificially. The usual chemical changes of the blood
continued in the lungs; yet the temperature of the animals
diminished, and even more rapidly than if the respiration had not
been continued, owing, it is said, to the succession of cool air
sent into the lungs. He therefore concludes, that animal heat
depends much more upon the nervous energy than upon the
chemical changes of the blood.c But this experiment proves no-
thing, because Dr. Le Gallois asserts, that under artificial respir-
ation the temperature may fall, and the animal actually be killed
by cold, even though every part remain uninjured.d In artificial
respiration the air does not rush into the pulmonary cells, because
these are in a vacuum, but is propelled into, and forcibly and
therefore injuriously dilates, them; the consequence is, the form-
ation of a large quantity of frothy mucus. Whether the fall of
temperature be owing to the evaporation of this copious secretion
and its prevention of contact between the air and air-cells,
or to the injurious nature of artificial respiration, still the fact
ascertained by Le Gallois destroys the conclusion which appeared
deducible from Mr. Brodie’s experiment. Indeed, Le Gallois
found, that less oxygen was consumed than in natural breathing,
and that the temperature fell exactly in proportion to the small-
ness of the quantity of oxygen consumed. Dr. Crawford himself
stated, that the chemical process of respiration may, in certain
cases, be the means of cooling the body. If the pulmonary ex-
halation, he said, is in very great abundance, it will carry off so
much of the heat given out during the change of the oxygen into
carbonic acid, that there may not be sufficient to saturate the
increased capacity of the arterial blood: this, therefore, will ab-
sorb caloric from the system, as it passes along, till its temper-
ature equals that of all parts.e I may here remark, that the tem-
[Seite 169] perature is kept down in a heated atmosphere by the diminution of
chemical changes in the lungs, and by free secretion and evapora-
tion from the bronchiae and skin. How much each contributes is
not ascertained; but the importance of evaporation was shown in
some experiments of Dr. De la Roche, who raised the tempera-
ture of animals considerably by placing them in a heated atmo-
sphere loaded with moisture, thus preventing evaporation. In a
cold atmosphere, the chemical changes in the lungs are great,
and the skin is dry; the aqueous matter which leaves the body
then, does so by the kidneys, in a fluid form, and even in much less
quantity, because our thirst, and the amount of our drink, are
much less.

Dr. Philip has made experiments equally conclusive with those
of Dr. Le Gallois against the inferences drawn by Mr. Brodie. As
very little air is taken into the lungs in natural inspiration, and a
regard to the bulk and frequency of each inspiration not always
attended to in experiments, it is very probable that that gentle-
man had thrown too much air into the lungs, so that the unnatural
quantity of cold air, and the augmented secretion of bronchial
fluid, made the temperature fall. By impelling little, and that
not frequently, Dr. Philip found that artificial respiration, after
the destruction of the brain, actually retarded the cooling of the
animal, while stronger respiration did actually cool the body.

Of two rabbits killed in this way, their temperature being 104°,
one was subjected to 6 artificial inspirations, and the other to from
26 to 30, in a minute: the temperature of the former was 100° at
the end of an hour, and the latter 98°. Of two, with the temperature
of 102.5°, one was undisturbed, and one subjected to about 30
inspirations in a minute: the temperature of the former at the
end of half an hour was 98.75°; of the latter, only 98.5°. But
the lungs of the latter being now inflated but about twelve times
in a minute, the temperature of the former at the end of another
half hour was 95.25°, and of the latter, 96°. In one experiment,
in which the lungs were inflated but a few times in a minute, the
temperature actually rose nearly a degree by artificial respiration.f
Dr. Hastings, at the same time, made similar comparative experi-
ments, and with similar results. In one, the rabbit in which
artificial breathing was performed, cooled only 4°; while that
which was left undisturbed cooled 7.5°.

[Seite 170]

Dr. Philip afterwards took pairs of rabbits, killed them in the
same way, and then in one experiment destroyed the brain and
spinal marrow of one with a wire, while he left the other un-
touched: in another, precisely similar, he inflated the lungs of
both. Yet, in each experiment, they both cooled equally. In a
third, the brain and spinal marrow of one only was destroyed,
and the lungs of both inflated. These, too, cooled equally.

The temperature of foetuses born without brain is maintained
during the few days they may live.

Professor Rudolphi remarks, that the temperature of animals
bears no proportion to their nervous system: that if it did, man
should be warmer than any brute; the mammalia much more so
than birds; fish much more so than insects; and birds and am-
phibia nearly upon a par; – all which would be the reverse of fact.g

Vegetables have a tendency to preserve a peculiar temperature,
yet they have no nervous system.

But that the nervous system affects the temperature is certain:
a passion of the mind will make the stomach or the feet cold, or
the whole body hot. Paralysed parts are often colder than
others, or, more properly, are more influenced than others by all
external changes of temperature.h But every function is affected
by the mind, though not dependent upon the brain for its regular
performance. And in varieties of temperature, both by the state
of the mind, and by paralysis, there is, as far as we can judge, a
commensurate affection of the local circulation. Parts heated by
any passion are also red, and vice versâ; and paralytic parts must
have imperfect vascular functions, in some measure at least, from
the want of the compression of the vessels by muscular action,
and of the general excitement by volition; they waste, and some-
times inflame and ulcerate, or slough, on the slightest injury.
And parts perfectly paralysed still maintain a temperature above
that of the surrounding medium, as well as circulation, secretion,
&c.i and sometimes the same as in health.

[Seite 171]

Dr. Philip considers galvanism an important agent in the
nervous system, and found that it raised the heat of fresh arterial
blood 3° or 4°, and, at the same time, made the blood venous;
a circumstance proving that the action is purely chemical, – an
alteration of the blood to that state in which its capacity for
caloric is less.k

There is certainly no more reason to believe animal heat de-
pendent on the nervous system, than secretion and every organic
function. That, like these, it is influenced by the state of the
nervous system, is certain; but never, I imagine, except through
the instrumentality of chemical changes.

Besides the power of generating heat, animals are luminous, and
display electric phenomena.

The glow-worm is known to all, and many insects of the beetle
tribe, as well as others, emit light. Many can extinguish or con-
ceal their light, or render it more vivid, at pleasure. In some it
has been found to proceed from masses not dissimilar, except in
their yellow colour, from the interstitial substance of the rest of
the body, lying under the transparent integuments, and absorbed
when the season of luminousness is passed.l The ocean is fre-
quently luminous at night from the presence of certain animal-
cules, to some sort of which, perhaps, is owing the phosphor-
escence of dead herrings. Some fish, as the gymnotus electricus
and torpedo, give electric shocks, and possess a regular galvanic
battery.

I have adopted the common language in speaking of animal
heat, as though the phenomena depended upon a specific sub-
stance. But there is every reason to believe that neither caloric
nor light are fluids, but peculiar states only; and electricity will
probably prove so likewise, and, indeed, all these to be but modi-
fications of the same state.

SECT. XI.
OF PERSPIRATION.

[Seite 172]

174. The functions of the skin, which affords a covering
to the body, are so extremely various, that they cannot all be
easily described with advantage in one chapter, but each will
be considered far more conveniently under that class of ac-
tions to which it belongs.

For, in the first place, the skin is the organ of touch, and
will be examined in this view, under the head of animal
functions.

It is an organ of inhalation, and in this point of view be-
longs to the absorbent system, to be spoken of among the
natural functions.

It is likewise the organ of perspiration, and on this account
is related in many ways to the function of respiration, and may,
we think, very properly follow it in this place.

175. The skin consists of three membranes – The corium,
internal; the cuticle, external; and the reticulum, interme-
diate.

176. The cuticle, or epidermis,a forms the external cover-
ing of the body, is separable into several lamellae,b and ex-
posed to the atmosphere, the contact of which can be borne
by scarcely any other part, if you except the enamel of the
teeth. For this reason, the internal cavities, and the canals
which communicate with the surface for the purpose of admit-
ting air, especially the respiratory passages and the whole of
the alimentary canal, the tongue, the inside of the cheeks, the
[Seite 173] fauces, and the organ of smell, are covered by a fine epithe-
lium, originating from the epidermis.c

177. The texture of the epidermis is extremely simple,
destitute of vessels, nerves, and of true mucous web, and
consequently but little organised; very peculiar, however;d
remarkably strong, considering its pellucidity and delicacy, so
that it resists suppuration, maceration, and other modes of
destruction, for a great length of time; and reproduced more
easily than any other of the similar parts.

178. It is completely sui generis, somewhat like a horny
lamella, and adheres to the subjacent corium by the interven-
tion of a mucus, and by numerous very delicate fibrils which
penetrate the latter.e

The pores, which Leuwenhoek imagined in it, do not
exist; but it allows a very ready passage to caloric, carbon,
[Seite 174] hydrogen, and to matters immediately composed of these,
v. c. oil.

179. The importance of the cuticle to organised systems,
is demonstrated by its universality in the animal and vege-
table kingdoms, and by its being distinctly observable in the
embryo from the third month at latest after conception.

180. The inner part of the cuticle is lined by a fine mucous
membrane, denominated, from the opinion of its discoverer,
reticulum Malpighianum, and by means of which chiefly the
cuticle is united more firmly to the corium.f

Its nature is mucous, it is very soluble, and, being thicker
in Ethiopians, may be completely separated in them from
both the corium and cuticle, and made to appear as a true
distinct membrane.g (B)

181. Our colour resides in it. In all persons the corium
is white, and, in almost all, the cuticle white and semipellucid,
though in Ethiopians it inclines to grey. But the mucous re-
ticulum varies after birth, with age, mode of life, and especially
with difference of climate.

Thus among the five varieties into which I would divide
the human race, in the first, which may be termed Caucasian,
and embraces Europeans (except the Laplanders and the rest
of the Finnish race), the western Asiatics, and the northern
Africans, it is more or less white.

In the second or Mongolian, including the rest of the
Asiatics (except the Malays of the peninsula beyond the
Ganges), the Finnish races of the north of Europe, as the
[Seite 175] Laplanders, &c. and the tribes of Esquimaux widely diffused
over the most northern parts of America, it is yellow or re-
sembling box-wood.

In the third or Ethiopian, to which the remainder of the
Africansh belong, it is of a tawny or jet black.

In the fourth or American, comprehending all the Ame-
ricans excepting the Esquimaux, it is almost copper coloured,
and in some of a cinnamon, and, as it were, ferruginous hue.

In the fifth or Malaic, in which I include the inhabitants of
all the islands in the Pacific Ocean, and of the Philippine and
Sunda, and those of the peninsula of Malaya, it is more or
less brown, – between the hue of fresh mahogany and that of
cloves or chesnuts.

All these shades of colour, as well as the other character-
istics of nations and individuals, run so insensibly into one
another, that all division and classification of them must be
more or less arbitrary.

182. The essential cause of the colour of the Malpighian
mucus, is, if we mistake not, the proportion of carbon which
is excreted together with hydrogen from the corium, and which,
in dark nations, being very copious, is precipitated upon the
mucus, and combined with it.i

183. The corium, which is covered by the reticulum and
epidermis, is a membrane investing the whole body, and de-
fining its surface; tough; very extensible; of different degrees
of thickness; every where closely united, and, as it were, in-
[Seite 176] terwoven, with the mucous tela, especially externally, but
more loosely on its internal surface, in which, excepting in a
few regions of the body, we generally discover fat.

184. Besides nerves and absorbents, of which we shall speak
hereafter, innumerable blood-vessels penetrate to its external
surface, upon which they are shown, by minute injection, to
form very close and delicate net-works.

185. A vast number of sebaceous follicles also are dispersed
throughout it, and diffuse over the skin an oil, which isk very
thin, limpid, does not easily dry,l and is altogether distinct from
the common sweat, and from that which possesses an odour
resembling the smell of goats and is peculiar to certain parts
only.

186. Lastly, almost every part of the corium is beset with
various kinds of hairs,m chiefly short and delicate, more or
less downy, and found nearly every where but on the palpebrae,
penis, the palms of the hand, and the soles of the feet. In
some parts, they are long and destined for peculiar purposes;
such are the capillamentum, the eye-brows, the eye-lashes, the
vibrissae, mustachios, beard, and the hair of the arm-pits and
pudenda.

187. Man is, generally speaking, less hairy than most
other mammalia. But in this respect nations differ. For,
not to mention those nations who to this day carefully pluck
out their beard or the hair of other parts, others appear na-
turally destitute of hair, v. c. the Tunguses and Burats. (C)
On the contrary, creditable travellers assert that some inha-
bitants of the islands in the Pacific and Indian Ocean are
remarkably hairy.n (D)

188. Nor is there less variety in its length, flexibility,
colour, and disposition to curl, both in each race of men
[Seite 177] enumerated above (181) and in individuals: v. c. the hair of the
head in the Caucasian variety is rather dingy or of a nut brown,
inclined on the one hand to yellow, and on the other to black;
in the Mongolian and American, it is black, stiffer, straight,
and more sparing; in the Malay, black, soft, curling, thick,
and abundant; in the Ethiopian, black and woolly: In indi-
viduals, especially of the Caucasian variety, there are great
differences, and chiefly in connection with temperament, which
is found intimately and invariably connected with the colour,
abundance, disposition to curl, &c. of the hair;p and there
also exists a remarkable correspondence between the colour
of the hair and of the irides.

189. The direction of the hairs is peculiar in certain parts,
v. c. – spiral on the summit of the head; – diverging up-
wards on the pubes; – on the exterior of the arm, as is
commonly seen in some anthropomorphous apes, (v. c. in the
satyrus and troglodytes) running in two opposite directions
towards the elbow, i. e. downwards from the shoulder, up-
wards from the wrist; to say nothing of the eye-lashes and
eye-brows.

190. The hairs originate from the inner surface of the
corium, which abounds in fat. They adhere to it pretty
firmly,q by a curious bulb, consisting of a double involucrum;r
– the exterior vascular and oval, the interior cylindrical,
apparently continuous with the epidermis,s and sheathing the
elastic filaments of which the hair is composed, and which
are generally from five to ten in each.

[Seite 178]

191. The hairs are almost incorruptible, and always
anointed by an oily halitus. Of all parts they appear most
truly electrical. They are very easily nourished and even
reproduced, unless where the skin is diseased. (E)

192. Besides the functions ascribed to the integuments in
the former section, must be enumerated their very great
excretory power, by which foreign and injurious matters are
eliminated from the mass of fluids.t

This is exemplified in the miasmata of exanthematic dis-
eases, in the smell of the skin after eating garlic, musk, &c.
and in sweating and similar phenomena.u

193. What is most worthy of our attention, is the transpira-
tion of an aëriform fluid, denominated, after the very acute
philosopher who first applied himself professedly to investigate
its importance, the perspirabile Sanctorianum,x and similar to
what is expired from the lungs.y It likewise is composed of
various proportions of carbon,z azote, and hydrogen,a precipi-
tates lime from solution, and is unfit to support either flame
or respiration.

194. The sweat, which seldom occurs spontaneously during
health and rest unless in a high temperature, appears to be
nothing more than the perspirable matter of Sanctorius
too much increased in quantity by the excited action of the
cutaneous vessels, its hydrogen uniting with the oxygen of the
atmosphere, and assuming the liquid form.

[Seite 179]

195. Upon the same hydrogen, variously modified by the
accession of other elements and constituents, would seem to
depend the natural and peculiar odour perceived in the per-
spiration and sweat of certain nations and individuals.b (F)

196. The quantity of matter perspired from the integu-
ments, which, in a well-grown adult, are equal to about fifteen
square feet, cannot be accurately estimated, but is probably
about two pounds in twenty-four hours.c (G)


NOTES.

(A) One of this family exhibited himself a few years ago in
Bond Street. He was thirty years of age, and stated himself to
belong to the fourth generation of the descendants of a savage
who was found in the woods of America, and had the same con-
dition of skin. He informed me that it is transmitted to every
male without exception in the male line, but has never appeared in
the females or their male offspring: and that the horny warts first
show themselves at two months from birth, are constantly grow-
ing, though most in summer, and are constantly being shed, but
particularly in winter, till the thirty-sixth year, after which they
are never shed, but continue to grow, so that in this man’s father,
who was eighty years of age, and lived in Suffolk when I saw the
man, they were of very great length. They are set so close to-
gether, that their tops form a tolerably smooth surface, unless
they are separated by extending the skin. Nearest those parts in
which there are none, they gradually become smaller. Besides the
parts mentioned by Blumenbach, the glans penis, I understood, was
free from them.

[Seite 180]

(B) Although Dr. Gordond and Mr. Lawrencee assert that
they have never been able to detach any thing from the cutis of
Europeans in the form of a distinct membrane, the rete Malpig-
hianum does exist in Negroes, and the latter gentleman allows
that the various complexions of Europeans and the peculiar cream
white of the Albino, who has unquestionably no colouring matter
in his eyes or skin, show that it exists even in us.

(C) Dr. Wells describes the singular case of a man whose hair
fell off throughout his body in about six weeks, without any evi-
dent cause or derangement of health, and did not return, except that
about two years afterwards, while labouring under a suppurating
tumour of the neck that discharged through several small holes, a
fine down appeared upon his cheeks and chin, which occasioned
him to shave once a week for about three months, when it disap-
peared. He always looked afterwards as if just shaved, and by
wearing a wig would not have been noticed for any peculiar ap-
pearance.f Dr. Frank saw a similar case.g We have an example
of bristly hair shed and renewed every autumn, in five sons of the
same family.h

(D) The reference is to the Kurille and neighbouring islands.
But Krusenstern, a late circumnavigator, declares that he ob-
served no particular hairiness of the people in this part of the
world, and that former accounts are at least exaggerations.i In
the island of Anicoa, he indeed met with one child, eight years
of age, covered with hair: but such an instance has occurred in
Europe. Zacchias, in 1613, saw a tall man at Rome covered
with fine, long, straight hair, of a light yellow colour. There was
a sister similarly hairy, and the father had been a hairy person, but
the mother had not differed from other women. The man married,
and, of four children, one girl and one boy were born covered with
black hair, looking, says Zacchias, like black kids, and reminding the
attendants of the account of Esau’s birth: – ‘“The first came out
[Seite 181] red, all over like a hairy garment.”’k In fifteen days the whole
of this hair fell off, and, as puberty approached, soft fine hair
sprung up all over the body, even over the temples and forehead.l
Shenckius has collected several similar cases.m

(E) The hairs have been represented destitute of life. But they
have turned grey in a single night from excessive copulation, and
from distress of mind. In illness they often grow soft, and hang
about the head. I know a lady whose hair will not keep in curl if
she is in the slightest degree indisposed, and a young gentleman
whose profuse curly hair becomes straight under the same cir-
cumstances: on the other hand, a case is recorded in which it
always curled in a fit of the gout.n Lastly, the hair has been
so sensible in phrenitis after an injury, that the slightest touch
gave severe pain, and when the surgeon clipped a hair unseen
by the patient, this was instantly felt, and occasioned a paroxysm
of rage:o sensibility cannot be acquired by a part not already
alive.

Hair often grows abundantly in portions of the skin usually not
much supplied with it, and these are generally of a brown colour:
it will sometimes grow in parts naturally destitute of it, as the
tongue and even the heart.p Sometimes it grows in encysted
tumours accompanied by fat, and occasionally by teeth and portions
of jaw and amorphous bone; and feathers covered by fat are some-
times found in the thorax and abdomen of tame geese and ducks.q
Hair has also been discharged from the urethra.

(F) The odour of the secretions of the mucous follicles differs
in different parts. In the tonsils, when the secretion is solid, it
is horridly offensive, really faecal, and is a frequent cause of
foetid breath: in the glands behind the ears, when the secretion
is squeezed out in a solid form, its smell is said to be caseous: in
the parts of generation, peculiar. In many brutes, the odour of the
female genitals attracts the male, and is strongest when the animal
is in heat. The mere sweat has a different smell in different parts:
in the arm-pits hircine; in the feet, sometimes like that of tan,
[Seite 182] and sometimes of cabbage-water. Persons differ not only in the
amount of their general perspiration, but in its amount in different
parts; and under exercise and heat, different persons sweat most in
different parts. A person from merely happening to sweat most in
a part whose secretion is generally offensive, may probably acquire
the characteristic odour, without having a particular disposition
to filthiness of secretion. The general perspiration of every one
probably smells peculiarly; for savages can distinguish the nation
of persons by the smell. (Haller and Humboldt.) The boy born
deaf and blind, whose history is related by Mr. Dugald Stewart,
distinguished people by their odour; and I saw in the report
of a trial lately in the newspapers, that dealers in hair boasted
of being able to tell the nation from which the hair came merely
by the smell. The power possessed by brutes in distinguishing
and tracing other animals is well known.

The odour of some persons is said to have been quite a per-
fume. In the memoirs of the Queen of Navarre, we read that
Catharine de Medicis was a nosegay; and Cujacius the civilian,
and Lord Herbert of Cherbury, were equally delightful.

(G) The skin produces chemical changes similar to those which
occur in the lungs (171);r forms a watery secretion (193. sqq.),
and is an organ of absorption.

[Seite 183]

To ascertain the quantity of watery secretion, Lavoisier and
Seguins inclosed the body in a silk bag varnished with elastic gum
and having a small opening carefully cemented around the mouth,
so that, by weighing the body previously and subsequently to the
experiment, they were able to ascertain exactly what had been
lost, and, by substracting from this loss the weight of the perspired
contents of the bag, they also ascertained how much of this had
passed off by the lungs. From repeated trials they found the
mean pulmonary discharge in twenty-four hours amounted to
15 oz. and the cutaneous to 30 oz. The quantity of carbon se-
parated by the lungs ought however to be taken into the account.
If it amount to 11 oz. in twenty-four hours, – the quantity stated by
Allen and Pepys, – there will be but 4 oz. of pulmonary exhala-
tion. But if oxygen and azote are absorbed in respiration, there
must have been correspondently more pulmonary exhalation; and
we have seen that Hales estimated it at about 20 oz. in the
twenty-four hours. They found the cutaneous transpiration at its
minimum during and immediately after meals, and at its maximum
during digestion.

The minimum after digestion was found by them to be 11 grs.
per minute; the maximum 32 grs.: at and immediately after dinner
10 2/10, and the maximum 19 1/10, under the most favourable and un-
favourable circumstances. It was increased by liquid, but not by
solid, food. The pulmonary they regard as greater than the cu-
[Seite 184] taneous proportionally to the surface on which it occurs.t What-
ever was taken, the weight was found to become ultimately as
before. Indigestion lessened transpiration, and the body continued
heavier generally till the fifth day, when the original weight was
restored. Transpiration was less in moist air and at a low tem-
perature, and the pulmonary and cutaneous transpirations obeyed
the same laws.

Dr. Edwards has made a great number of experiments upon
this subject.u He distinguishes the loss of fluid by evaporation of
what is exuded, from that by secretion.x The former occurs even in
the dead body, and is increased, in both the dead and living, and
among all animals, by the dryness, motion, and diminished pressure
of the atmosphere. It may be suspended by saturating the air with
moisture, and by employing animals (vertebrated, cold-blooded)
whose temperature is not above that of the atmosphere; for if those
are employed whose temperature exceeds that of the atmosphere,
the air as soon as it touches them is rarefied, can take up more
moisture, and is no longer air saturated with moisture. These
circumstances, of course, affect only the removal or evapor-
ation of fluid which may have either transuded or been se-
creted, but do not affect the secretion. In frogs, which perspire
copiously, the loss by evaporation at 68° is thus found six times
greater than by mere secretion, and the proportion in man, the
temperature being the same and the air dry, must be greater, as
his skin secretes much less.

The secreted fluid may be carried off by evaporation as quickly
as it is formed, so as to be insensible perspiration, or may be too
abundant for this, and appear as sweat. The transuded fluid may
also be condensed and precipitated on the skin in the form of
sweat.

The cutaneous secretion is not so much augmented by moderate
elevations of temperature as might be imagined; but as the
elevation proceeds, the augmentation of secretion becomes more
than proportionate. It appeared increased after meals and
during sleep, and, though subject to great fluctuations if observed
at short intervals, from accidental changes in the atmosphere,
underwent successive diminutions when observed every six hours,
from six o’clock a. m., – the hour of rising, – till the return of the
[Seite 185] same period. In frogs this regular diminution might be detected
every three hours.y

In frogs the cutaneous secretion continues, though at its mini-
mum, in the moistest air and in water; and it would appear to do
so also in man.z

The matter of the cutaneous secretion contains an acid, pro-
bably the acetic, a muriate of potash and soda, acetate of soda,
and perhaps albumen.a What evaporates is mere water.

Dr. Edwards makes some curious remarks upon the different
effects of dry and moist air when hot, and when cold. When hot,
dry air will of course communicate less heat to the body than if
moist, and will, by its dryness, cause more evaporation; so that the
two operations of air, dry or moist, will correspond in temperatures
above that of the body. When cold, dry air will remove less
heat from the body than moist, but, by its dryness, will cause
more evaporation, and therefore tend to cool more, so that the two
operations oppose each other in temperatures inferior to that of
the body.b The same remarks apply to cold water.

He did not find moist cold air to cool animals more than dry
cold air.

In low temperatures, we have seen that the loss by evaporation
greatly exceeds that by secretion. In high, it is the reverse, and,
when the body is covered with sweat, there can be no loss by the
evaporation which occurs, independent of secreted fluid, whether
the air be dry or moist. Vapour will cause more loss by secretion
than dry air; but no loss can take place by the lungs in hot
vapour.c

Perspiration can never be entirely suppressed, because the
cold which suppresses secretion, causes the air, however moist,
and therefore opposed to evaporation, to rise in temperature, by
coming in contact with the body; and the superior temperature,
which it instantly acquires, enables it to hold more moisture, and
evaporation from the skin is thus instantly promoted.d

Absorption by the skin, unless friction is employed or the cu-
ticle abraded, has been denied. We are told that Dr. Currie’s
patient, labouring under dysphagia seated in the oesophagus,
[Seite 186] always found his thirst relieved by bathing, but never acquired
the least additional weight:e that Dr. Gerard’s diabetic patient
weighed no more after cold or warm bathing than previously:f
that Seguin found no mercurial effects from bathing a person in a
mercurial solution, provided the cuticle remained entire; while
they occurred when the cuticle was abraded.g

But the two former cases are no proofs that water was not
absorbed, because the persons immersed did not lose in weight,
which they would have done if not immersed, owing to the pul-
monary and cutaneous excretions; these therefore must have been
counterbalanced by absorption somewhere, and no shadow of proof
can be urged against its occurrence by the skin, as Dr. Kellie
remarks in his excellent paper on the functions of this part.h
Seguin besides found two grains of the mercurial salt disappear in
an hour from the solution when of the temperature of 72 1/2°.

There is every reason to believe the occurrence of cutaneous
absorption independently of friction or abrasion of the cuticle.
First, the existence of absorbents all over the surface cannot be
intended for use merely when friction is employed or the cuticle
abraded. Secondly, we have many facts which prove absorption
without these circumstances, either by the skin or lungs, or both,
while no reason can be given why they should be attributed
solely to the lungs. A boy at Newmarket, who had been greatly
reduced before a race, was found to have gained 30 oz. in weight
during an hour, in which time he had only half a glass of wine.i
Dr. Home, after being fatigued and going to bed supperless,
gained 2 oz. in weight before seven in the morning.i In three
diabetic patients of Dr. Bardsley’s, the amount of the urine ex-
ceeded that of the ingesta, and the body even increased in weight,
and in one of the instances as much as 17 lbs.k Dr. Currie
allows that in his patient, ‘“The egesta exceeded the ingesta in a
proportion much greater than the waste of his body will explain,
and, indeed, such facts occur every day.”’ The same patient’s urine,
too, after the daily use of the bath, flowed more abundantly and be-
came less pungent. Keill says that he one night gained 18 oz. in
his sleep: and Lining, that after drinking some punch one cool day,
‘“the quantity of humid particles attracted by his skin exceeded
[Seite 187] the quantity perspired in these two hours and a half by 8 1/3 oz.”’
and gives two more such instances in the same table.l Dr.
Edwards observed similar facts in guinea-pigs.m Thirdly, we
have positive evidence of cutaneous absorption without friction
or abrasion, in the case of frogs, toads, nay, in scaly lizards,
which will increase in weight by cutaneous absorption, even if
only a part of them is immersed in water; and remarkably so if
previously made to lose much of their moisture by exposure to the
air,n although they never surpass the point from which the loss of
weight began.o The increase is much greater in water than in
the moistest air.p

In all the cases which have been mentioned there is no reason
to suppose that exhalation did not continue, both on the skin and
in the lungs, so that the absorption must have been greater than
it at first sight appears. When no increase of weight has taken
place on immersion in the warm bath, absorption must have
occurred to maintain the weight notwithstanding the cutaneous and
pulmonary losses; and when some decrease of weight has been
observed, we are not justified in concluding that absorption had
not taken place, and not lessened the amount of the loss which
would have happened. Indeed, there is no doubt that perspira-
tion is considerably increased in the warm bath. – I may remark,
that while absorption is more active accordingly as more fluid has
been lost, it gradually becomes less as it approaches the habitual
standard of plenitude in the individual, and that while transpira-
tion is increased by elevation, the proportion of absorption is
increased by depression, of temperature.q

Dr. Massy, of America, about 1812, found that, if the body
were immersed in a decoction of madder, this substance became
discoverable in the urine by the alkalies, and Dr. Rousseau, in con-
junction with Dr. S. B. Smith, made, in consequence, a number of
experiments from which they conclude that rhubarb and madder
are so absorbed, and that these only of all absorbed substances
can be discovered in the urine, and are seen in that fluid only,
and are absorbed by no other parts than the spaces between the
middle of the thigh and hip, and between the middle of the arm
and shoulder.r

SECT. XII.
OF THE FUNCTIONS OF THE NERVOUS SYSTEM IN GENERAL.

[Seite 188]

197. We now come to the other class of functions termed
animal (83, II.), by which the body and mind are connected.
They have obtained their name from existing in animal sys-
tems only, and from enjoying a greater range than those
properly denominated vital.a

198. The principal organs of these functions are the brain
and medulla spinalis, together with the nerves, the greater
part of which originate from the two former. They may be
properly referred to two principal classes, sensorial and nerv-
ous:
the former comprehending all excepting the nerves and
their immediate origin, – all that serves more directly as the
connection between the office of the nerves and the faculties
of the mind.

199. Upon this division rests the beautiful observation of
Sömmerringb respecting the correspondence between the re-
lative size of each class with the faculties of the mind, – That
the smaller the nerves are, compared with the sensorial class,
the greater is the development of the mental faculties, and
that, in this sense, man has the largest brain of all animated
beings, – if its bulk be compared with that of the nerves
arising from it; but by no means, if its weight be compared
with that of the whole body.

[Seite 189]

200. Besides the bony cranium, a threefold covering is af-
forded to the brain,c viz. the dura and pia mater, and, be-
tween these two, the tunica arachnoidea.

201. The dura mater,d which lines the inside of the
cranium, like a periosteum, forms various processes. By the
falx it divides the hemispheres of the cerebrum and cere-
bellum; (A) by the tentoriume it supports the posterior lobes
of the cerebrum, and prevents their pressure upon the sub-
jacent cerebellum.

In its various duplicatures it contains and supports the
venous sinusesf and prevents their pressure. These receive
the blood returning from the brain to the heart, the pro-
portion of which to the blood of the rest of the body, Zinn,
who was formerly one of our number, long ago very truly
remarked, has been overrated by physiologists.

202. Next to the dura mater lies the arachnoid, so named
from its thinness. Its use is not exactly known; it is desti-
tute of blood-vessels (5), and extended, like the dura mater,
[Seite 190] merely over the substance of the brain, without following the
course of its furrows and prominences.

203. On the contrary, the membrane, called pia mater by
the ancients, closely follows the cortical substance of the
brain,g and possesses innumerable blood-vessels which pene-
trate into the latter. Hence, if a portion of this membrane is
detached, we find the external surface very smooth, while the
internal is villous and resembles the roots of moss.h (B)

204. The brain is composed of various parts which differ
in texture and figure,i but the use of which is unknown.
The most remarkable are the four ventricles,k in the two an-
terior and fourth of which are found the choroid plexuses, of
whose function also we are ignorant.l

205. The substance of the brain is twofold: the one called
cineritious or cortical, though not always situated exteriorly;
the other white or medullary. Between the two, the cele-
brated Sömmerringm has detected a third substance of a
whitish colour, most conspicuous in the arbor vitae of the ce-
rebellum and in the posterior lobes of the cerebrum.

206. The proportion of the cineritiousn to the medullary
substance decreases as age advances, being greater in children,
[Seite 191] less in adults. It is almost wholly composed of an immense
number of very fine vessels, both sanguiferouso and colour-
less (92), some few of which penetrate into the medullary
substance,p composed, in addition to these vessels and a very
fine cellular substance, of a pultaceous parenchyma, which, if
examined with glasses, exhibits no regular structure,q and,
upon chemical analysis, affords a peculiar matter, in some
measure resembling albumen (C), and containing a large
quantity of carbon.r

207. The brain, after birth, undergoes a constant and
gentle motion,s correspondent with respiration; so that,
when the lungs shrink in expiration, it rises a little, but, when
the chest expands, again subsides.t

[Seite 192]

208. The spinal marrow is continuous with the brain,u and
may be said either to spring from the brain, as from a root,
or, on the contrary, to terminate in it and grow into its sub-
stance.x Contained in the flexible canal of the vertebrae, it
is enveloped by the same membranes as the brain: its sub-
stance is also twofold, but the medullary is exterior to the
cineritious.

209. From these two sources – the brain and spinal
marrow, arises the greater part of those cords, which are more
or less white and soft, chiefly composed of fine cellular canals
containing nervous medulla,y and distributed throughout
nearly all the soft parts; some nerves,z however, may be more
properly considered as uniting with the brain and spinal mar-
row than springing from them. (D)

210. After the numerous experimentsa of Haller and
other very careful observers, we are certain, from minute
anatomical examination, that many of the similar parts do
[Seite 193] not exhibit any true vestige of nerves; and, from surgical ob-
servationsb and from dissections of living animals,c that they
do not evince the least sign of feeling.

Such are the cellular substance, the epidermis and reticulum
mucosum, the hairs and nails.

The cartilages, bones, periosteum, and medullary mem-
brane.

The tendons, aponeuroses, and ligaments.

Most extended internal membranes, as the dura mater and
arachnoid; the pleura, mediastinum, and pericardium; the
peritonaeum; also the cornea, &c.

The greater part of the absorbsent system, especially the
thoracic duct.

Lastly, the secundines and umbilical chord. (E)

211. The ultimate origin of most nerves from the brain
cannot be detected. A question is agitated even at the pre-
sent day, – whether the nerves of each side arise from the
[Seite 194] corresponding or the opposite portion of the brain.d The
latter opinion is countenanced by certain pathological pheno-
mena,e and by the decussation of fibres in the medulla ob-
longataf and conjunction of the optic nerves.g (F)

212. A continuation of the pia mater follows the medulla
of the nerves in their course,h thus affording it a very delicate
vascular cortex.i But, as soon as they have quitted the brain
or medulla spinalis, their structure becomes peculiar, different
from that of all the mother similar parts. They form small trans-
verse folds more or less obliquely angular, long since described
by P. P. Mollinelli,k who not inaptly compared them to the
rugae of earth-worms or the rings of the aspera arteria.

213. The nerves of particular classes, especially the in-
tercostals or great sympathetics,l are every where furnished
with ganglia, or nodules of a compact structure and reddish
ash colour, but with whose functions we are scarcely ac-
quainted.m I am inclined to believe with Zinn,n that they
[Seite 195] more intimately unite the nervous filaments which meet in
them from various directions, so that each fibre passing out
is composed of a portion of every fibre which has entered
in.o (G)

Nearly the same may, perhaps, be said of the plexuses,
which are produced by similar unions and reticulated anasto-
moses of different nerves, and by a similar contexture of fila-
ments into which the nerves are split.

214. The ganglia and plexuses are most abundantly
bestowed upon the spinal nerves and the intercostal or sym-
pathetic nerve. The latter, united by a few delicate filaments
only with the rest of the nervous system, constitutes a peculiar
system, chiefly belonging to the involuntary functions. For
this reason, Bichat, viewing it as presiding over organic life,
distinguished it from the other nerves belonging to animal
life, properly so called, to use his own language.p

215. The terminations of the nerves are no less concealed
from us than their origins. Excepting a few which spread
out in the form of medullary membranes, as the optic nerve
which becomes the retina, and the portio mollis of the seventh
pair which forms a zone in the spiral laminae of the cochlea,
the ultimate filaments of the rest, penetrating into the viscera,
muscles, corium, &c., are so intimately blended with the sub-
stance of these parts as, at length, to elude observation.

216. The parts just described, viz. the sensorium, and the
nerves originating from it, and distributed throughout the
body, constitute that system which, during life, is the bond of
union between the body and the mind.

217. That the mind is closely connected with the brain, as
the material condition of mental phenomena, is demonstrated,
to omit such arguments as the immediate connection between
[Seite 196] the brain and the organs of sense, by our consciousness and
by the mental disturbances which ensue upon affections of the
brain. (H)

218. The peculiar situation and form, before alluded to, of
certain parts of the brain, and likewise some pathological
phenomena, have induced various physiologists to suppose
certain parts, in particular, the seat of the soul. Some have
fixed upon the pineal gland,q others the corpus callosum,r
the pons Varolii, the medulla oblongata, the corpora striata,
and the water of the ventricles that washes against the origin
of some nerves. Others, not contented with one spot, have
assigned particular parts of the brain for individual faculties
and propensities. (I)

219. The energy of the whole nervous system does not
depend solely upon the brain. The spinal marrow, and even
the nerves, are possessed of their own powers, which are
sufficient to produce contractions in the muscles. These
powers are probably supported by the vascular cortex of those
parts (212). In man, the powers proper to the nerves are
less, and those dependent upon the brain greater, than in
brutes, especially the cold-blooded.

220. The importance of the nervous system to nearly all
the functions of the animal economy, – the motion of the heart,s
respiration,t animal heat, (169) digestion, nutrition,u and
[Seite 197] most others, is evidently great. It is, however, chiefly
two-fold, – To excite motion in other parts, especially in the
voluntary muscles, of which function we shall hereafter speak
at large; – and to convey impressions made upon the organs
of sense to the brain, and there to excite perception, or by
means of sympathies (56) to give occasion to reaction.

221. Experiment and observation put these functions of
the nervous system beyond the reach of controversy. To
unfold their nature is difficult indeed. (K)

222. Most opinions on this subject may be divided into
two classes. The one regards the action of the nervous
system as consisting in an oscillatory motion; the other
ascribes it to the motion of a certain fluid, whose nature is a
matter of dispute, by some called animal spirits,w and supposed
to run in vessels, by others conceived to be a matter analo-
gous to fire, to light, to a peculiar ether, to oxygen, to
electricity, or to magnetism, &c.

223. Although I would by no means assent to either of
these opinions, I may be allowed to observe that most argu-
ments brought by one party against the hypothesis of the
other, must necessarily be rude in proportion to the subtlety,
either of the oscillations (if any such exist) of the nerves, or
to that of the nervous fluid.

224. These two hypotheses may, perhaps, be united by
supposing a nervous fluid thrown into oscillatory vibrations
by the action of stimulants.

225. The analogy between the structure of the brain and
some secreting organs favours the belief of the existence of a
nervous fluid.x But tubes and canals are evidently no more
requisite for its conveyance, than they are requisite in bibulous
paper or any other matter employed for filtering.

This opinion receives much weight from the great resem-
blance of the action of the nerves to the phenomena which
[Seite 198] are produced by the series of a galvanic apparatus and by
the common electric machine,y in a living animal or in
parts not quite deprived of vitality, and, in fact, long
ago induced some physiologists to compare the nervous to
the electric fluid. The singular and undeniable effects attri-
buted to animal magnetism,z as well as other phenomena
which have given rise to the belief of a kind of sentient
atmosphere surrounding the nerves,a agree very well with the
hypothesis of a peculiar nervous fluid.b

226. If we regard the oscillation of the nerves, not as
similar to that of gross tense chords, but of such a description
as may be conceived to occur in the very soft pulp of the
brain, we shall find many physiological phenomena exactly
corresponding with the supposition.

It is demonstrated that hearing is excited by an oscillation,
and why should not this be propagated to the brain?

In vision, also, it very probably occurs, although not to the
extent imagined by Leon. Euler.

The penetration of Hartleyc in following up the conjec-
tures of the great Newton,d has rendered it so probable that
the action of the other senses is not very dissimilar from this
oscillatory motion, that, on the same supposition, he very
ingeniously explains, principally by means of the vapour of
the ventricles (called by him the denser ether),e first, the
[Seite 199] association of ideas, and, again, by the assistance of this, most
of the functions of the animal faculties. (L)


NOTES.

(A) Sir Anthony Carlisle, on opening a woman who had died
after amputation of a foot, found no falx. The cerebrum was not
divided into hemispheres. The edge of the longitudinal sinus
was received into a depression, about half an inch deep, that
existed along the middle of the superior part of the cerebrum.
The head had been unaffected, and the mental faculties perfect,
as far as observation was made during the woman’s stay in the
Westminster Hospital.f

I presented to the London Phrenological Society, the cast of
the head of a male idiot, aged eighteen years, that was given me
by Dr. Formby, of Liverpool, and is only 16 inches in circumfer-
ence, and 7 3/4 inches from ear to ear over the vertex. The cerebrum
weighed but 1 lb. 7 1/2 oz., and the cerebellum but 4 oz. The he-
mispheres were united as far back as the vertex, and no falx existed
except for about two inches from the anterior part of the tento-
rium.

(B) The pia mater and tunica arachnoides were considered
as the same, till the Anatomical Society of Amsterdam confirmed,
in 1665, the doubts which were arising on the subject, and Van
Horne demonstrated both membranes distinctly to his pupils.
The dura mater corresponds with the fibrous membranes, the
pia mater with the cellular, and the tunica arachnoides with the
serous. The latter is, in nature, office, and diseases, exactly like
the serous; – a close sac, affording, as the peritonaeum does to
the abdominal viscera, a double covering to the brain and spinal
marrow and the nerves before their departure through the fora-
mina of the dura mater, and, according to Bichat, lining the
ventricles; insulating the organs on which it lies, and affording
them great facility of movement; and liable to all the morbid
affections of serous membranes.g

[Seite 200]

Between the pia mater and arachnoid of both the brain and
spinal marrow, Dr. Magendie has discovered the existence, during
life, of a large quantity of clear and colourless fluid, passing from
the surface of one organ to that of the other.h Cotugnoi had
long ago asserted its existence in the cranial and spinal cavities,
after death, and its free communication, and accurately described its
qualities; but notwithstanding he gave excellent reasons for be-
lieving its existence during life, he imagined the space around the
spinal marrow, observed by him to be larger in the emaciated and
old, and the space which in these two descriptions of subjects he
found also around the brain, to be filled with an aqueous vapour;
he also believed its occasional mixture with the fluid of the ven-
tricles. Dr. Magendie has proved the communication, not only of
the fluid of the spinal and cerebral cavities but also of the ventri-
cles, by an opening at the point of the calamus scriptorius of the
fourth.k He conceives it to move from one part to another, as
they are severally compressed by sanguineous turgescence during
muscular efforts. Bichat had asserted that the arachnoid entered
the ventricles by the third, near the venae Galeni. Dr. Magendie
never observed the fluid to escape at this part. If he is correct,
I do not understand whether the ventricles are lined by the pia
mater or the arachnoid or both. He found the removal of the fluid
to occasion immediate dulness and immobility; but that these dis-
appeared as soon as the fluid was replaced, and that its secretion
took place very rapidly. He believes that two ounces may exist
in the ventricles without disturbance, but that a larger quantity,
whether secreted or injected, for example, into the spinal cavity,
causes more or less apoplexy and palsy. Much must, however,
depend upon the quickness of the accumulation, as the powers
of accommodation are very great in living systems.

(C) The medullary substance is evidently fibrous. Mr. Bauer
thought he had discovered globules, but then he thinks fibres are
series of globules.l Dr. Hodgkin has found no globules in either
brain or nerves, nor medullary matter in the latter.m

[Seite 201]

(D) Dr. Gall has shown that the nerves and spinal marrow do
not arise from the brain, but only communicate with it; nor the
spinal nerves from the spinal marrow: for, when the brain is
absent, the foetus equally possesses cerebral nerves and spinal
marrow,n and the brain and spinal marrow, and the brain and
cerebral nerves, are in no proportion to each other in the various
species of the animal kingdom, nor the spinal nerves to the spinal
marrow, nor does the latter diminish as the nerves go off.

The idea of the nerves proceeding from the brain, is as unfounded
as that of the arteries proceeding from the heart, or one portion
of an extremity from another. Foetuses are seen with an arterial
system, and no hearts; others born with no arms, but fingers at
the shoulders. Independently of contrary arguments, we may
demand proofs of the opinion: none are given, and it has, no
doubt, been derived from the shooting of vegetables.

(E) Although no nerves have yet been discovered in these
parts, and although ordinarily they have no feeling, yet that they
have, in a lower degree, what, in a higher, is called feeling, is
shown by the extreme sensibility which they acquire when in-
flamed, as they nearly all frequently are, and occasionally without
inflammation. Some have sensibility in health to only one kind
of irritation. The ligaments may be cut without pain, but if
stretched instantly ache. The brain itself will bear great mecha-
nical injury without evincing much pain.

(F) Dr. Gall has also shown, that, besides the numerous com-
munications of the whole nervous system, not only the two sides
of the cerebrum, cerebellum, and spinal marrow, are united by
commissures, but that the fibres of the anterior pyramidal emi-
nences decussate each other, forming an exception to the rule,
observed in every other part of the cranial nervous organs besides
the optic nerves and the fibres which run from the genitals to the
cerebellum, of the nervous fibres, destined to each side of the
body, running on the same side of the brain; and he hence explains
why injuries of one side of the brain generally influence the oppo-
site side of the body. The spinal marrow has no decussation.

‘“We now know, and especially from the modern researches of
Drs. Gall and Spurzheim,”’ says Cuvier, ‘“that the spinal marrow
is a mass of medullary matter, white without, grey within, divided
[Seite 202] longitudinally by an anterior and posterior furrow; that its two
bands communicate by transverse medullary fibres; that it is
enlarged at regular distances, and at each enlargement gives off a
pair of nerves; that the medulla oblongata is the superior part of
the spinal marrow contained in the cranium, and also gives off
several pairs of nerves; that the communicating fibres of its two
bands decussate, so that the left go to the right side, and the re-
verse; that these bands, after having enlarged once by an admix-
ture of grey matter, and having formed the prominence called
pons varolii, separate, and are termed crura cerebri, still continuing
to give off nerves; that they enlarge once more by a fresh addition
of grey matter to form the masses commonly called thalami optici,
and a third time to form what have the name of corpora striata;
that from all the external portion of these latter enlargements
arises a layer of greater or less thickness, more or less furrowed
externally in different species, completely covered by grey mat-
ter which comes above to cover them, forming what are termed
the hemispheres, and which, after bending down in the middle,
unite by one or more commissures, or bands of transverse fibres,
the most considerable of which, found only in mammalia, has the
title of corpus callosum. We also know, that upon the crura
cerebri, behind the thalami optici, are one or two pairs of smaller
enlargements, known, when there are two pairs of them, as in the
mammalia, by the name of tubercula quadrigemina, and from the
first of which the optic nerves seem to arise; that the olfactory
nerve is the only one which does not clearly arise in the medulla
or its columns; lastly, that the cerebellum, white within, and cine-
ritious without, like the hemispheres, but often much more divided
by external furrows, lies transversely behind the tubercula qua-
drigemina, and upon the medulla oblongata, with which it is
united by transverse bands that are styled crura cerebelli and
inserted into the sides of the pons varolii.”’o

In a word, the fibrous columns of the spinal marrow communi-
cate by intermediate fibres; the fibrous bands of the brain run
onwards from the medulla oblongata, diverging and forming the
convolutions which may be distended into a great bag, and be-
tween both halves of these are converging fibres for connection,
[Seite 203] called corpus callosum, the anterior commissure, as well as other
bands for the same purpose; the pons varolii is the great com-
missure of the cerebellum, under which the corpora pyramidalia
pass to form the anterior and exterior part of the crura cerebri,
and afterwards the anterior, inferior, and exterior portion of the
anterior and middle lobes (the organs of the intellectual faculties);
and the corpora olivaria to form the remaining part of the crura
cerebri, and after becoming the thalami optici, and plunging into
the corpora striata, to form the posterior lobes, and the superior
and more central convolutions (organs of the feelings or affective
faculties). Whenever, in the medulla spinalis, or brain, an en-
largement occurs in the fibrous bands, there is an accumulation
of pulpy matter; improperly termed cortical, because it is some-
times within; and improperly grey, because its colour varies in
different animals; but always coexisting with the white or fibrous:
from all which circumstances, and its formation before the fibrous,
and its great vascularity, Gall supposes it destined for the nou-
rishment of the latter.p

I refer to the writings of this physician for a minute accountq
of his great discoveries in the structure of the nervous system,
and shall merely bear testimony to the truth of most of his ana-
tomical assertions. Those few which I have not repeatedly
seen proved, are I doubt not perfectly accurate. Some of the
most candid anatomical lecturers of London have confessed that
they knew nothing of the anatomy of the brain till they saw it
dissected by his pupil Dr. Spurzheim, and it is a matter of
wonder, that, while students are not instructed to dissect limbs
and trunks by slices, as we cut brawn, they should be taught no
other mode of examining the brain, and thus be left in ignorance
of its true structure.

We see Cuvier’s admission of many of Gall’s discoveries, and,
I must add, of discoveries which were doubted or absolutely
[Seite 204] denied in a report presented by Cuvier and others to the French
Institute, in 1808, – ‘“a report,”’ says Gall, ‘“which will always
be one of the most valuable proofs of the backward state of the
anatomical and physiological knowledge of the nervous system at
that time, and how much science owes me in this respect.”’r ‘“Reil,”’
says Professor Bischoff, ‘“who, as a profound anatomist and judicious
physiologist, requires not my praise, rising superior to all the lit-
tlenesses of vanity, has declared that he found more in Gall’s dis-
sections of the brain than he thought any man could have dis-
covered in his whole life.”’s Loder, after specifying Gall’s disco-
veries, adds, ‘“These discoveries alone would be sufficient to
immortalise Gall’s name: they are the most important which have
been made in anatomy since the discovery of the absorbents.”’
‘“I am ashamed and indignant with myself for having, with others,
been slicing hundreds of brains, like cheese: I never perceived the
forest for the multitude of the trees.
”’t

(G) This opinion is controverted by the argument that the
nerves said to enter and leave ganglia are not proportionate; nor
the size of ganglia proportionate to the nerves belonging to them.

(H) See Sect. VI. Note (B), and Sect. XLIV. Note (F), near the
beginning.

(I) Gall has the immortal honour of having discovered parti-
cular parts of the brain to be the seat of different faculties, sen-
timents, and propensities.

If it is clear that the brain is the organ of mind, it is extremely
probable that particular portions of it have different offices.

Numerous old writers had assigned situations for the facul-
ties, but in the most fanciful manner; and, from regarding as
distinct faculties what are merely modes of action of faculties
to which they were altogether strangers, their assertions on
the subject were necessarily groundless and ridiculous. Bur-
ton, for example, in his compilation, says, – ‘“Inner senses are
three in number, so called, because they be within the brain-
pan, as common sense, phantasie, and memory:”’ of common
sense, ‘“the fore-part of the brain is his organ or seat;”’ of
‘“phantasie or imagination, which some call aestimative or cogi-
[Seite 205] tative,
”’ ‘“his organ is the middle cell of the brain;”’ and of me-
mory, ‘“his seat and organ, the back part of the brain.”’u This was
the account of the faculties given by Aristotle, and repeated, with
little variation, by the writers of the middle ages. In the 13th
century, a head divided into regions according to these opinions
was designed by Albert the Great, Bishop of Ratisbon;x and another
was published by Petrus Montagnana, in 1491.y One published
at Venice, in 1562, by Ludovico Dolce, a Venetian, in a work upon
strengthening and preserving memory, is copied into the Phre-
nological Journal,
vol. ii. No. 7. In the British Museum is a chart
of the universe and the elements of all sciences, and in which a
large head so delineated is conspicuous. It was published at
Rome so late as 1632, and, what is singular, engraved at Antwerp
by one Theodore Galleus, and the head is really a good family
likeness of Dr. Gall, who, however, was born at Tiefenbrun in
Suabia, between Stuttgard and the Rhine, March 9. 1757.z

It is, however, more than probable that the different parts of
the brain have different offices. Its faculties are so various, that
it is impossible to imagine them possessed by the same portion.
The faculty of melody is perfectly different from the love of
offspring. If to suppose all parts of the brain are organs for all
faculties is impossible, the difficulty appears greater on reflecting
[Seite 206] that in that case the whole brain must be concerned in every act
and feeling, or, if the whole brain is not thus constantly at work at
all things, that different parts must perform the very same offices at
different times, each part working in every kind of mental act and
feeling in its turn. Neither does the brain perform merely one
thing, as the liver secretes merely one fluid, bile; nor is its struc-
ture the same throughout, like that of the liver.

The best authors hold that its various parts have various offices,a
and Gall proves that they have.

If the old course, recommended by Mr. Dugald Stewart, of
investigating the mind by attending to the subjects of our own
consciousness, had been persevered in, the science of mind would
have remained stationary for ever.b Who can judge fairly of
[Seite 207] his own character and talents? Not only is ‘“the heart of man de-
ceitful above measure,”’ but we give ourselves credit for talents
which others know to be insignificant. Our powers, too, and dis-
positions, are distributed in such various degrees, that, from this
single circumstance, every man, judging from himself only, would
draw up a different account of the human mind. It is only by
extensive observation of others, of different sexes, ages, educa-
tion, occupations, and habits, that this knowledge is to be acquired.
Nor would much progress have been made without the discovery,
that strength of individual talent and disposition was associated
with proportionate development of particular portions of the brain.
By this remark the existence of particular faculties, sentiments,
and propensities, was firmly established, and indeed Dr. Gall
discovered them by observing persons conspicuous in some mental
points to have certain portions of the head extremely large. I
did but allude to craniology while detailing Dr. Gall’s account of
the mind (Sect. V.), because the arrangement may be perfectly
accurate, although craniology be false; nor when speaking of the
brain as the organ of the mind (Sect. VI.), because that fact also
is independent of Dr. Gall’s system. But if now the account of
the mind, the use of the brain, and craniology, be viewed together,
they will all be seen mutually and beautifully to confirm each
other.

Much invective, but little argument, has been written against
the doctrine. We are presented with a simple statement – that
strength of certain parts of the mind, is accompanied by strong
development of certain parts of the brain, and, consequently,
of the skull, except in disease and old age; and vice versa. The
truth must be ascertained, not by fancying, quibbling, and abusing,
but by observing whether this is the case; and every one has it in
his power to make the necessary observations. But those who
[Seite 208] have facts to offer in objection must first be so well acquainted
with craniology as to be able to judge accurately of the de-
velopment which they adduce, and have carefully ascertained the
character and exact talents of the individual whom they fancy
an exception. I had heard of a religious bump, a thievish bump,
and a murderous bump, and was as lavish of my ridicule and con-
tempt of Dr. Gall’s doctrines as any other ignorant person, till I
heard his pupil, Dr. Spurzheim, detail them in the Medico Chi-
rurgical Society. They struck me powerfully. The anatomical
facts were demonstrated; the metaphysics were simple and na-
tural; and the truth of craniology was evidently to be ascer-
tained by personal observations only. I commenced observations,
and so satisfied was I of its correctness, that, whilst the storm was
raging violently, I wrote a defence of Gall’s doctrine in the only
review that was its friend.c Above eleven years have now elapsed,
during which I have lived making daily observations, but they all
confirm Dr. Gall’s statements. I have never seen an exception to
the accuracy of his general departments of the organs, nor of the
situation of most particular organs. Upon some I have not yet
made sufficient observations, and I have no doubt that our views
of the functions of many will be much modified and improved.
It would be absurd to think the system perfect at present. The
wonder is that so much was done by only one individual. The
science of cerebral organology is entirely Gall’s; nearly so hence-
forward will metaphysics be regarded; and anatomy must acknow-
ledge him among its greatest benefactors. Those who wish to
become acquainted with phrenology I must refer to Gall’s octavo
work, Sur les Fonctions du Cerveau, or his Anatomie et Physiologie du
Système nerveux.
The former work deserves to be read, not only
by every medical man, but by every moralist, naturalist, legislator,
and metaphysician. It is exceedingly eloquent and full of new
and splendid truths and illustrations, and infinitely the best for
those who would learn phrenology. However great the merits of
the books written by Dr. Spurzheim and my excellent friend
Mr. G. Combe,d its perspicuity and richness at once declare it
the work of the great master himself.

[Seite 209]

The exact situation of the organs can be learnt from drawings or
marked heads only. I shall therefore confine myself to remarking:
1st. That the organs of the faculties or qualities common to man
and brutes, are placed in parts of the brain common to man and
brutes, – at the inferior-posterior, the posterior-inferior, and in-
ferior-anterior parts of the brain, v. c. of the instinct of propaga-
tion, the love of offspring, the instinct of self-defence, of appro-
priating, of stratagem, &c. 2dly. Those which belong to man
exclusively, and form the barrier between man and brutes, are
placed in parts of the brain not possessed by brutes, viz. the
anterior-superior and superior of the front; v. c. of comparative
sagacity, causality, wit, poetic talent, and the disposition to reli-
gious feelings. 3dly. The more indispensable a quality, or faculty,
the nearer are its organs placed to the base of the brain, or median
line. The first and most indispensable, – the instinct of propagation,
lies nearest the base; that of the love of offspring follows. The organ
of the sense of localities is more indispensable than that of the
sense of tones or numbers; accordingly the former is situated
nearer the median line than the two latter. 4thly. The organs of
fundamental qualities and faculties which mutually assist each
other, are placed near to each other, v. c. the love of propagation
and of offspring, of self-defence and the instinct to destroy life, of
tones and numbers. 5thly. The organs of analogous fundamental
qualities and faculties are equally placed near each other: v. c.
the organs of the relations of places, colours, tones, and numbers
are placed in the same line, as well as the organs of the superior
faculties, and the organs of the inferior propensities.d

Although the arrangement of the organs is so beautiful, we
must not imagine that Gall mapped out the head at pleasure, ac-
cording to preconceived notions. He discovered one organ after
another, just as it might happen, and often one became known to
him situated very remotely from the organ last discovered. The
set of organs discovered by him turned out as it is, and a strong
argument is thus afforded to the truth of his system.

‘“I defy,”’ says he, ‘“those who attribute my determination of
the fundamental faculties and of the seat of their organs to
caprice or arbitrary choice, to possess a tenth part of the talent
necessary for the most obscure presentiment of this beautiful
arrangement; once discovered, it displays the hand of God,
[Seite 210] whom we cannot cease to adore with wonder increasing as his
works become more disclosed to our eyes.”’e

If Gall’s is the only satisfactory account of the mental faculties,
and to me it certainly appears so, this alone is a proof of the truth
of his organology. For such an account could not have resulted
from imagination; and observation, unaided by reference to de-
velopment, never produced much that is satisfactory in me-
taphysics; and it was in fact derived from studying the organi-
sation.

Gall discovered each organ and its faculty either by meeting
with individuals very remarkable for the latter, so that he was led
to examine their heads; or by noticing a peculiarity of formation
in the head which induced him to ascertain their talents and cha-
racter. He would never have made his discoveries had he not
met with persons remarkable in these respects. Sometimes the
relation between the remarkable faculty or quality and the local
development was tolerably obvious, but generally he had to make
numerous observations before he found himself right. After find-
ing two individuals remarkable in the same point of character, and
casting their heads, he has examined the casts daily for months
before he could discover the precise spot in which they agreed.
The discovery being now made, a good organologist will give
judgments upon character which must astonish and incontestably
prove the truth of phrenology; but the difficulty of making the
discovery when all was utter darkness must have been extreme.
The indefatigable industry of Gall for so many years, travelling as
he did to most of the prisons, mad-houses and hospitals of the Con-
tinent; examining the habits and heads of brutes innumerable for
comparison; and engaging persons at salaries to examine points
for him, in the way of reading, dissecting, casting, and observing
living persons, is astonishing;f and the success and importance of
his researches will, I am satisfied, ensure him a place among the
greatest names of the human race, although, like every other
discoverer and benefactor, he has been loaded with ridicule and
abuse. Whoever knows him must, so far from finding him a
quack, admire the profundity and candour of his conversation and
the extent of his attainments, and be delighted with his disin-
terested kindness, and the gentleness and elegance of his manners.
[Seite 211] The composure with which he hears the ill-treatment of the world
is most enviable, and demonstrates a mind conscious of truth and
good intention.g

[Seite 212]

Whoever acquires sufficient knowledge of the subject to make
observations for himself, will soon find the shape of the skull to
be as various as character and countenance, and will have hourly
amusement both in remarking the relation between intellectual
and moral character, sexual, national, and individual, and cranial
form and size, and in tracing the resemblance of children in the
latter respect to their parents, as well as in talent and disposition.

Should any one doubt his acquaintance with the real talents
and character of those friends whose heads he can select for ob-
servation, he has only to study the heads of some celebrated men
now living, or the authentic casts of the departed, of whose
talents and disposition no one can have the slightest doubt, and he
will find the coincidence astonishing and invariable.

If these are facts, all objections on the score of fatalism and
materialism, however correct, are unworthy of attention. But in
truth, phrenology gives no additional support to such views. A
stone is destined not to feel; a fish is destined to swim, and a vul-
ture to be a bird of prey; man is destined to be

[Seite 213]
––––– ‘“Not prone’
‘And brute as other creatures, but endued’
‘With sanctity of reason, and to erect’
‘His stature, and upright, with front serene,’
‘Govern the rest, self-knowing.”’

The very expression ‘“human nature”’ implies certain innate
faculties and dispositions, generally; the circumstance of peculiar
degrees of disposition and talents being hereditary, and of each
age having its distinctive character, are quite as favourable as
phrenology to the belief of fatalism. Each has his own talents
and disposition; in some way or other they must be obtained, and
if the way is discovered, the case does but remain the same as
before.h Yet whatever may be our innate propensities and
powers, we know how much various circumstances influence the
development of faculties and the strength of dispositions, and we
feel as if we were free agents: we seem to move our right hand or
our left, and to sit still or walk, exactly as we choose, and we pos-
sess reason and conscience to guide our conduct. But the more
we yield to any inclination, the less are we able to withstand it.

‘“Reason in man obscured or not obeyed,’
‘Immediately inordinate desires’
‘And upstart passions catch the government’
‘From reason: and to servitude reduce’
‘Man, till then free.”’

Yet, notwithstanding this feeling of freedom, ‘“all theory is,”’
certainly, as Dr. Johnson said, ‘“against the freedom of the will.”’i
The objections on the ground of materialism are not more ap-
plicable to phrenology than to the doctrine now universally ad-
mitted, – that the brain is the organ of the mind; and were an-
swered at p. 66. sqq.

Those who have so little soul as always to ask what is the good
of any discovery in nature, may be told that phrenology is cal-
culated to assist parents in the choice of occupations for their
[Seite 214] children. And it may be of much service in confirming some
moral views which good sense indeed ought previously to have
suggested. Humility and benevolence are two leading duties.
If we detect the signs of intellectual deficiency and vice in our
own heads, we may learn to think humbly of ourselves; and being
put in possession of true self-knowledge, endeavour to strengthen
what is too weak and repress what is too strong. If we detect the
signs of great talents and virtues in the heads of others, we may
love them the more as superior and highly-favoured beings:
whereas if we detect the signs of great virtues and talents in our
own heads, we may learn to take no praise to ourselves, but be
thankful for the gift; and if we detect the signs of intellectual de-
ficiency and vice in others, we may learn to pity rather than to
censure. We may learn not to judge others, nor even our own-
selves, but to leave judgment to Him who only knows exactly what
natural strength of evil inclination, what weakness of good, and
what unhappy external circumstances, each has had to contend
with. Not revenge, but example, is the professed object of our
legal punishments: – example to the culprit himself and others,
or, if the punishment is capital, to others only; and therefore
frauds, which, from being very easily committed, may become very
detrimental to society, are punished more severely than those
which, caeteris paribus, from being difficult of perpetration, can
scarcely from their frequency become dangerous. Were moral
demerit regarded, the fraud easily committed, would, caeteris
paribus, be punished the most lightly. A vicious man must be
restrained, as a wild beast,k for the good of others, though, for
aught we know, his faults may, like the acts of the beast of prey,
be chargeable rather on his nature; and while we feel justified in
confining, and the culprit is perhaps conscious how richly he de-
serves his fate, we may pity in our hearts and acknowledge that
we ourselves have often been less excusable.

‘“Teach me to love and to forgive,’
‘Exact my own defects to scan,’
‘What others are to feel, and own myself a man.”’

Phrenology, too, may be of the highest use when in criminals
there may be suspicion of idiotism or insanity. Idiotism often
[Seite 215] depends on deficiency of cerebral development, and many idiots
have been executed for crimes when it was not exactly proved that
they were idiotic enough to be unfit for punishment, but whose
cranial development might have settled the point at once. Many
persons also have been executed who should have been con-
sidered madmen, but were not because the fact of illusion was not
made out; yet the extreme preponderance of the development of
the organs of the propensities over that of the moral sentiments
and intellect, would have proved that they were deserving of
coercion rather than punishment. Such does the skull of
Bellingham, the murderer of Mr. Percival, prove him to have been.

By phrenology the true mental faculties have principally been
discovered.

If phrenology teaches the true nature of man, its importance
in medicine, education, jurisprudence, and every thing relating
to society and conduct, must be at once apparent.l

(K) While the brain is evidently the organ of mind, the nerves
united with it, and the spinal marrow, together with its nerves,
are as evidently the instruments by which it affects, and is affected
by, the other parts of the body, to which these nerves are distri-
buted. By their instrumentality, the brain contracts the volun-
tary muscles, influences the functions of every other part when
under the operation of the different passions, and receives im-
pressions made upon every other part.m The consequences of
divisions of the nerves or spinal marrow, fully substantiate these
points.

If a nerve supplying an organ of sense, as the olfactory, optic, or the
portio mollis, is compressed, the organ becomes insensible to odours,
light, or sounds. If one supplying muscles only, as the motor oculi,
patheticus, abducens, portio dura, or lingualis, the will loses power
over such muscles. If the spinal marrow, or nerves conveying both
volition from the brain and impressions to the brain, the supplied
parts lose both sense and motion.n In either this or the preceding
[Seite 216] case, if the divided surface now unconnected with the brain, is
irritated (or if, indeed, the parts are not divided, but irritated by
pinching), contractions occur in the muscles supplied by them;
and if a sedative is applied the muscles become inert. In these
cases, too, if the divided surface connected with the brain is
irritated, acute pain is felt, as if in the part on which the nerve
originally terminated;o and after the removal of a limb, it is common
for sensations to be experienced by the patient as if he still pos-
sessed his hand or his foot. The nerves which only convey
volition, and those of the other four senses than touch, give little
or no pain when mechanical stimulus is applied: and these have
not, like those which are sensible, a ganglion at a short distance
from their origin.p When nerves supply both muscles and an
organ of sense, they are compound, one portion performing but one
function, as Mr. Charles Bell first and Dr. Magendie farther proved
by separately dividing the nervous bands proceeding from the
anterior and posterior parts of the spinal marrow, before their
conjunction, when the division of the former deprived the parts
supplied of the influence of volition; and the division of the latter,
of sensation.q The anterior portion of the spinal marrow is nearly
insensible, while the posterior is acutely sensible: the division
of the former has the same effect as the division of the anterior
nerves; of the latter, as the division of the posterior nerves. The
destruction of the centre of the spinal marrow by a wire, impairs
[Seite 217] neither sensation nor motion,r nor is pain felt by the experiment.
The effects of the division of the spinal marrow are of course
more extensive in proportion as the division is made higher up,
and if made above the origin of the phrenic nerves, which are
the chief agents in causing the contraction of the inspiratory
muscles, and consequently above the origin of all the nerves of
inspiration, death immediately ensues.s Yet, in brutes, after re-
moving the head or dividing the spinal marrow, if any limb is
irritated, its muscles are thrown into action: thus Sir Gilbert
Blane, whose practical labours have equalled and, in a national
point of view, surpassed in utility those of every other physician of
St. Thomas’s, found, after such operations in kittens a few days old,
the hind legs to shrink from the touch of a hot wire applied to the
hind paws; and the tail move when irritated, after the division of
the marrow below the last lumbar vertebra.t More divisions than
one do not prevent this effect, and if the whole brain is removed
except a portion to which the third pair is attached, and the
optic nerve is divided, the iris instantly contracts when the extre-
mity of the optic nerve is pinched.u Magendie also remarks, that
when the posterior roots of the spinal marrow are irritated, besides
signs of extreme pain, the muscles below the part irritated are
thrown into action, but only on the same side of the body; facts
[Seite 218] all showing a peculiar relation between the nerves of sensation
and motion, that originate at the same portions of the nervous
system.x

If the medulla oblongata exists, consciousness and volition be-
come evident. Mr. Lawrence saw a child with no more ence-
phalon than a bulb, which was a continuation for about an inch
above the foramen occipitale from the medulla spinalis, and to
which all the nerves from the fifth to the ninth pair were con-
nected.y The child’s breathing and temperature were natural;
it discharged urine and faeces and took food, and at first moved
very briskly, and lived four days. If the cerebrum and cerebellum
are removed in a living brute, and the same portion of the medulla
oblongata left, the poor thing cries if attempts are made to give
it pain, and moves its extremities, even sometimes for two hours.z
Cold-blooded animals live much longer, and the lower we descend
in the scale of brutes the more diffused appear the powers of the
nervous system: indeed, in the lowest there is, strictly speaking,
no brain nor spinal marrow, but ganglions and nerves, which, no
doubt, perform the same functions as far as required in those ani-
mals, and are, in fact, brains to them, but of a different form and ac-
commodated to their structure.a The higher we ascend, the more
parts exist above the medulla oblongata, till, rising from fish and
reptiles, through the numerous warm-blooded brutes, all distin-
guished by the relative magnitude of each cerebral part, accord-
ing to their several mental characters, and seeing the successive
additions of cerebral structure and cerebral mass, and of intelli-
gence, we arrive at man, in whom the successive imposition of
cerebral matter has reached its maximum, so that the summit of
the nervous system, which corresponds with the forehead and
vertex, is much larger in him than in any brute,b and his intellect
and moral feelings are proportionally greater. According to the
[Seite 219] smallness of the anterior-superior and of the superior portions of the
brain, will individual mental superiority to the brute creation be
small. Idiotism may arise from faultiness of texture, but many con-
genital cases depend upon deficiency of anterior development; and
such idiots, as well as the whole brute creation, may be regarded
as examples of various cerebral mutilations, made by nature, illus-
trating the use of the cerebral parts. Attempts to mutilate arti-
ficially are not calculated to afford much information. Animals
can generally give no opportunity of observing what mental
change has been produced by the removal. For instance, when a
writer says that the removal of the cerebellum causes no other
effect than sluggishness in the animal, – how does he know that
sexual desire is not extinguished? When various portions of brain
are removed, how can any inference be drawn, during the short
existence of the poor animal, as to the state of its various faculties
and inclinations? And when another asserts, that after the re-
moval of the hemispheres and cerebellum we may make observ-
ations whether the animal will copulate or not, – how can he ascribe
any indisposition that may occur, to the removal, when any circum-
stances of suffering, wound, confinement, or want of food, will
make it very difficult to induce an animal to indulge itself with
sexual intercourse?c It is, besides, difficult, if not generally im-
possible, to remove one cerebral organ entirely and alone; other
parts of the encephalon, &c. are almost certain to be injured;d
and if others should not be injured, they may be influenced
[Seite 220] by the irritation of the injury,e and the effects arising from the
sympathetic affection of such parts; just, for example, as we often
see epilepsy from exciting causes in every part of the encephalon,
and from exciting causes even in distant organs. Amaurosis is
frequently induced by wounds of the supra-orbital nerve; some-
times by wounds of the infra-orbital nerve and of the portio dura.f
Some parts which have distinct names are only portions of organs,
so that injury of several parts may have the same effect; we
may have blindness from wounding the optic nerves, the tractus
optici, or the corpora quadrigemina. Some parts which have distinct
names are compound, so that one immediate and obvious effect of
injuring them is not the only consequence which would be ob-
served if the others had an opportunity of becoming apparent, –
the medulla oblongata is an instance of this,g and the recent dis-
covery that many nerves are two-fold.h

[Seite 221]

Hence the contradictory and strange observations and inferences
of most experimenters on the brain of living brutes.i The same
effects moreover do not occur in the same experiments upon
different species of animals. The observation of nature’s own mu-
tilations in brutes which have little or no development of parts
that are large in others, or in man, is therefore preferable; and
next to this comes the observation of morbid changes of different
parts, a subject, however, incapable of affording information till
the faculties had been ascertained by Gall. (See supra, p. 71.) Still
some results of mutilating the living brain appear generally al-
lowed, and are not at all in contradiction to phrenology. The
experiments of Fleurens are allowed by Gall to be very ingenious
and sometimes satisfactory;k and with respect to injuring the
cerebellum, Gall remarks, ‘“if it is true that the lesion of the tu-
[Seite 222] bercles in birds always causes convulsions, it is not less true that
the tubercles are destined to vision; and in the same way the
cerebellum (connected as it is with the medulla oblongata, &c.)
may participate in the vital function of the medulla oblongata
and spinalis, may give rise to disturbed motion when injured, and
yet have its own particular animal functions.”’l That animals
should skip and jump, and eat, after losing their hemispheres, is
not surprising, if these parts perform the phrenological functions
assigned to them, and are not necessary to motion. The medulla
oblongata and other lower parts of the encephalon have, no
doubt, much to do with motion as well as the spinal marrow, and
accordingly, when the oblongata was pressed in the child men-
tioned by Mr. Lawrence convulsions occurred; and the same
effect ensued on irritating it, in Dr. Gall’s experiments and those of
Lorry.m Pressure, however, of it, is also said by vivisectors to
occasion stupor.

Dr. Magendie informs us, that,

1. Deep cuts of the hemispheres do not affect motion in mam-
malia, reptiles, fish, and many birds, any more than their removal;
but the latter is said to occasion a blindness in mammalia and
birds, though not in fish or frogs, probably from the arrangement
of the cerebral parts being different, so that a similar wound affects
different organs.

2. If the white matter of both corpora striata is cut, the animal
darts forward, and retains the attitude of progression, if prevented.
He often found animals perform very regular movements after the
removal of the cerebellum; yet he observed, that wounds of it and
of the medulla oblongata, gave mammalia and birds a tendency to
move backwards, though the same effect does not occur in fish.

3. In a vertical section of the crura of the cerebellum, or of
the pons varolii from before backwards, the animal immediately
rolls forcibly on the same side, making sometimes sixty revo-
lutions in a minute; and a vertical section of the cerebellum
from before backwards through the whole substance of the me-
dullary arch over the fourth ventricle has the same effect, and the
motion is the more rapid as the section is nearer to the pons
varolii. An animal will continue rolling for eight days. If a
section is made on each side, the animal rolls from one side to the
other.

[Seite 223]

4. Notwithstanding the decussation of the anterior pyramids, a
division of one or both had no sensible effect, except, perhaps, that
of retarding motion a little; and a complete division of one-half of
the medulla oblongata neither affects sensibility nor prevents ir-
regular motions, though the power of volition appears lost on the
same side.

Similar phenomena occur in disease. Persons labouring under
hysteria or chorea sometimes roll violently, or spin round.n Per-
sons have been known to feel an impulse to move forwards or
backwards.o An infinite variety, however, of extraordinary and
regular movements also occur.

From these experiments I draw no inference. The consider-
ations already mentioned prevent me from concluding that the
parts which are cut are the sole organs concerned in giving origin
to the peculiar motions, that their sole purpose is for such motions,
or even that peculiar motions depend originally upon them. We
can only say, as in the case of amaurosis following an injury of
the supra-orbital, or infra-orbital nerve, such effects ensue.

In foetuses without brain or spinal marrow,p the circulation, nu-
trition, secretion, &c. proceed equally as in others, which, besides
spinal marrow, nerves, and ganglia, possess a brain.q Vege-
tables absorb, assimilate, circulate, secrete, and in many instances
contract on the application of stimuli, and yet are not known to
possess nerves. Muscles, after the division of the nerves which
connect them with the brain, contract equally as before, when
irritated. In animals liable to torpor, the season of torpidity
produces its effects equally upon those muscles whose nerves have
been divided, or if the brain, &c. is destroyed. After the removal
or destruction of the brain and spinal marrow in animals, the heart
still continues to act and the blood to circulate, provided respir-
[Seite 224] ation is artificially supported.r But the involuntary functions
are closely connected with the brain and spinal marrow, for the
sudden destruction of these parts or a certain portion of them,
puts a stop to the circulation;s the application of stimuli to them
excites the action of the heart and, even after its removal, of the
capillaries;t the passions of the mind do the same; nay, more, the
involuntary functions seem, in some experiments, as dependent
upon the brain and spinal marrow as they probably are upon the
ganglia and gangliac nerves, for the removal of a piece of the par
vagum, or the destruction of that part of the brain with which it
is connected, or of a considerable portion of the spinal marrow,
heavily impairs the functions of the lungs and of the stomach,u
putting a stop, not to the muscular action of the stomach, or to its
circulation, but to the secretion of gastric juice and to digestion,
and causing the blood to experience no longer the chemical changes
in the lungs, but the air-cells to become filled with frothy mucus,
the substance gorged with blood, and the surface marked with dark
patches, and causing these changes in the two organs even after
death, if the experiment is made as soon as the animal is killed,x
for after the mental functions have ceased, secretion and capillary
circulation continue for a time; and although the division of the
spinal marrow, or of its nerves, or compression or disorganisation
of these or parts of the brain, prevents voluntary power over the
corresponding muscles, without suspending the circulation, &c.
in them, and does not impede the functions of the lungs or stomach,
[Seite 225] yet circulation, and what are dependent upon it, – nutrition and
frequently animal heat, are evidently impaired, though perhaps, in
some measure, from the want of muscular action and the stimulus
of volition. Sir Everard Home found that by dividing the nerves
running to the horn of a buck, the temperature of the horn fell
about 6° below that of the other, and as the divided ends pro-
ceeded in the course of union, the temperature rose again towards a
level.y In hemiplegia, the least irritation will often produce in-
flammation, ulceration, and a rapid slough. Division of the fifth
pair of nerves close to the brain causes inflammation of the upper
part of the eye, and cloudiness of the upper part of the cornea; and
its division at the ganglion Gasseri produces opacity of the cornea
and ulceration and destruction of the eye.z The indisputable con-
nection which exists between the brain and various parts of the
body, and the effect which any injury of them must, therefore, be
supposed to have over other parts, together with the fact of children
living and eating and preserving their temperature for many days,
though born without brains, and the fact of amaurosis and even
cataract following wounds of the nerves of the face, render it
doubtful how far the above-mentioned circumstances show a de-
pendence
of the organic or vegetable functions upon the brain and
spinal marrow, – more than a connection. But a powerful argu-
ment in favour of the dependence of these functions upon the gan-
glions and ganglionic nerves is, the fact, that the ganglionic system
of nerves is formed before the brain and spinal marrow; indeed,
the nervous system of the chest and abdomen are fully formed,
while the brain appears still a pulpy mass.a

These ganglia and nerves would hardly be formed before the
brain and spinal marrow but for the sake of the organs which they
supply, and the functions of which (with the exception of the ge-
nitals) are as perfect at birth as at adult age; while the mind and
brain are slowly perfected.

A striking difference is observed in the structure and effect of
injuries upon them. Bichat asks, ‘“What anatomist has not been
struck with the difference between the cerebral and gangliac
nerves? Those of the brain are larger, more numerous, whiter,
denser, subject to fewer variations. On the other hand, extreme
[Seite 226] tenuity, considerable number, especially at the plexuses, a grey
colour, remarkable softness, and very frequent varieties, are the
characters of the gangliac nerves, if you except those which com-
municate with the cerebral, and some of those which unite these
little nervous centres.”’b

If they are cut, or the ganglia torn, no pain is produced,
while similar operations on the cerebral or spinal nerves produce
horrid torture. If all the ganglia of the neck are removed, and
even the first thoracic, no sensible or immediate derangement of
the functions is observable, even in parts to which the filaments
united with them may be traced.c Bichat long since remarked
no disturbance of the heart’s motion on attempting to irritate, or
on dividing, the cardiac filaments of the sympathetic; nor of the
stomach, bladder, &c. by applying violence or stimuli to their
nerves. Neither did he succeed with galvanism,d but Humboldt
and Dr. Fowler say they succeeded with galvanism in the case of
the heart.e

(L) These oscillations are purely hypothetical. Were their
existence proved, we should know nothing more of the real nature
of the cerebral functions, for we should have to learn what were
the peculiar properties of the nervous system, that enabled it
alone of all substances to produce, when oscillating, the pheno-
mena which it exhibits. We might as well attempt to explain
the phenomena of motion or of chemical affinity and galvanism by
vitality and mind, as the phenomena of vitality and mind by me-
chanics or chemical affinity and galvanism. They are altogether
distinct principles, although there can be no question that the
laws of mechanics and of chemical affinity and galvanism are
important and indispensable in every living system, in subser-
vience to life and mind. The mind, for aught we know, may
stimulate the voluntary muscles by means of galvanism commu-
nicated along the nerves, but then the galvanism is not mind, it
is merely an instrument employed by the mind.f

SECT. XIII.
OF THE EXTERNAL SENSES IN GENERAL, AND OF TOUCH IN
PARTICULAR.

[Seite 227]

227. The other office of the nerves we found to consist in
communicating to the sensorium the impressions made by
external objects. This is accomplished by the external senses
which are, as it were, the watchmen of the body and informers
of the mind.

These alone belong to our present subject. For to regard,
with Gorter, the stimulus which inclines us to relieve the in-
testines, the sensation of hunger, and other internal calls of
nature, as so many distinct senses, is unnecessary minuteness,
as Haller long since observed.a

228. Touch merits our first attention, because it is the first
to manifest itself after birth, its organ is most extensively
spread over the whole surface, and it is affected by many
properties of external objects.

229. For we perceive not only some qualities, as heat,
hardness, weight, &c. by the touch only, but our knowledge
obtained by other senses respecting some qualities is rendered
more accurate by the touch; such qualities are figure, dis-
tance, &c. (A)

230. It is less fallacious than the rest of the senses, and
by culture capable of such perfection as in some measure to
supply the deficiency of others, particularly of vision.b

231. The skin, whose structure we formerly examined, is
[Seite 228] the general organ of touch.c The immediate seat of the sense
is the papillae of the corium, of various forms in different
parts, commonly resembling warts,d in some places fungous,e
in others filamentous.f The extremities of all the cutaneous
nerves terminate in these under the form of pulpy penicilli.

232. The hands are the principal organs of touch, properly
so called, and regarded as the sense which examines solidity,
and their skin has many peculiarities. In the palms and on
each side of the joints of the fingers, it is furrowed and free
from hairs, to facilitate the closing of the hand: and the
extremities of both fingers and toes are ridged internally by
very beautiful lines more or less spiral;g and are shielded
externally by nails.

233. These scutiform nailsh are bestowed upon man and a
few other genera of mammalia only (we allude to the qua-
drumana which excel in the sense of touch),i for the purpose
of resisting pressure, and thus assisting the action of the fingers,
while examining objects.

They are of a horny nature, but on the whole very similar
to the epidermis. For under them lies the reticulum, which
[Seite 229] in negroes is black;k and under this again is found the
corium, adhering firmly to the periosteum of the last phalanx.
These constituent parts of the nails are striated lengthwise.
The posterior edge, which, in the hands, is remarkable for a
little lunated appearance, is fixed in a furrow of the skin; and
the nails growing constantly from this, are protruded forwards,
so as to be perfectly renewed about every six months.


NOTE.

(A) The little analogy there is between our sensations of heat
and cold and the other sensations commonly ascribed to the sense
of touch, has led many writers to consider that such dissimilar
feelings must arise from the sensations of different organs. Dr.
Spurzheiml says, ‘“It may still be asked whether feeling produces
ideas of consistency, of hardness, of softness, of solidity and
fluidity, of weight and resistance? I think it does not. For the
mind to examine these qualities employs the muscular system,
rather than the sense of feeling properly so called.”’ This opi-
nion accords with that of Dr. Brown,m who states, ‘“The
feeling of resistance,”’ (of which he considers the qualities enu-
merated above as modifications), ‘“is, I conceive, to be ascribed,
not to our organ of touch, but to our muscular frame, to which I
have already directed your attention, as forming a distinct organ
of sense; the affections of which, particularly as existing in com-
bination with other feelings, and modifying our judgments con-
cerning these (as in the case of distant vision, for example), are
not less important than those of our other sensitive organs. The
sensations of this class are, indeed, in common circumstances, so
obscure as to be scarcely heeded or remembered by us; but there
is probably no contraction, even of a single muscle, which is not
[Seite 230] attended with some faint degree of sensation that distinguishes it
from the contractions of other muscles, or from other degrees of
contraction of the same muscle.”’

Some recent discoveries of Mr. Charles Bell corroborate the
views above stated in every essential particular. In a memoir
‘“On the nervous circle which connects the voluntary muscles
with the brain,”’ inserted in the Philosophical Transactions for
1826, he proves that every muscle has two nerves of different
properties supplied to it, so that between the brain and the
muscles there is a circle of nerves, one nerve conveying the
influence from the brain to the muscles, the other giving the
sense of the condition of the muscles to the brain; also, that if
the circle be broken by the division of the motor nerve, motion
ceases, and if it be broken by the division of the other nerve,
there is no longer a sense of the condition of the muscle, and,
therefore, no regulation of its activity. He shows that the
spinal nerves are compounded of filaments possessing these different
powers, and that each nerve having several properties or endow-
ments collected within itself, proceeds to its destination without
intricacy; but where nerves of different functions take their origin
apart (viz. when they are derived from the encephalon), and run
a different course, two nerves must unite in the muscles, in order
to perfect the relations betwixt the brain and these muscles.

The following passages are quoted in Mr. Bell’s own words:

‘“Why are nerves, whose office is to convey sensation, profusely
given to muscles, in addition to those motor nerves which are
given to excite their motions? To solve this question, we must
determine whether muscles have any other purpose to serve
than merely to contract under the influence of motor nerves.
For if they have reflective influence, and if their condition is to
be felt or conceived, it will presently appear that the motor
nerves are not suitable internuncii betwixt them and the senso-
rium. I shall first inquire if it be necessary to the governance of
the muscular frame, that there be a consciousness of the state or
degree of action of the muscles? That we have a sense of the
condition of the muscles appears from this: that we feel the
effects of over-exertion or weariness, and are excruciated by
spasms, and feel the irksomeness of continued position. We
possess a power of weighing in the hand; what is this but esti-
mating the muscular force? We are sensible of the most minute
[Seite 231] changes of muscular exertion, by which we know the position of
the body and limbs, when there is no other means of knowledge
open to us. If a rope-dancer measures his steps by the eye, yet,
on the other hand, a blind man can balance his body. In stand-
ing, walking, and running, every effort of voluntary power which
gives motion to the body is directed by a sense of the condition
of the muscles, and without this sense we could not regulate
their actions, and a very principal inlet to knowledge would be
cut off.”’

In the preceding quotation Mr. Bell attributes to the muscular
feeling the power of preservation of the equilibrium of the body.
This opinion was originally advanced by Dr. Wells,n the profoundest
philosopher who was ever physician to St. Thomas’s, in the follow-
ing words: – ‘“What is there within us to indicate these positions
of the body? To me it appears evident, that, since they are
occasioned and preserved by combinations of the actions of
various voluntary muscles, some feeling must attend every such
combination, which suggests, from experience, perhaps, the
particular position produced by it. But in almost all the positions
of the body, the chief part of our muscular efforts is directed
toward sustaining it against the influence of its own gravity.
Each position, therefore, in which this takes place, must be
attended with a feeling which serves to indicate its relation to the
horizontal plane of the earth.”’

SECT. XIV.
OF TASTE.

[Seite 232]

234. We perceive tastes by the tongue, and in some degree
by the other neighbouring internal cutaneous parts of the
mouth, especially by the soft palate, the fauces, the interior
of the cheeks, and lips; by them, however, we taste only
what is acrid and very bitter.a

235. The chief organ of taste is the tongue,b agile, obse-
quious, changeable in form; in its remarkably fleshy nature,
not unlike the heart; and endowed with far more irritability
than any other voluntary muscle.c

236. Its integuments resemble the skin. They are, an
epithelium, performing the office of cuticle; the reticulum
Malpighianum;d and a papillary membrane, but little different
from the corium.

237. The integuments of the tongue differ from the skin
chiefly in these respects – in the epithelium being moistened,
not by the oily fluid of the skin, but by a mucus which proceeds
from the foramen caecum of Meibomiuse and the rest of the
glandular expansion of Morgagni,f – and, secondly, in the
[Seite 233] conformation of the papillae, which are commonly divided into
petiolated, obtuse, and conical.g The first are in very small
number and situated in a lunated series at the root of the
tongue; the others, of various magnitudes, lie promiscuously
upon the back of the tongue, and chiefly upon its edges and
apex, where taste is most acute.h

238. These papillae are furnished with extreme filaments
of the lingual branch of the fifth pair;i and through them,
probably, we acquire the power of tasting.

The ninth pair,k and the branch of the eighth which also
supplies the tongue,l appear intended rather for the various
movements of the organ, in manducation, deglutition, speak-
ing, &c.

239. For the tongue to taste properly, it must be moist,
and the substance to be tasted must be liquid, holding salts
in solution.m (A) For if either is in a dry state, we may
perceive the presence of the substances by the common sense
of touch, which the tongue possesses in great acuteness, but
cannot discover their sapid qualities.

When the tongue tastes very acutely, the papillae around
its apex and margins seem to be in some degree erected.


NOTE.

(A) Certainly an infinite number of bodies are sapid, which con-
tain no kind of salt.

[Seite 234]

Two dissimilar metals in contact, when applied to the moistened
tongue, have a decidedly acid taste. It is by no means proved
that the moisture indispensable for taste is requisite to dissolve
the substance tasted and not to fit the papillae for their office.

Dr. Nehemiah Grew, an eminent naturalist of the seventeenth
century, endeavoured to show that there are at least sixteen
different simple tastes, which he enumerates. All these, he
states, have various degrees of intenseness and weakness, and
may be combined together in an innumerable variety of pro-
portions. Many of these have other modifications; in some the
taste is more quickly perceived upon the application of the sapid
body, in others more slowly; in some the sensation is more per-
manent, in others more transient; in some it seems to undulate
or return after certain intervals, in others it is constant: the
various parts of the organ, as the lips, the tip of the tongue, the
root of the tongue, the fauces, the uvula, and the throat, are some
of them chiefly affected by one sapid body, and others by another.
All these, and other varieties of tastes, Dr. Grew illustrates by a
number of examples.n

SECT. XV.
OF SMELL.

[Seite 235]

240. While taste and smell are closely related by the
proximity of their organs, they are not less so by the analogy
of their stimuli and by some other circumstances. For this
reason, they have been generally classed together under the
name of chemical or subjective senses.

By smell we perceive odorous effluvia received by inspir-
ation and applied principally to that part of the Schneideriana
membrane which invests both sides of the septum narium and
the convexities of the turbinated bones.

241. Although the same moist membrane lines the nostrilsb
and their sinuses,c its nature appears different in different
parts.

Near the external openings it is more similar to the skin,
and beset with sebaceous follicles, from which arise hairs
known by the name of vibrissae.

On the septum and the turbinated bones it is fungous and
abounds in mucous cryptae.

In the frontal, sphenoidal, ethmoidal, and maxillary sinuses,
[Seite 236] it is extremely delicate, and supplied with an Infinite number
of blood-vessels which exhale an aqueous dew.

242. It appears the principal, not to say the sole, use of
the sinuses,d to supply this watery fluid, which is perhaps
first conveyed to the three meatus of the nostrils and after-
wards to the neighbouring parts of the organ of smell, pre-
serving them in that constant state of moisture which is indis-
pensable to the perfection of smell.

The sinuses are so placed, that, in every position of the
head, moisture can pass from one or other of them into the
organ of smell.

243. The principal seat of smell, – the fungous portion
of the nasal membrane, besides numerous blood-vessels, re-
markable for being more liable to spontaneous hemorrhage
than any others in the body, is supplied by nerves, chiefly the
first pair,e which are distributed on both sides of the septum
narium, and also by two branches of the fifth pair. The
former appear to be the seat of smell:f the latter to serve for
the common feeling of the part, that excites sneezing, &c.

244. The extreme filaments of the first pair do not ter-
minate in papillae, like the nerves of touch and taste, but
deliquesce, as it were, into the spongy and regular parenchyma
of the nasal membrane.

245. The organ of smell is very imperfect and small at
birth. The sinuses scarcely exist. Smell consequently takes
[Seite 237] place but late, – as the internal nostrils are gradually evolved;
and it is more acute in proportion to their size and per-
fection.g

246. No external sense is so intimately connected with the
sensorium and internal senses, nor possesses such influence
over them, as the sense of smell.h

No other is so liable to idiosyncrasies, nor so powerful in
exciting and removing syncope.

Nor is any other capable of receiving more delicate and
delightful impressions; for which reason, Rousseau very
aptly called smell, the sense of imagination.i

No sensations can be remembered in so lively a manner as
those which are recalled by peculiar odours.k

[Seite 238]

NOTE.

The causes of the sensation of smelling are, as yet, unknown,
and in the absence of positive knowledge on this subject philo-
sophers have either avowed their ignorance or contented them-
selves with hypotheses destitute of proof. Among the opinions
respecting these recondite phenomena which have at various
times been advanced, three may merit our consideration. The
advocates of the first, designate by spiritus rector, or aroma, a
principle independent of the substances which contain it, very
volatile and expansible, imponderable, and imperceptible to every
sense excepting that of smell; and to the various modifications of
this immaterial substance they attribute the varieties of odour.
The second, and most generally received theory, is, that odours
are particles which evaporate from the odorous substance itself,
and that the cause of the sensation of smell is therefore inherent
in, and inseparable from, the odorous body. The third opinion,
which is maintained by Professor Walther, is, that olfaction is
independent of the emanations of material particles, and is a sim-
ple dynamic action of the odorous body upon the organs of smell-
ing, similar to the action of sound on the hearing.

However this may be, odours, to become objects of sensation,
must pass the pituitary expansion of the olfactory nerve during
the respiratory process. When the breath is held, the most
odorous substances may be spread in the interior of the nostrils
without their perfume being perceived; this observation was first
made by Galen. It has been frequently remarked that odours are
smelt only during inspiration, the same air when returned through
the nostrils always proving inodorous. But this is true only when
the odour has been admitted from without by the nostrils; for when
it is admitted by the mouth, as in combination with articles of nutri-
tion, it is only during expiration that the odour can be perceived;
a proof of this may be readily obtained, by placing the open neck
of a small phial, containing an essential oil, in the mouth during
the acts of inspiration, and subsequent expiration.

It was first observed by Willis,l that on placing a sapid sub-
stance in the mouth, and at the same time closing the nostrils,
the sensation of taste is suspended. This observation has since
[Seite 239] been frequently repeated, and has given rise to the generally
prevailing opinion that a very intimate relation exists between the
sensations of smelling and tasting, and that the same qualities of
bodies simultaneously affect both these senses. The fact is, that
the causes of taste and smell are totally distinct in their nature;
tastes, properly so called, affect only the gustatory expansion, and
are, consequently, unaltered by closing the nostrils; but as most
sapid substances have also an odour, and expiration takes place
frequently during mastication and generally directly after deglu-
tition, the odorous emanations are made to pass over the pituitary
membrane. Odour, which thus accompanies taste, is termed
flavour.

Sugar, salt, and vinegar, have each a real taste, which can be
affected neither by catarrh nor by stopping the nostrils; but the
flavour and odour of roast meats, of spices, of liqueurs, &c., are
identical, and they are affected equally by the same conditions.

Dr. Prout, I believe, was the first who pointed out the distinc-
tion between taste and flavour.l He conceived, however, that
flavour was intermediate between taste and smell.

SECT. XVI.
OF HEARING.

[Seite 240]

247. Sound, (A) which is excited by the vibration of elastic
bodies and propagated by the air, is perceived by the sense of
hearing,a and is first received by the conchiform cartilaginous
external ear,b which few of our countrymen have the power
of moving.c By this it is collected; then conveyed into the
meatus auditorius, which is anointed by a bitter ceru-
men;d (B) and strikese against the membrana tympani, (C)
which is placed obliquely in a circular furrow of the temporal
bone and separates the meatus from the internal ear.

248. Behind this membrane lies the middle portion of the
ear, – the cavity of the tympanum, whose fundus is directed
upwards and inwards.

It contains threef ossicula auditus; of which the exterior,
or malleus, adheres by its manubrium to the membrana tym-
pani, and is generally united in the adult to the circular fur-
row above-mentioned by its spinous process which is directed
forwards, and it lodges its round head in the body of the
incus.

The incus is united to the head of the stapes by the ex-
[Seite 241] tremity of its long process which extends into the cavity of
the tympanum.

The stapes, resting its base upon the fenestra ovalis, runs
towards the vestibule of the labyrinth, into which, sounds,
struck against the membrana tympani, are propagated by the
intervention of these three little bones.

249. The Eustachian tubeg runs from the interior of the
fauces into the cavity of the tympanum: and the inferior
scala of the cochlea has the same direction; the opening of
the latter, termed fenestra rotunda,h is closed by a peculiar
membrane. The true and principal use of each is not suf-
ficiently known.i

250. In the deepest part of the petrous bone is placed the
labyrinth, or internal ear, consisting of three parts.

First, of the vestibule, placed between the other two, and
into it open not only the fenestra ovalis, but the five orifices
of the semicircular canals which lie posteriorly, and the su-
perior scala of the cochlea which is placed anteriorly.

The vestibule and semicircular canals loosely contain very
delicate membranous bags, discovered by the celebrated
Scarpa: viz, two sacs which lie in the vestibule, and three
semicircular ducts in the canals of the same name.k

251. These sacs as well as the cavity of the cochlea, contain
a very limpid fluid, bearing the name of Cotugno, who shewed
it to be absorbed by two canals, which are by him deno-
minated aqueducts,l and by Meckel diverticula;m the one arises
[Seite 242] from the vestibule, the other from the inferior scala of the
cochlea.

252. The portio mollis of the seventh pair, together with
the portio dura (which afterwards runs along the aqueduct of
Fallopius),n having entered the internal acoustic opening,
transmits its medullary filaments into the lower and cribriform
part of it.o These filaments run partly to the vestibule and
semicircular canals, but especially to the base of the cochlea,
where, in the form of a medullary zonula, marked by very
beautiful plexiform striae, they pass between the two laminae
of the septum cochleae.p

253. The oscillatory tremor, which we formerly followed
as far as the fenestra ovalis (248), is propagated to the vesti-
bule, where, by means of the water of Cotugno (251), it
strikes the auditory nerves distributed among the windings of
the labyrinth.

254. Besides the muscles of the malleus and stapes,q that
appear to be voluntary,r the chorda tympani,s passing be-
tween the handle of the malleus and the longer leg of the
incus, is believed to modify the force of sound which is struck
against the membrana tympani and intended to be propagated
along the cavity of the tympanum.t (D)

[Seite 243]

NOTE.

(A) By Hearing we are able to appreciate the vibratory mo-
tions of elastic bodies, when their frequencies are within certain
limits. Some recent experiments by Dr. Wollaston prove that
these limits vary in different individuals; but the average extent
of the scale of sounds perceptible to the human ear has been
estimated to be between 30 and 12,000 vibrations of the sonorous
body per second.

The undulations to which these vibrations give rise may be
transmitted through any substance, either aëriform, liquid, or
solid: but the air is the ordinary medium by which they reach
the ear. The velocity of transmission depends on the specific
elasticity of the substance; according to the latest experiments
sound travels through air at the rate of about 1142 feet per
second.

With regard to the sensation of sound, four independent qua-
lities must be distinguished:u

1st. The tune, or pitch; which depends on the frequencies with
which the vibrations succeed each other.

2d. The loudness, or intensity; which is determined by the am-
plitudes of the vibrations.

3d. The volume, or richness; which depends upon the number
of co-existing undulations that arrive at the ear.

4th. The timbre: – For this word, adopted in France to express
the specific differences of sound which are not comprehended in
any of the preceding definitions, there is no analogous term in our
language; nor have we at present the least idea of the true causes
of these modifications of sound. In some cases the indefinite ex-
pression quality of tone is employed.

When two or more sounds are heard simultaneously, or succes-
sively, the mind by a peculiar faculty perceives the relative fre-
quencies and coincidences of the vibrations. Two sounds are
regarded, as consonant when the ratio of their vibrations is very
simple, and as dissonant when the ratio is more complex. The
rules which determine the most agreeable successions and com-
binations of sounds constitute the science of music.

[Seite 244]

The power of appreciating musical combinations, and conse-
quently the pleasure of listening to them, depends upon a mental
faculty seated in a particular portion of the brain, and not upon
the acuteness of hearing. A person of the quickest ears may have
no music in his soul, and persons of dull ears have often a good
ear for music. In great musicians, that portion of the skull cor-
responding with the part of the brain that Gall declares to be the
organ of music, I have invariably seen large; and in persons
slightly, or not at all sensible to the delights of music, invariably
flat, or even hollow.

(B) The cerumen consists, according to Vauquelin, of albu-
men, which, when burnt, yields soda and phosphate of lime, a
colouring matter, and a very bitter inspissated oil strongly re-
sembling the peculiar matter of bile. Cicero explains one use of
the cerumen: – ‘“Provisum etiam, ut, si qua minima bestiola
conaretur irrumpere, in sordibus aurium, tanquam in visco, inhae-
resceret.”’x The same applies to particles of dust. Its extreme
bitterness, too, deters insects from advancing.

(C) The membrane of the tympanum is not of that importance
which the prevailing hypothesis induced physiologists to believe
formerly. It may be perforated and even obliterated, and yet
the faculty of hearing will remain uninjured. Its uses appear to
be chiefly preservative. The mechanism which has been devised
to bring the membrane to vibrate in unison with different sounds
is entirely imaginary; for it is evident, from the known laws of
vibrating surfaces, that its condition is always such as to render it
susceptible of being influenced by any sound whatever.

When the membrana tympani is stretched by the internal
muscle of the malleus, the amplitudes of its vibrations are dimi-
nished, and the sound is transmitted to the internal ear, through
the fenestra ovalis, with less intensity; when, on the contrary, it
is relaxed, by the action of the anterior muscle of the malleus, the
amplitudes are rendered greater, and the sound is transmitted with
greater intensity. These results, which Dr. Savart has established
by experiment, are in direct opposition to the conjectures of
Bichat.y

[Seite 245]

(D) Some curious and original observations and experiments on
the functions of hearing, will be found in a paper by Dr. Wollaston
‘“On Sounds inaudible to certain Ears,”’z and in Mr. C. Wheatstone’s
‘“Experiments on Audition.”’a Savart’s memoir, already mentioned,
will be found also to contain some facts worthy of notice.

SECT. XVII.
OF SIGHT.

[Seite 246]

255. The instruments of vision, – the eyes,a are two
moveable globes, fixed to the optic nerves, whose decussation
we formerly noticed (211), as it were to stalks, in such a man-
ner, that their insertion is not exactly opposite the centre of
the cornea and iris, but on one side of this imaginary axis, –
rather nearer to the nose.

256. They consist of various coats containing pellucid
humours of different densities, so placed that the rays of light
can pass from the transparent anterior segment of the bulb
to the opposite part of the fundus.

257. The external coat is called sclerotic. It is deficient in
the centre, and that part is filled up by the cornea, which is
transparent, lamellated (lined internally by the membrane of
the aqueous humour,
or of Demours), more or less convex, and
projects like the segment of a small globe from one of rather
larger size.b

258. The interior of the sclerotica is lined by the chorioid,
which abounds in blood-vessels,c especially vorticose veins,
[Seite 247] and is covered on each side by a black pigment, which adheres
but loosely to its concave surface in the form of mucus.d

259. The chorioid is internally coated by the retinae – a
medullary expansion of the optic nerve after this has passed
through the sclerotica and chorioid,f of most beautiful tex-
ture,g and perforated, in the imaginary axis of the eye,
between the two principal twigs of the central artery,h by the
singular central foramen of Sömmerring,i which is surrounded
by a yellow edge.k (A)

260. The anterior edge of the chorioid is terminated by a
cellular belt, called orbiculus ciliaris, by which it adheres
firmly to a corresponding groove in the sclerotic, and from
which two other membranes of a different kind, viz. the iris
and ciliary processes, are expanded in a circular form.

[Seite 248]

261. The iris (whose posterior surface is lined by a brown
pigment, and termed uvea), lies anteriorly to the ciliary pro-
cesses, is flat, and washed on all sides by the aqueous humour;
narrower towards the nose, broader towards the temples.
Its texture is dense and cellular, and contains no vestige of
muscular fibre. We must regard it, with Zinn,l as a mem-
brane sui generis, and not as a prolongation of the chorioid.
The anterior surface is differently coloured in different per-
sons, and, during life, has a flocculent appearance.m

262. The blood-vessels of the iris run chiefly on its anterior
surface, and in the foetus are continued into the membrana
pupillaris,
n which begins to open in its centre at the seventh
or eighth month of pregnancy, – when the eyes have acquired
some degree of size, and when, probably, the elliptic arches
of its vessels begin to be gradually retracted into the inner
ring of the iris,
which ring I have never been able to perceive
distinctly before that period.

263. The posterior of the two circular membranes (260)
bears the name of ligamentum or corpus ciliare; and, inclining
backwards, lies at a distance from the iris. Its external edge
is thicko and adheres to the ciliary circle (260): the internal
is thin, and, together with the adjacent zonula of Zinn,p sur-
rounds the margin of the capsule of the lens. The brown
pigment is copiously diffused over it.

Its anterior surface, lying opposite to the uvea, is striated.

The posterior, lying upon the vitreous humour, is marked
[Seite 249] by about seventy plicae, which are beautifully flocculent, and
remarkable for a set of indescribably minute and elegant blood-
vessels. These flocculi are named ciliary processes, and their
use is still an object of enquiry.q

264. In the bulb of the eye, whose coats we have now de-
scribed, are contained the humours, of three principal kinds.

The posterior, and by far the greater, part of the globe is
filled by the vitreous humour, which is in larger quantity pro-
portionally in the human subject, especially after puberty,
than in other animals, and so dispersed in innumerable drops
throughout the cells of the delicate hyaloid membrane that this
membranaceo-lymphatic body has the singular appearance of
a tremulous jelly.

265. Anteriorly it adheres to, and, the zonula just men-
tioned surrounds, the capsule containing the crystalline lens,
immediately around which lies the water of Morgagni.

The lens itself also very pellucid is cellular, but so much
more dense than the vitreous humour, that in the hand it
seems like a very tenacious, although an amazingly clear,
gluten. Its nucleus is more dense than the exterior laminae.
The laminae may be reduced into extremely delicate fibres,
converging from the circumference to the centre.r

In an adult man the lens is proportionally to the whole
body smaller than in quadruped mammalia; also less convex,
especially on its anterior surface.

266. The remaining space of the eye is filled by the aqueous
humour,
which is very limpid, and divided by the iris into two
chambers: – the anterior and larger separating the cornea
and iris; and the posterior, in which the uvea lies towards
the corpus ciliare, so small, as scarcely believed by some to
exist.

[Seite 250]

267. These most valuable parts are defended from injury
both by the depth of their situation in the orbits and by the
valvular coverings of the eye-lids.

In the duplicature of the palpebrae, lie the sebaceous follicles
of Meibomius,s thickly distributed: and their edges are fringed
by a triple or quadruple series of cilia:t the cartilaginous
tarsi serve for their support and expansion, and also facilitate
their motion upon the eye-ball.

Above the eye-lids, to use the language of Cicero, are
placed the supercilia, which preserve the eyes from the sweat
flowing from the head and forehead, and in some measure
screen them from too strong a light.

268. To lubricate the eyes, to preserve their brightness,
and to wash away foreign matters, is the office of the tears;
the chief source of which is a conglomerate gland placed in
the upper and exterior part of the orbit. It has numerous
but very fine excretory ducts, which are said to discharge
about two ounces of tears upon each eye during the twenty-
four hours: the tears are afterwards absorbed by the puncta
lachrymalia, the function of which may, in a certain sense, be
compared to that of the lacteals in the villous coat of the
small intestines; from the puncta they are conveyed through
the snails’ horns, as they are called, into the lachrymal sac,
and thence pass into the lower meatus of the nostrils.u (B)

269. Thus much it was necessary to premise upon the
structure of the organ of vision. We now come to the func-
tion of the organ, – to the explanation of vision.

Rays of light falling upon the cornea at an angle more
acute than forty-eight degrees, pass through it, and, from
both its density and figure, are considerably refracted towards
the axis of the eye, and on entering the aqueous humour they
experience rather a less degree of refraction.

Those rays which penetrate the pupil and are received by
[Seite 251] the lens, are still more refracted on account of the greater
density of this medium.

The less density of the vitreous humour prevents the focus
of rays from being too short, and allows it to fall upon the
retina and exhibit the image of objects, though, from the laws
of light, necessarily inverted.

270. The focus which thus falls upon the retina, is consi-
dered as a point, not absolutely, but, on account of the different
refrangibility of colours, relatively; yet the latitude necessarily
arising from this aberration of the rays is so small that it not
only does not obscure the distinctness of vision in any per-
ceptible degree, but is the source of many advantages.x

271. The celebrated question – why we behold objects
erect, while their image is inverted upon the retina,y may
be easily answered, by considering that objects are called
inverted relatively only to those which appear erect.

Now, since the images of all objects and of our own bodies
are painted on the retina, each in its relative situation, this
relative situation must correspond as exactly as if they were
viewed erect, so that the mind (to which a sensation excited
by the image and not the image itself is communicated) is
preserved from all danger of error. (C)

272. Since many conditions are requisite for distinct vision,
the Creator has wonderfully ordered the functions of these
organs.

A sufficient, but, at the same time, a definite, quantity of
light, not too intense for distinct vision, is provided in two
modes: – First, according to the greater or less intensity of
the rays, a greater or less number of them pass to the lens; –
Secondly, that portion which is superabundant and injurious
to vision is absorbed.

The first point is effected by the motion of the iris; the
second, by the pigmentum nigrum.

[Seite 252]

273. The iris is endowed with remarkable mobility, and
thus accommodates itself to the intensity and distance of light,
so that, when exposed to a strong light or to near objects it
may expand itself and contract the pupil, but when to a
weaker light or more remote objects it may contract itself and
dilate that opening.z

Physiologists have given different explanations of this
motion. Some ascribe it to the varied impulse of blood into the
vessels, others to contraction of the imaginary muscular fibres
of the iris. I have shown, in a particular treatise, that both
these circumstances are impossible, and that its proximate cause
may be sought for with more probability and reason in the
vita propria of the iris (42); the more remote cause, as we
formerly hinted (56), can be solely the reaction of the sen-
sorium.a

274. The function of the dark pigment, so frequently men-
tioned, (258, 261, 263,) viz. to absorb the superfluous rays,
and, consequently, its importance to the perfection of vision,
are demonstrated, among other modes, by the dissection of
different kinds of animals, and by the diseased condition of
Albinos, whose eyes are very tender and impatient of light
from the absence of this pigment.b

275. The focus of the refracted rays must fall exactly on
the retina, so that the point of vision be neither produced
beyond it nor fall within the vitreous humour.

The latter defect exists in short-sighted persons, from the
too great convexity of the cornea or gibbosity of the lens.

The former is the defect of long-sighted persons, in whom
there is the opposite conformation of parts.

276. Since a perfect and sound eye beholds near and
remote objects with equal distinctness, it must of necessity be
[Seite 253] supplied with appropriate powers of accommodation.c That
these internal changes of the eye are chiefly accomplished by
the pressure of the straight muscles of the ball, I am clearly
convinced, from this among other arguments, – that in the
Greenland whale – an amphibious animal, which must see in
media of such different densities, nature has most accurately
provided for it, in the remarkable structure and obsequious
flexibility of the sclerotica.d (D)

277. During the waking state, the eyes are perpetually,
although unconsciously, agitated, and directed towards the
axes of objects, by these muscles. (E)

For, although the whole of the retina is sensible, it is not
throughout equally calculated to receive the images of objects.

In the first place, the true axis of the humane eye, where
the optic nerve enters, is proved, by the well-known experi-
ment of Mariotte,f to be nearly insensible to light. (F)

The principal focus of the rest of the retina, and which must be
considered as the chief instrument of distinct vision, falls upon
an imaginary axis of the globe, corresponding with the centre
of the cornea and of the whole eye. This, however, as
Kaestner observes in opposition to Boerhaave, is not to be
understood as if only one point of an object could be seen
distinctly at once, the eye being fixed, and that, to behold
another point, the axis of the eye must be changed; for the
sensation of an entire object is simple and complete.g

278. The habit of directing the axes of the eyes rapidly
towards objects is acquired by practice. This is proved by
the example of persons who were born blind but recovered
[Seite 254] their sight after puberty;h and of children, who seldom
acquire this facility of motion before the third month.

279. To habit we must ascribe also the circumstance of
beholding an object singly, although we have two eyes.i For
infants at first see double, and the double vision which occa-
sionally occurs after certain diseases of the eyes may be
removed by practice and experience. (G)

280. The combined power of the two eyes does not exceed,
according to Jurin, that of each, by more than one thirteenth
part.

It is needless to add, what the celebrated painter, Leonardo
da Vinci, long since remarked, – that, in viewing distant
objects, it is preferable to employ but one eye.k

281. An object can never be seen unless the angle of vision
exceeds 34 seconds. This was proved by the very beautiful
experiments of the acute Tob. Mayer, who formerly was one
of our number: and he demonstrated the great perfection of
the human sight, by showing that this still remained the limit
of vision in any light, – in the splendor of the meridian sun
and the faint light of a lantern; so that vision remains almost
equally distinct although the light be considerably dimi-
nished.l

282. We may hence infer the extreme minuteness of the
images of objects projected upon the retina,m and nevertheless
impressed so forcibly upon it, that, under certain circumstances,
their vestiges remain after the removal of the objects from
before the eye.n

[Seite 255]

NOTES.

(A) A delicate transparent membrane has been discovered by
Dr. Jacob, of Dublin, between the retina and chorioid, and ad-
herent to both.o

(B) The tears appear to me to pass over the ball of the eye as
low as the edge of the superior tarsus, which is so applied to the
ball as not ordinarily to allow of their ready escape under it.p As
the upper lid descends and nearly covers the front of the eye dur-
ing sleep, for the lower has but little motion, and the fine inner edges
of both meet, the whole of the ball is at this time readily preserved
moist. But when the eyes are open, the front of the eye between
the lids would not be moistened unless the upper tarsus occasion-
ally descended with the fluid contained behind it. A portion of
the fluid thus brought down upon the front of the eye, remains
after the upper lid rises again after winking, and trickles by its
gravity as far as the inferior tarsus, which, ascending a little as
often as the superior descends, raises it somewhat. Winking thus
preserves the front of the eye constantly moist during the waking
state.

It may be also observed that, when the tarsi approximate, as
they drive before them the moisture of the front of the eye-ball,
they quite inundate the puncta lachrymalia, by which circumstance
the puncta are, of course, enabled to carry off a large quantity of
the secretion, and ordinarily to prevent its overflow, which would
occur at the centre of the lower tarsus. During sleep the puncta
are not so copiously supplied, as they have only the same share
of tears as the eye in general; and there is less occasion for it,
because the removal of the stimulus of air and light by the closure
of the eyelids, lessens the secretion.

Dr. Magendie has found the matter of the tarsal or Meibomian
[Seite 256] glands to be not sebaceous but albuminous, and soluble in the
tears: hence we discover why, during sleep, it accumulates on
the tarsi, – because its solvent – the tears, are not sufficiently
abundant to remove it.

(C) The notion of our originally seeing objects upside-down,
double, and all as at the same distance, till experience lends its
aid, has been satisfactorily refuted by Bishop Berkeley and others.
The organs of sight, and all the others of sense, present, when
perfect, a perfect impression to the inward senses – the faculties
for judging of persons or forms, distance, colour, &c., and nothing
farther: these do the rest. The eyes of infants are not originally
fit for vision: they are at first absolutely insensible to light for
some time, and become qualified for their office gradually. But
those animals who are are born with perfect eyes, see perfectly
the first moment they enter into the world.q Indeed, no expe-
rience will make us perceive objects differently from what the
external organs present them. Experience tells us that the trees
at the end of an avenue are as high as those near us, yet we still
see them diminutive; and that a stick placed in water is straight,
but it continues to appear crooked. My reader must consult
Gall, Dr. Spurzheim, and also Mr. Combe from page 256 to 339.

Persons, all having excellent eyes, and seeing perfectly well,
differ much in their powers of recognising persons, finding their
way, &c. In none of these points is the difference so striking
as with respect to judging of colours. It is by no means un-
common to meet with individuals whose eyes appear excellent,
and whose sight is excellent, and who may judge of form and
distance correctly, but who cannot distinguish certain colours.
Dr. Nicholl describes a boy who confounded green with red, and
[Seite 257] called light red and pink, blue. His maternal grandfather, and
one uncle, had the same imperfection. This uncle was in the
navy, and, having a blue uniform coat and waistcoat, purchased a
pair of red breeches to match.r Dr. Nicholl mentions a gentleman
who could not distinguish green from red. The grass in full ver-
dure always appeared to him what others call red; and ripe fruit on
trees he could not distinguish from the leaves; a cucumber and a
boiled lobster were of the same colour in his sight, and a leek
resembled a stick of sealing-wax. This person had a brother and
a niece – the daughter of another brother – in a similar predica-
ment.s Indeed, the defect has frequently occurred in several
members of the same family, and frequently has been hereditary,
sometimes passing over a generation, like other peculiarities of
structure. It is observed more frequently, perhaps, in men. In
the rarest and most extreme cases, no colour is distinguished, all
objects appearing in this respect alike. In all the cases in which
the point has been examined, the part of the cranium under which,
according to Gall, the organ for judging of the harmony of colours
is placed, is flat, or depressed. I have seen several of these cases,
and in all this was the fact. In painters, remarkable for their ex-
cellence of colouring, this part is full, or prominent. The contrast
between this part of the forehead in a person who has this defect,
and in another excelling in the power of colouring, placed side by
side, is very striking.

Mr. Dugald Stewart remarks, that ‘“in the power of conceiving
colours there are striking differences among individuals;”’ and he
does not ascribe the difference to the eyes. ‘“I am inclined to sus-
pect,”’ he says, ‘“that in the greater number of instances the supposed
defects of sight ought to be rather ascribed to a defect in the
power of conception.”’t Mr. Stewart is correct in exempting the
eye from blame, and ascribing the defect to a defect in conception;
but since he has no idea of a distinct faculty for colours, he means
conception in general. Yet, as the individuals are not deficient
[Seite 258] in other conceptions, some reason must be given for the defi-
ciency of conception in this one point. He thinks it arises ‘“pro-
bably in consequence of some early habit of inattention.”’ Now
this is sad trifling in a philosopher. What particular attention do
children, who distinguish colours accurately, bestow? They dis-
tinguish without effort; and those who cannot, are not only not
proved to have been inattentive, but have, probably, been often
extraordinarily attentive, in the hope of seeing what others can
see. How should want of attention to this one point run in fami-
lies and be hereditary, passing through a generation, &c.? This
is a specimen of the errors of metaphysicians. They see, and
generally acknowledge, that the brain is the organ of the mind,
yet they observe the faculties of the mind without even once
looking at the organ, which possesses, or is employed in the
working of, these faculties. Gall examined the two together, and
we now know, that local deficiency of brain exists where the
power of distinguishing colours is deficient, and is hereditary with
this deficiency.

(D) The most recent opinion on the causes of the adaptation of
the eye to distinct vision, a subject on which innumerable con-
jectures have been made, is that of Jean Mile of Warsaw.u By a
great number of accurate and satisfactory experiments, for which
I refer the reader to the original memoir, he has arrived at the
following conclusions.

The eye does not see with equal distinctness objects at all dis-
tances, but only when they are within a certain distance. This
does not depend on external causes, such as the diminution of the
optic angle, and the obscuration of the object by the intermediate
air; for, to see clearly and to see distinctly are not identical.
The causes of distinct vision are internal, and situated in the eye
itself; they are two in number; one disposes the eye for the con-
tinuous distinct vision, and the other for the transient distinct,
vision of objects at different distances; but neither of them can
act but within certain limits. These limits are greater for the
presbyope than for the myope. These adaptations both depend
on the action of the iris, which can at the same time act in two
ways to produce two effects; first, the contraction of its aperture,
[Seite 259] and, secondly, the flexion of the cornea; the alteration of the size
of the pupil, however, is visible only. The adaptation of the eye
for the continuous distinct vision of objects contained within
certain limits, is owing to the diffraction of the rays of light near
the edge of the aperture of the iris, in consequence of which there
is formed by a single external luminous point, several foci instead
of one, successively ranged in a line of a certain length, so that
the object may change its distance within certain limits, and yet
one of its foci shall always fall on the bottom of the eye. This
focal length is inversely as the magnitude of the pupil. The
borders of indistinct objects appear radiated, and to the pheno-
menon of confusion is added the motion and multiplication of the
image when the edges of bodies are brought near the side of the
fasciculus of rays which enter the eye; prismatic colours also
appear. All these phenomena which are observed in an eye
performing its functions, may be produced by an apparatus, the
structure of which resembles that of the eye, and even by a com-
mon lens, substituting for the motion of the pupil diaphragms of
different sizes. The nature of all these phenomena prove that
diffraction is their common origin, and they may be considered as
constituting a separate kind of optical illusions resulting from
diffraction. The second cause which adapts the eye for the mo-
mentaneous distinct vision of objects, depends neither on the
action of the external muscles of the eye, the advancement of the
bottom of the eye, nor on any alteration of the form or position
of the crystalline lens, but appears to be owing rather to the
change of the curvature of the cornea by the contraction of the
iris, which occurs only when the eye adapts itself to see very
near objects, as is proved by the simultaneous approximation of
the pupil.

(E) The motions of the eyes which result from the actions of
their external muscles have been investigated, and the mental
perceptions attending them have been analysed with considerable
success by Dr. Wells;x and the subject has recently been again
taken up by Mr. C. Bell.y An extensive field of enquiry, how-
ever, still remains. Mr. Charles Wheatstone is about to publish
[Seite 260] some original experiments on this subject that will go a consider-
able way towards completing our knowledge of this intricate and
important subject.

(F) Mariotte’s experiment was to make two spots upon a wall, to
fix the right eye upon the left spot, the other being closed, or v. v.
and gradually to retire till the right spot is no longer distinguish-
able, as occurs when its image falls upon the centre of the
optic nerve. Picard varied this experiment, by placing an object
between the eye and the spot, so that it appeared double, and one
image of it covered one spot completely when one eye was closed.

Mr. C. Wheatstone places two wafers upon a table, and fixing
one eye upon the opposite wafer, and closing the other, moves the
other wafer gradually away till it ceases to be seen: on being
removed still further, it comes into view again.

(G) Although we certainly use both eyes to look generally at
objects before us (those on each side can of course be seen by the
eye of the same side only), yet when we fix our view attentively
on an object, we employ but one if each eye is not of equal
strength. This, at least, is my own case. If I hold up a finger,
and look at distant objects, it appears double, and if I then look
at it, I of course see it single, and the figure now seen is, in my
case, that which was previously seen with the right eye: no dif-
ference occurs in it, if now the left eye is closed. The greater
facility of threading a needle, when both are open, probably
arises from the advantage of increasing the field of vision while
one eye is fixed steadily upon the aperture. Some, however,
who are profoundly skilled in physics, deny that the use of one
eye only in attentive inspection is general.

Many recorded cases prove that one half of the retina may be
paralysed, while the other half remains unaffected; and this effect
may be common to both eyes, or peculiar to one. Dr. Wollastonz
relates, that it twice occurred to him not to be able to see but on
one side of the axis of vision. The first time, the left side of each
eye was affected; he saw but the half of a man’s face or of any
object he looked at; and in attempting to read the name JOHN-
SON over a door, he saw only _....SON, the commencement
of the name being totally obliterated from his view: the com-
plaint was of short duration. About nineteen years afterwards
the phenomenon recurred: this time, the right side of the eye,
[Seite 261] about three degrees from the centre of the retina, was affected,
and its duration was ten minutes. Two analogous cases are also
mentioned by Dr. Wollaston. Desmoulinsa states, that M. Arago
has experienced this affection of vision three times: the first two
times, objects situated to the right of the axis of vision were in-
visible; the third time he saw objects on the right only of this
axis. The same author notices also the following remarkable
case. In consequence of a cerebral fever, the external side of the
left retina of M. de M – became insensible: with this eye he
saw only objects situate to the left of the centre of vision; and,
as at the same time there was an outward deviation of the axis of
this eye, through a paralysis of the nerve of the third pair, when
he employed both eyes, he saw objects double; but, what was
still more singular, the right eye being closed, he saw with the
left eye the objects removed from twenty to twenty-five degrees
to the right of their real position.

Such facts have been thought a reason for believing the decus-
sation of the optic nerves partial, and some say that the outer portion
of the tractus optici goes to the outer part of the corresponding
nerves, and the inner to the inner portion of the opposite; but
Magendie divided from before backwards the junction of the optic
nerves, and found blindness induced.

The decussation of the optic nerves is shown by blindness of
one eye being induced if the nerve on the same side is divided
anteriorly to the union, and of the opposite eye if the division is
made posteriorly to the union: or by destruction of an eye caus-
ing the nerve of the same side to waste as far as the union, and of
the opposite side beyond the union.b Yet cases are on record
where the wasting of the nerve in loss of sight continued through-
out on the same side, but such are probably suspicious.

The thalami optici are improperly named, as they do not give
origin to the optic nerves. These may be traced to the anterior
corpora quadrigemina, pressure or disease of which produces
blindness, and which waste if the nerve wastes.c

If the fifth pair, which gives sensibility to the face, is divided,
the eye, nose, tongue, lose their sense of touch, – ordinary sen-
[Seite 262] sibility, – in common with the skin, and are not excited by me-
chanical or acrid stimulus as before.d In this experiment, the
pupil becomes greatly contracted in rabbits and guinea-pigs,
and dilated in cats and dogs.e The retina has very little ordinary
sensibility, as Magendie showed, by pricking and tearing it with
little or no pain; whence contraction of the pupil does not follow
the application of any stimulus excepting light. The third pair,
which is a nerve of motion, supplies, in common with the fifth pair,
the iris, and therefore, as Mr. H. Mayo has shown, division of
it, at least in cats and pigeons, causes dilatation of the pupil, like
division of the optic nerve; the dilatation arising in the former case
from the cerebral influence being no longer conveyed, and in the
latter from the cerebral influence being no longer excited. On
stimulating the ocular end of the third pair, divided in pigeons,
after removing the brain, the iris suddenly acts.f

SECT. XVIII.
OF THE VOLUNTARY MOTIONS.

[Seite 263]

283. We have seen that the nerves perform two offices
(220) – the one of feeling, the other of moving. The former
we have already considered; we shall now say something with
respect to the latter.

284. All the motions of the body may be divided into
voluntary and involuntary.

The pulsation of the heart, and the peristaltic motion of
the intestines and other viscera, are commonly adduced as
instances of involuntary motion.

The action of by far the greater number of the other
muscles is voluntary.

Respiration, sneezing, the tension of the membrana tympani,
and the action of the cremaster, are regarded by some as be-
longing to the former class; by others, to the latter; and by
others, as of a mixed nature.

285. If this division is narrowly examined, it will be found
embarrassed by so many difficulties that the limits of each
class cannot well be determined.

For, on the one hand, few functions can be termed truly
involuntary, especially if we consider the connection of the
imagination and passions with the will.

Again, on the other hand, there are few voluntary motions
that may not be rendered involuntary by the force of habit,
whose influence upon our animal motions is immense.

286. Of the latter description are those muscular motions
which, although generally voluntary, take place, under certain
circumstances, without the knowledge of the mind, or even in
opposition to its endeavours.

[Seite 264]

Thus we wink involuntarily, if a friend suddenly moves his
finger towards one of our eyes, though it does not come in
contact: and the ring finger generally bends if we bend the
little finger.

We often unconsciously move our limbs, even while sleeping
soundly.

On the contrary, some muscles which are almost always
obedient to the will, cease, under some circumstances, to be
so: an instance of this exists in the difficulty which we ex-
perience in attempting to move the hand and foot of the same
side in different directions, and in all those motions which,
although voluntary and perfectly easy if produced separately,
are found very difficult if attempted together.a

287. Among those motions which are supposed to be
perfectly involuntary, no one is free from exception, as far
as we know, excepting the spasms of the uterus during
labour.b

With respect to the motion of the heart, we have the in-
dubitable testimony of Drs. Baynard and Cheyne, that they
saw the celebrated case of the English officer who could stop
the motion of his heart and arteries at pleasure.c (A)

There is no question that the pulsation of the heart and
arteries may be accelerated or retarded by the varied state of
respiration.d

Rumination shows that the action of the stomach may be
voluntary, and I myself once distinctly found it so, in a man
who had the power of ruminating.

Although the motion of the iris is involuntary in most per-
sons, I am credibly informed that some have been able, by a
[Seite 265] considerable effort, to subject it to the will, and contract the
pupil in a weak light.

And the motions commonly called involuntary, which be-
come voluntary in some particular individuals, especially if
aided by attention and liveliness of imagination, are very
numerous.e

Thus I have seen some able to produce, at any time, a
spasmodic horripilation of the skin, by representing some un-
pleasant sensation to their imagination.

Others have had the power of exciting local sweat in the
hands, &c.f (B)

288. This may, perhaps, be explained on the principle of
sensorial reaction (56), which may be produced by imagina-
tion – a mental stimulus, as easily as by a corporeal stimulus
acting upon the sensorium (52). Many phenomena accord
admirably with this explanation; v. c. the various causes of
the erection of the penis, and of the flow of saliva.

289. The voluntary motions are the distinguishing charac-
teristics of the animal from the vegetable kingdom. For no
plant has been discovered procuring for itself food by means
of voluntary motion; nor any animal incapable of locomotion,
or at least of procuring sustenance by the voluntary motion of
individual members.

290. In ourselves, these motions afford a striking proof of
the intimate harmony which subsists between the body and
the mind, and is demonstrated in the rapid and various mo-
tions of the fingers of a good performer on the harp, and of
the vocal organs whenever we speak.g

[Seite 266]

NOTES.

(A) ‘“Colonel Townshend, a gentleman of excellent natural
parts, and of great honour and integrity, had for many years
been afflicted with a nephritic complaint, attended with con-
stant vomitings, which had made his life painful and miser-
able. During the whole time of his illness he had observed
the strictest regimen, living on the softest vegetables and lightest
animal foods, drinking asses milk daily, even in the camp;
and for common drink Bristol water, which, the summer before
his death, he had drunk on the spot. But his illness increasing
and his strength decaying, he came from Bristol to Bath in a litter,
in autumn, and lay at the Bell Inn. Dr. Baynard and I were
called to him, and attended him twice a day for about the space
of a week, but his vomitings continuing still incessant and obsti-
nate against all remedies, we despaired of his recovery. While
he was in this condition, he sent for us early one morning; we
waited on him with Mr. Skrine his apothecary; we found his
senses clear and his mind calm; his nurse and several servants
were about him. He had made his will and settled his affairs.
He told us he had sent for us to give him some account of an odd
sensation he had for some time observed and felt in himself, which
was, that composing himself, he could die or expire when he
pleased, and yet by an effort, or somehow, he could come to life
again; which it seems he had sometimes tried before he had sent
for us. We heard this with surprise; but as it was not to be ac-
counted for from now common principles, we could hardly believe
the fact as he related it, much less give any account of it; unless
he should please to make the experiment before us, which we
were unwilling he should do, lest in his weak condition he might
carry it too far. He continued to talk very distinctly and sensibly
above a quarter of an hour about this (to him) surprising sen-
sation, and insisted so much on our seeing the trial made, that we
were at last forced to comply. We all three felt his pulse first:
it was distinct, though small and thready, and his heart had its
usual beating. He composed himself on his back, and lay in a
still posture some time; while I held his right hand, Dr. Baynard
laid his hand on his heart, and Mr. Skrine held a clean looking-
glass to his mouth. I found his pulse sink gradually, till at last I
could not feel any by the most exact and nice touch. Dr. Bay-
[Seite 267] nard could not feel the least motion of his heart, nor Mr. Skrine
the least soil of breath on the bright mirror he held to his mouth;
then each of us by turns examined his arm, heart, and breath, but
could not by the nicest scrutiny discover the least symptom of
life in him. We reasoned a long time about this odd appearance
as well as we could, and all of us judging it inexplicable and un-
accountable; and finding he still continued in that condition, we
began to conclude that he had indeed carried the experiment too
far, and at last were satisfied he was actually dead, and were just
ready to leave him. This continued about half an hour, by nine
o’clock in the morning, in autumn. As we were going away, we
observed some motion about the body, and upon examination,
found his pulse and the motion of his heart gradually returning:
he began to breathe gently, and speak softly: we were all
astonished to the last degree at this unexpected change, and after
some further conversation with him and among ourselves, went
away fully satisfied as to all the particulars of this fact, but con-
founded and puzzled, and not able to form any rational scheme
that might account for it. He afterwards called for his attorney,
added a codicil to his will, settled legacies on his servants, re-
ceived the sacrament, and calmly and composedly expired about
five or six o’clock that evening. Next day he was opened (as he
had ordered): his body was the soundest and best made I had
ever seen; his lungs were fair, large, and sound; his heart big and
strong, and his intestines sweet and clean; his stomach was of a
due proportion, the coats sound and thick, and the villous mem-
brane quite entire. But when we came to examine the kidneys,
though the left was perfectly sound and of a just size, the right
was about four times as big, distended like a blown bladder, and
yielding as if full of pap; he having often passed a wheyish liquor
after his urine, during his illness. Upon opening this kidney, we
found it quite full of a white chalky matter, like plaster of Paris,
and all the fleshy substance dissolved and worn away, by what I
called a nephritic cancer. This had been the source of all his
misery; and the symptomatic vomitings from the irritation on the
consentient nerves, had quite starved and worn him down. I have
narrated the facts, as I saw and observed them, deliberately and
distinctly, and shall leave to the philosophic reader to make what
inferences he thinks fit; the truth of the material circumstances
I will warrant.”’

(B) Those muscles, I conceive, are called voluntary, which we
[Seite 268] have ordinarily the power of directly contracting: those involun-
tary, which we have not ordinarily the power of directly contract-
ing. These two definitions appear to me unexceptionable.

The latter does not contradict what is unquestionably true, –
that we can indirectly affect involuntary muscles, as the heart or
stomach, by thinking of certain objects, and thus exciting certain
emotions; nor does the former contradict another truth, – that
voluntary muscles often contract without or against our will.
And this leads me to remark, that the respiratory muscles deserve
the epithet voluntary as much as any in the body, for we directly
contract them:h we feel an uneasy sensation in the chest from
the retardation which occurs to the blood, and we inspire to
remove it; the uneasiness being removed, our effort ceases, and
expiration spontaneously ensues. It is true that respiration con-
tinues while we are asleep, and that the uneasiness is so great that
we are forced to inspire. But the same is true of all voluntary
muscles. If you irritate any part of a person asleep, an effort
of some kind is made to withdraw from the source of uneasiness,
and people turn in their sleep when uncomfortable; fowls perch
on one leg, voluntarily contracting their claws before they go to
sleep, and remain thus supported till they awake; somnambulists
can unconsciously perform astonishing muscular movements; and
while awake, we often continue walking, or performing other actions,
while our minds are totally absorbed in reflecting, and give no
perceptible attention to our corporeal actions. If you cause
strong pain or titillation in a person awake, he will be compelled,
whatever restraint he may attempt upon himself, to cry out or
laugh, and to make an effort to remove it by motion of some part,
as forcibly as he is compelled to remove the uneasiness in the
chest by inspiration; and while history records examples of Chris-
tians and heathens so resolute as to remain motionless and silent,
by the force of their faith or innocence, or their contempt for
their persecutors, in the midst of fire till they were consumed;
we read of suicides so determined as to have accomplished their
purpose by merely holding their breath, when deprived of access
to instruments of destruction.i

SECT. XIX.
OF MUSCULAR MOTION.

[Seite 270]

291. The immediate organs of by far the greater number
of our motions are the muscles, which form the greatest bulk
among all the similar parts.

292. They abound in azote more than other similar animal
parts,a and the departure of this principle from its combin-
ation with hydrogen and carbon that exists during health,
entirely converts them, under particular morbid affections,b
and after death,c into an adipocerous substance, somewhat
resembling soap or spermaceti. (A)

293. The muscles are distinguished from other similar
parts chiefly by two characteristic features, the one derived
from their structure, the other from their singular vital
powers.

294. Their fleshy structure is formed of moving fibres, sui
generis,
and of a very faint red colour, and every muscle may
be resolved into fibrous bands, these into bundles of fibres,
and these again into very fine fleshy fibres and fibrils.

295. Every muscle possesses a covering of cellular mem-
brane,d which is so interwoven with its substance as to sur-
round the bands, the bundles, and even each particular fibre
and fibril.

[Seite 271]

296. Every part of the muscles is amply supplied with
blood-vessels and nervous threads. The latter appear to
deliquesce into an invisible pulp, and unite intimately with
the muscular fibres: the former are so interwoven with the
fibres, that the whole muscle is red, and acquires its own pale-
ness (294) only by being washed.

297. Most muscles terminate in tendons,e which are
fibrousf parts, but so different in colour, texture, elasticity,
&c., as to be readily distinguished from muscles: thus dis-
proving the opinion of some, – that the tendinous fibres
originate from the muscular. This error arose chiefly from
the circumstance of the muscles of infants containing a greater
number of fleshy fibres, in proportion to the tendinous, than
those of the adult.

298. The other exclusive character of muscles (293), is
the irritability of Haller,g the notion of which, and its differ-
ence from contractility, we formerly explained (41), but shall
now prosecute farther.

299. This irritability, muscular power, or vis insita or
propria, is bestowed upon all muscular parts, but in very
different degrees.h

[Seite 272]

300. The highest order are the hollow muscles which per-
form the vital and natural functions, and especially the heart
(124), whose internal surface enjoys a very lively and perma-
nent irritability.

Next to the heart follows the intestinal canal, particularly
the small intestines, which, in warm-blooded animals, contract
after the heart has ceased to show signs of irritability.

Next the stomach.

Then the urinary bladder, &c.

Among the other muscles, the fibres of the tongue display
the greatest irritability (135), then the respiratory muscles,
v. c. the diaphragm, the intercostals, the triangularis sterni.

Then follow the remaining muscles.

Less, but still, however, some, exists in the arteries. (128)

Also in the venous trunks contained in the thorax. (95)

Still less, if it deserve the name of irritability, in the other
blood-vessels. (132)

301. Haller, the great arbitrator in the doctrine of irrita-
bility, has ascribed it improperly (40.58.sq.), we think, to some
parts possessed indeed of contractility, but in which we have
never been able to detect genuine irritability.

Such are the lacteals, glands, gall-bladder, uterus, the
dartos, and the penis. (B)

And others, with no less impropriety, bestow it upon the
iris, the external surface of the lungs, &c. in which it no more
exists than in the cellular membrane and those parts which
are composed of it, – the common integuments, membranes
of the brain, pleura, peritonaeum, periosteum, medullary
membrane, tendons, aponeuroses, &c. or in the proper paren-
chyma of the viscera, (20) – of the liver, spleen, kidneys,
secundines, the brain, and the rest of the nervous system,
[Seite 273] every one of which parts is destitute alike of muscular fibre
and of what is peculiar to it, – irritability.

302. As we find muscular irritability sometimes confounded
with the contractility of the mucous web; so, on the other
hand, some eminent men, particularly in modern times, have
attributed it to the nervous energy.i

Now, although we cannot deny the influence of the nerves
upon the muscles, most strikingly shown of late (225) by the
experiments of the celebrated Galvani and others, and although
no muscular fibril, however minute, can be found absolutely
destitute of nervous pulp, we are not on this account to assert
that irritability is not a power sui generis, as clearly different
from the nervous energy as from contractility. For parts
not muscular are not irritable, however abundantly they may
be supplied with nerves, as the corium, the numerous nervous
viscera; and the muscular texture alone exhibits the genuine
phenomena of irritability. So that from the force of these
united arguments, to omit many others, it appears more just
to assign these phenomena to the muscular fibre alone, than
to ascribe them to the nerves which are common to so many
other parts, but do not in these excite the faintest sign of
irritability. We say nothing of many weighty arguments
derived, for instance, from the facts, – that no proportion
exists between the degree of irritability and the number of
nerves in any part, – that one of these descriptions of vital
powers is often very energetic, while the other is languid in
the same individual, according to national, morbid, or more
especially to sexual variety, &c. (C)

303. The nerves exert their influence upon the muscles, as
remote or exciting causes of their action, but by no means as
[Seite 274] the proximate or efficient, which is the inherent irritability of
the muscles.

The passions, v. c. act upon the sensorium, and this upon
the nerves of the heart, so as to excite its irritability, which
produces palpitation and other anomalous motions.

The will acts upon the sensorium, and this re-acts upon the
nerves of the arm, which excite muscular motion, as remote
causes: but the proximate cause is the irritability of the
muscles themselves.

304. With this distinction of the two causes of muscular
motion, the result of those experiments exactly correspond
which have been so frequently made by dividing or tying the
nerves.k Paralysis ensued, but irritability continued vigorous
for a great length of time afterwards.

There have been cases where one limb was motionless
from paralysis but retained its sensibility, while the other
was insensible but still capable of motion.l Some persons
have had great pain in paralytic parts.m

305. The true efficacy of the blood, so copiously afforded
to muscles, (296) in promoting their action, is not clearly
ascertained.

In the Stenonian experiment,n indeed, paralysis of the hind
legs commonly follows the application of a ligature upon the
abdominal aorta.o (D)

But, after all, we are confirmed in the opinion formerly
mentioned, (125) – that the action of what are commonly
called voluntary muscles, depends less than that of the heart
upon the afflux of blood to the moving fibres; and, on the
contrary, more than it, upon the influence of the nerves which
excite their irritability.

[Seite 275]

306. Besides these inherent powers common to all muscles,
there are some peculiar and adventitious, arising from figure,
situation, &c. and answering their object with perfect ac-
curacy.

307. From the former difference among muscles, they are
in general divided into hollow and solid. The first, as we
have seen, not directly subject to the will, belong more to the
vital and natural functions, and are, consequently, not to be
considered at present, while we are speaking of the voluntary
muscles, which belong to the order of animal functions.

308. Among the second, also, there is much variety. For,
not to allude to difference of size, there is great diversity in
the disposition of their bands and fasciculi, the direction of
their fibres, the proportion of the fleshy to the tendinous part,
their course, mode of insertion, &c.

309. The greatest number are long, and their fleshy bellies
terminate at each extremity in tendinous chords, inert, and
destitute of irritability, and fixed to the bones, which they
move in the manner of levers.

310. While a very few muscles are destitute of tendons,
such as the latissimus colli, an equally small number are not
inserted into bones; such are the cremaster, as we generally
find it, the azygos uvulae, most of the muscles of the eye, &c.

311. The muscles endowed with those common (298. sq.)
and peculiar (306. sq.) powers, are thus prepared to perform
their actions, which also may be divided into common and
peculiar.

312. A property common to all muscles, and the immediate
consequence of their irritability, is to become shorter, more
rigid, and generally unequal, and, as it were, angular, during
contraction.

To attempt, with J. and D. Bernouilli and other mathe-
matical physicians, to reduce this diminution to a general
admeasurement, is rendered impossible, by the great dif-
ference, among other causes, between the hollow and solid
muscles in this respect, and between the solid muscles them-
[Seite 276] selves, v. c. between straight muscles (such as the intercostals)
and sphincters.

313. The peculiar actions of muscles (311) correspond
with their peculiar powers, and, consequently, vary so much
as to be referable to no general laws.

To cite one instance out of many, that action of certain
muscles is peculiar and anomalous, which seldom occurs
alone, but nearly always subsequently to, or simultaneously
with, the action of some of a different order. Such is that
of the lumbricales, when, during rapid motions of the fingers,
they follow the action of other muscles of the metacarpus and
fore-arm; and of the lateral recti muscles of the eyes, the
adducens of either of which seldom acts, unless simultaneously
with the abducens of the other eye.

The commonly received law – that a muscle during its
contraction draws the more movable point of insertion to the
more fixed, must be considered, as Winslow wisely remarks,p
perfectly relative and subject to various limitations. Thus,
for example, sometimes the one point, and sometimes the
other, may be the more movable, accordingly as the united
action of many different muscles may render the opposite
more fixed.

And, on the other hand, although the action of the flexors
is generally so much stronger than that of their antagonists –
the extensors, that, when the body is at rest, the arms,
fingers, &c. are a little bent, this does not so much depend
upon the strength of the contraction of the flexors, as upon
the voluntary relaxation of the extensors for our own relief.

314. Every muscle has, moreover, a peculiar mechanism,q
adapted to the individual motions for which it is intended.

Besides the determinate figure of each, many other kinds
of assistance are afforded to their peculiar motions, v. c. by the
bursae mucosae, chiefly found among the muscles of the ex-
tremities; the annular ligaments by which some are sur-
[Seite 277] rounded; the fat in which most are imbedded; the lymphatic
vapour around each; and, above all, by the conformation of
the skeleton, chiefly in regard to apophyses, condyles, and
articulations; nay, even whole bones, v. c. the patella, the
pisiform of the carpus, and the sesamoid bones;r are destined
solely to facilitate the actions of certain muscles.

315. In this mode is compensated, or, at least, diminished,
that inevitable loss of power which necessarily takes place
from the conformation and stature of the whole system, as,
from the acute angle at which some muscles are inserted, or
the proximity of their insertion to the centre of motion, much
of that power is lost which would have existed, if their inser-
tion had been more remote or at a more obtuse angle.s

316. The human body, possessing about 450 muscles,
or upwards, according to sexual or individual variety, is
thus furnished with a double advantage, – with an extreme
agility of motion in particular parts and throughout the whole,
and with a surprising degree of strength and endurance of
labour. Both these are accomplished partly by the perfec-
tion of the muscles, which, like the perfection of the bones,
takes place at manhood; and partly by habit and practice,
the power of the former of which in affording strength and
agility to the muscles, is demonstrated in rope-dancers,
leapers, runners, wrestlers, porters, savages, and the examples
of ancient nations.t


NOTES.

(A) Muscle is essentially fibrine, but contains also albumen, ge-
latine, fat, salts, &c. and a peculiar substance termed osmazome,
[Seite 278] upon which the peculiar taste and smell of soup depends, and which
is a yellowish brown substance, soluble in water and in alcohol
hot or cold, and not forming a jelly when concentrated.

(B) Mr. Hare affirms, that in the field of a moderately power-
ful microscope, a muscular fibre evidently appears made up of nu-
merous minute tubes, each exhibiting longitudinal striae; with
transverse bands; the average diameter of each of these ultimate
fibres or tubes being 1/400 of an inch.u Under contraction, the
portions between the transverse bands draw the latter nearer
together, and, swelling out, seem girted by them, so that the
whole fibre somewhat resembles a string of eggs. This appear-
ance, the writer supposes, led Dr. Croon to adopt the idea that the
ultimate fibre of muscle was constituted by a chain of bladders
filled with fluid. In fact Mr. Bauer thinks he discovers muscular
fibres to be chains of globules,x and Prevost and Dumas declare the
same from their microscopic observations,y The muscular tubes
are represented by Mr. Hare as filled with a matter which causes
them to appear solid, till it is liquefied by heat: Mascagni describes
the muscular fibre as a small cylinder, filled with glutinous matter.z
The fibres of tendon are said to be really solid, of infinitely
smaller diameter, and disposed in a reticulated manner. Even
cellular membrane is said to consist of reticulated tubular fibres,
1/1000 of an inch in diameter on the average, and exhibiting trans-
verse contractions.a Fontana, by means of glasses of moderate
powers, found tendon to be composed of bands, which again are
composed of solid spiral cylinders, of uniform size, and pursuing
a tortuous course.b He also asserts that the primitive muscular
fibre is marked by continual minute crispations and nodosities, and
that it pursues a straight course, but is solid like the tendinous.
Meckel and Rudolphi believe the primitive muscular fibre solid.
Dr. Hodgkin found it not to consist of globules, and to be marked
[Seite 279] by transverse lines, which he thinks distinguish muscular from all
other fibres. (supra. p. 3.)

Prevost and Dumas assert, that the muscular fibres, straight
while at rest, approximate each other at intervals, under con-
traction, so as to acquire a zigzag course (
xxx
), and
shorten the distance of their two extreme points.c They ascer-
tained satisfactorily, that during contraction no increase of
volume is acquired. If muscles, while the fibres are straight,
are stretched still more, as continually happens in the muscular
coats of cavities, the subsequent shrinking to the original dimen-
sions, is unattended by the zigzag appearance. Nervous fila-
ments, they also assert, go perpendicularly to the muscular
fibre at the very points where the angles are formed under the
zigzag contraction, and yet not to terminate there or unite with
the muscular fibres, but to return or anastomose with other nerves.
The approximation of the nervous filaments to each other is
thought to draw the muscular fibres into angles, and thus be the
cause of muscular contraction. The approximation of the nervous
filaments is considered an electric phenomenon. Electricity will
effect it, and in whatever way it is effected, electric appearances
are said always to be discoverable.

Muscular power is nowhere more displayed than in some fish.
‘“I have seen,”’ says Sir Gilbert Blane, ‘“the sword of a sword-fish
sticking in a plank which it had penetrated from side to side; and
when it is considered that the animal was then moving through a
medium even a thousand times more dense than that through which
a bird cleaves its course at different heights of the atmosphere,
and that this was performed in the same direction with the ship,
what a conception do we form of this display of muscular
power!”’d Muscular strength is proportionably much greater in
smaller animals. A flea can draw from seventy to eighty times
its own weight, whereas a horse cannot draw with ease more than
three times its own weight.”e

(C) Irritability is the power of contracting upon the application
of a stimulus, and ceases with life. It comprehends animal and
organic contractility (see Note B. Sect. VI.), and we must sup-
pose the lacteals, vessels of glands, gall-bladder, and dartos to be
[Seite 280] possessed of it: the uterus will hereafter be shewn to have mus-
cular fibres, according to many anatomists, and their existence
will be rendered probable in the corpora cavernosa of the human
penis.f

(D) This paralysis does not show the irritability of the muscles
to be impaired; they would doubtless contract immediately after
the experiment, upon the application of a stimulus, as readily as
they do after apoplexy. In torpid brutes, after division of the
nerves and removal of the brain, cold and warmth destroy and
restore the irritability of muscles, as usual. The ligatures act imme-
diately by depriving the nerves of the power of stimulating them;
for a supply of arterial blood is necessary to the functions of the
nervous system,g and the ligature of the abdominal aorta, prac-
tised by Haller, cuts off this from the lower part of the spinal
marrow and what originate from it, – the nerves of the hind legs.
If venous blood is sent to the brain, we have seen that death
ensues, and the function of any part is arrested by forcing venous
blood into its arteries.h

Another source of paralysis must ultimately arise, – the loss of
irritability from the want of circulation in the muscle.

SECT. XX.
OF SLEEP.

[Seite 281]

317. The faculties both of feeling and motion, possessed
by the nervous system whose history we have thus pursued,
are so fatigued by their exertions in the day, that rest is
necessary during the night to recruit them by means of sleepa
– the image of death.

318. Sleep is a completely periodical function, by which
the intercourse of the mind and body is suspended, and whose
phenomena, now to be traced, correspond, if any do, with
the supposition of a nervous fluid.

319. Besides other precursors of sleep, may be enumerated
a gradually increasing dulness of the external senses, and a
relaxation of most, especially of the long, voluntary muscles;
a congestion of venous blood about the heart, and relief
afforded by yawning to the uneasy sensation thus produced;
lastly, a curious kind of short delirium at the moment when
sleep is all but present.b

320. The phenomena of sleep amount to this, – that the
animal functions are suspended, and all the rest proceed more
slowly and inactively. For the pulse is slower, the animal
heat, caeteris paribus, somewhat diminished, perspiration more
sparing, digestion imperfect, and nearly all the excretions
[Seite 282] (except that of the semen, and this, indeed, is rather unusual)
suppressed. (A)

321. The remote causes of sleep are evident.c To say
nothing of narcotics, it is induced by the expenditure of the
animal powers from previous fatigue or watchfulness, also
by habit, and by darkness, silence, rest, &c. which acquire
their somniferous powers in some measure from habit; by
mild, continued, and uniform impressions upon certain senses,
v. c. the murmur of a rivulet or the view of a field of standing
corn agitated by the wind, (B) a previous meal, intense cold
applied to the surface, and other modes of deriving blood from
the head, as pediluvia, clysters, profuse hemorrhages, &c.

322. These remote causes may induce the proximate cause,
which, upon mature consideration, we think probably consists
in a diminished or impeded flow of oxygenated (arterial)
blood to the brain; for that fluid is of the highest importance
during the waking state, to the re-action of the sensorium upon
the functions of the senses and upon the voluntary motions.d

The influx of blood is diminished by its derivation from
[Seite 283] the brain and congestion in other parts; it is impeded by
the pressure of foreign matter upon the brain, whether from
serous or purulent collections, from depression of fractured
bones, &c.

This diminution of, or impediment to, the flow of blood to
the brain, causes a deficiency of water in the ventricles and a
collapse of them, upon which that acute and profound physio-
logist, David Hartley, whom we have already praised, ex-
plains the various phenomena of dreams.e

Besides other phenomena which accord with this explana-
tion, especially those of hybernating mammalia,f is a very
remarkable one which I witnessed in a living person whose
case was formerly mentioned, – that of the brain sinking
whenever he was asleep, and swelling again with blood the
moment he awoke.

This opinion is likewise strengthened by the production
of continued watchfulness from congestion of blood in the
head. (C)

323. The quantity of sleep depends much upon age, con-
stitution, temperament, &c.; generally speaking, much sleep
is the attendant of weakness, as we find in infants born pre-
maturely, and in superannuated persons, and is a very frequent
source of fatuity and torpor. (D)

324. We awake refreshed with sleep; and this return to
life is attended by the same phenomena as the approach of
sleep, – by gaping, to which is generally associated stretch-
ing, by some degree of dulness of the senses, &c.

325. The causes of waking correspond with those of going
to sleep.

The proximate is the more free return of blood to the
head.

The remote are (besides the power of custom, which is in
this respect very great) various stimuli applied to the external
or internal senses, either immediately affecting the nervous
[Seite 284] system, as the distension of the bladder, or mediately, by the
intervention of the imagination, as in dreaming.

326. Dreamsg are a sporting, as it were, of the imagination,
in which it recalls the ideas of objects formerly perceived,
especially of objects of sight, and appears to employ and
interest itself with them.

It has been disputed whether dreams are natural during
health. Some believe that sleep never occurs without them,
although they may escape our memory.h Others conceive
them the consequence only of derangement in some of the
abdominal viscera.i Very healthy adults have asserted that
they never dreamt.k

Dreams are generally confused and irregular, but occasion-
ally discover extraordinary marks of reason.l

The power of corporeal stimulants is very great in pro-
ducing dreams; v. c. of the semen in producing lascivious
trains of ideas, of excessive repletion in causing frightful ap-
pearances. There is an instance on record of a man, in
whom any kind of dreams could be induced, if his friends, by
gently addressing him, afforded the subject-matter.m This,
however, appears to be a preternatural state between sleeping
and waking; as does also the truly diseased case of sleep-
walkers, and the very different, though morbid, affection of
somnambulists seized with what is termed magnetic ecstasis.n

Locke and others have regarded all dreams as a species of
this mixed state. (E)

[Seite 285]

NOTES.

(A) Respiration also proceeds more slowly. The lessened
power of evolving heat is strikingly shown by the greater cooling
power of a cool air, and the facility with which persons take cold.
It is generally thought wise in this country to cover the head
preparatively to a nap in the day-time. Noxious agents would
appear more powerful during sleep.

(B) Gentle motion might also be mentioned as illustrative of
the effect of a mild and uniform impression on another sense. A
combination is of course still more effective, whence experience
has taught nurses to rock and otherwise gently agitate infants
while they hum them to sleep.

(C) It is certain that the supply of arterial blood to every part,
and especially to the nervous system, is requisite to its functions
and its life, and that in proportion to the activity of a part is the
activity of its supply of arterial blood. Analogy, therefore,
renders it extremely probable that, during the inactivity of sleep,
the brain, having less occasion for arterial blood, has a less
vigorous circulation than during the waking state; and we know
that whatever diminishes the ordinary determination of blood to
the brain (321), or impairs the movement of the blood through it,o
disposes to sleep,p But, although this be granted, it must be
[Seite 286] viewed, not as the cause, but as a circumstance, or, in fact, a
consequence, of ordinary sleep. Increase the activity of an
[Seite 287] organ, you increase its circulation; diminish its activity, you
diminish its circulation. The alteration of circulation is usually
not the cause but the consequence; necessary, indeed, to the
continuance of the altered degree of activity in the organ, but
not the cause. The degree of activity of any part, and the
degree of its circulation, are exactly and unalterably corre-
spondent. If the circulation through a part be mechanically
increased or diminished, the sensibility and activity of the part
will, doubtless, be proportionally increased or diminished. This
example occurs in hemorrhage. Frequently both are affected
simultaneously,– when diarrhoea renders the surface pale and
cold, both the blood is sent more sparingly to it, and the energy
of its vessels is diminished by the increase of energy in those of
the intestines. (Sect. VI. Note B.) But in ordinary sleep, the
diminished circulation appears only the consequence, for activity
is always followed by inactivity. Stimulate a muscle separated
from the body, it contracts, but it soon refuses to do so; after a
little rest, it again contracts upon the renewal of the stimulus. The
case of the brain is analogous; and when, after its daily activity,
[Seite 288] it falls asleep, the diminution of its circulation consequently
ensues. The influence of sleep upon the cerebral circulation is
shown by the head-ache and other marks of congestion which
follow too much sleep. Boerhaave mentions a physician who
took a fancy that sleep was the natural state of man, and so slept
eighteen out of the twenty-four hours, till he died of apoplexy.
The horizontal posture will not explain these ill effects, because
persons with spinal disease will lie a year upon the back without
them.

The notion of Hartley’s is a mere hypothesis, totally unworthy
of notice. Dreaming is imperfect sleep, – sleep in which some
portions of the brain are more or less active, and the circulation of
such portions is no doubt more active at the time than that of the
rest.

(D) In some diseases of the nervous system persons may pass
many days, and even entire weeks, with little or no sleep. I have
also heard a man declare he never took more than three hours
sleep during the most active period of his life. Sir Gilbert Blane
states, that General Pichegru informed him, that, ‘“in the course
of his active campaigns, he had for a whole year not more than
one hour of sleep, on an average, in twenty-four hours.”’q Sleep
varies so much in intensity that a dead sleep of an hour may be
an equal repose to an ordinary sleep of many hours. Sleep
appears much more profound at the beginning than towards the
end, and, I presume, because the fatigue is then greatest and
gradually lessens as sleep continues. Thus transpiration, we have
seen, is at first greatest, and gradually lessens as the body loses
its excess of fluid, and absorption gradually lessens as the body
becomes charged with fluid.

I believe that most adults require from six to eight hours sleep.
The longer the waking state is protracted the greater the ex-
haustion, whence one advantage of early hours, which is ex-
pressed by the adage, – one hour’s sleep before twelve is worth
two after. If a person rises proportionally late, he certainly can-
not suffer from this course, and if he suffers, it must be ascribed,
provided there is no debauch in the case, to his loss of the
influence of so much solar light and morning air. The oc-
currence of that delirium which is mentioned by Blumenbach,
at the near approach of sleep, when we do not fall asleep in a
[Seite 289] moment, and of which we are sensible by slightly recovering our-
selves, is a much surer sign that we are about to get to sleep than
the greatest drowsiness. The circumstance of our resisting sleep
as long as we can keep our eyelids open, and falling asleep, when
very sleepy, the moment we allow the eye-lids to drop, is very
striking, but explicable on the continuance of voluntary effort
in the former case, and cessation of it in the latter.

Independently of apoplexy, we have cases of extraordinarily
long sleep. A woman in Henault slept seventeen or eighteen
hours a day for fifteen years.r Another is recorded to have slept
once for forty days.s A man named Samuel Chilton, twenty-five
years of age, at Tinsbury, near Bath, once slept for a month. In
two years he slept again for seventeen days, at the beginning
of which period he took food, and had evacuations, but at length
his jaws fixed. When he fell asleep the barley was sowing, and
when he awoke he would hardly believe he saw it reaping. At
the end of a year he fell into such another sleep. His farther
history is not given.t

(E) In sleep the action of the mind is suspended. But the
degree of suspension is extremely various. In ordinary sleep the
mind is sufficiently alert to feel unpleasant sensations and make
an effort to remove their causes; – whether to remove the un-
easiness of impeded circulation in the lungs by breathing, or to draw
away the hand when tickled. One or more faculties is often active,
and one idea associates with it another, constituting dreaming;
but the activity of the mind is partial, and though we are able
occasionally even to reason correctly in our dreams, we are not
sufficiently ourselves to discover the incompatibility of many
circumstances which we fancy. In a higher degree of activity,
we answer questions put to us, although often ridiculously, as our
deficiency of mental power prevents us from keeping our associa-
tions in a proper train; and we sometimes even perform a regular
series of movements. Somnambulism is but imperfect and partial
sleep.u In it persons walk and even perform a variety of other
actions, without hearing or seeing, or consciousness of their situ-
ation, so that they fall over things placed in their way, or down a
[Seite 290] descent. They will sometimes write excellent letters, compose
good verses, and perform accurate calculations, in this state, and
on being roused into consciousness know nothing of what has
happened. This state generally occurs in sleep, but it occasion-
ally seizes persons awake, and is then termed ecstasis.x This is
by no means uncommon at the commencement or termination of
epileptic or hysteric paroxysms. In the opposite morbid affec-
tion, the patient is conscious of every thing around, but unable to
move, or give the least sign of life.y

Night-mare is a cerebral affection, imperfect sleep, a combination
of frightful fancies and fear, with an unusual loss of volition, so
that we cannot excite the common voluntary muscles to action and
with great difficulty move the diaphragm to inspiration.

Brutes dream as well as ourselves. Dogs start and bark in their
sleep.

The great feature of sleep is the deficiency of our active powers.
If we have any external sensation, or if the imagination riots on,
presenting trains of images to our internal senses, we reflect upon
them but weakly, make great mistakes, and however well we may
reason, or whatever corporeal movement we execute, the inferiority
of our active powers is conspicuous.

––––– ‘“Fancy, –’
‘Wild work produces oft, and most in dreams,’
‘Ill-matching words, and deeds long past or late.z”’

But that active power is not suspended, as Mr. Dugald Stewart
maintains in his theory of dreaming,a the simple fact of breathing
during sleep, to say nothing of the voluntary motions of the limbs
and speaking, and the acute, though circumscribed, reasoning
which occasionally occurs, is a sufficient proof.

By certain processes, such as passing the points of the fingers
at a short distance from a person, in a direction from the face down
the arms, trunk, and legs, with a degree of energy, the state of
[Seite 291] somnambulism or ecstasis may actually, we are told, be induced. It
is then termed magnetic, and the whole phenomena, animal mag-
netism.
The patient becomes insensible to all around, but has the
inward senses augmented as in common ecstasis, – may sing well
for the first time in his life, and talk so unguardedly as to disclose
secrets. The external senses become so impenetrable, that a
pistol fired in the ear is not heard, nor melted wax dropped on
the body felt, nor ammonia applied to the mouth or nostrils per-
ceived, although the gentlest word of the operator (magnetiser)
is heard and answered, water similarly treated by him (magne-
tised
) tasted and found ferruginous, and the gentlest touch of him
recognised. A delightful feeling of ease and lightness is expe-
rienced, the body grows warmer, and perspires freely, though some-
times anxiety, palpitation, slight convulsions and wandering pains
take place. On the first attempt these occur generally without
somnambulism, and it is only after many trials (and sometimes they
continue fruitless), that such a state is induced. On coming out
of the somnambulism, the person is unconscious of all that has
occurred; but when thrown into it again, recollects the whole and
converses on it. The magnetiser can put an end to this state at
pleasure. Now some of this is very probable, as we often see the
most extraordinary nervous symptoms induced by mental causes,
and the testimony in favour of it, supported by the probability,
is too numerous and respectable to be doubted.

But this is not all. We are assured that matters often go much
farther; that the patient can often be so highly magnetised, not
only as to taste magnetised water and recognise the magnetiser
by hearing and touch, but even to perceive objects of sight by the
organ of touch, so as to read a book by the epigastrum;b nay more,
to discover a person in the next room, though a wall intervene; to
see the interior structure of his own body, and describe the seat
and appearance of a diseased organ, and point out the remedy,
though I am not aware of any anatomical discoveries having ever
been made, and presume that blood would never have been seen
flowing up the cava and down the aorta, unless Harvey had first
taught the circulation; and I suppose the remedies always depend
upon the country and the period, – that leeches and ptisans would
be called for in France, calomel in the Indies, and iodine for bron-
[Seite 292] chocele not before Dr. Coindet had made known its virtues.
Having never seen the magnetic phenomena, I have no right to
pronounce judgment: but before I can believe these wonders
I must see them.

The most zealous magnetist must allow that deception has
frequently been detected; that women have appeared to be in so
deep a magnetic sopor that they have borne sinapisms and
melted wax without the least agitation of the countenance, and
yet the whole has been proved an imposture. The effects of
which none can doubt – Blumenbach says some are undeniable (225),
– one would at once ascribe in common language to the imagin-
ation. The magnetised person is generally a weak, delicate fe-
male; the magnetiser strong and a male. Great earnestness and
energy must be manifested on his part; repeated operations are
required before a high degree of magnetism occurs: not the least
effect is produced if the magnetiser is weak and the patient strong,
nor if the patient is incredulous; while a mere look, or mere prox-
imity, without a single manipulation, is sufficient when the full
effects have been once attained on previous occasions.

Yet, to prove that there is something more than imagination,
we are assured that the magnetiser can succeed though shut in a
closet and the patient totally ignorant of what is intended. As
collusion is very easy, I must examine this point also myself before
I believe. Water, they not only say, can be magnetised so as to
taste chalybeate, but inanimate bodies made conductors.

Magnetism has been successfully applied to the cure of diseases
of excitability. It is said to have been discovered by Mesmer,
near the end of the last century, who, knowing that the magnet
was much employed as a remedy, and hearing from M. Hell, the
professor of astronomy at Vienna, that he had cured himself by
magnetic plates of a severe cardiaglia, opened a house for curing
every disease in this way, and began to imagine the existence of an
universal magnetic power, distinct from that of the common
magnet, depending upon a fluid pervading all living and mineral
matter, and the source of all in art and nature. To throw this
fluid into persons, – to magnetise them, he manipulated as we
have mentioned, and employed other processes which are now
omitted. He travelled, performed many great cures, and often
failed; was extolled and abused; but such results appeared as
caused a commission of enquiry to be ordered by the government
of France. The whole was ascribed to imagination, and the matter
dropped. Of late the subject has been revived among some of
[Seite 293] the best informed physicians of Germany and France, and a com-
mission is now sitting in Paris to enquire into it anew. Those who
ascribe all to imagination, consider the agitations and prophecies
of the priestess of Apollo, the ecstasies of Dervishes and Santons,
and of Shakers and Quakers, and the pretended miraculous cures of
all ages, from the days of Serapis of Egypt to those of the blessed
Paris of Paris,c as only of a piece with animal magnetism, showing
how strongly fear or enthusiasm will work upon the brain and
all the organs; discover the expression magnetise in Paracelsus
and Van Helmont, and adduce a passage from Plautus to show
that manipulations were used in Rome to send persons to sleep.
Mercury, thinking of sending a person to sleep, says, – ‘“Quid si ego
illum tractim tangam ut dormiat.”’ Sosia replies, – ‘“Servaveris,
nam continuas has tres noctes pervigilavi.”’d The hypothesis of a
magnetic fluid is relinquished by many of the most enlightened
magnetisers.e They assert the phenomena only. But by means of
this fluid, some believers explain why a person cannot tickle himself;
why, proverbially, when a friend is near, we think of him (‘“talk of
the devil, &c.”’); and why, at the moment of death, distant friends
have been said to see or hear the dying who happen to be
thinking intensely of them so as magnetically to influence them!

SECT. XXI.
OF FOOD AND HUNGER.

[Seite 294]

327. As sleep repairs the loss of the animal powers, so
food repairs that of the natural, and supplies fresh elementary
particles in the room of those which are constantly wasting.

328: We are most effectually induced to procure and take
food by calls of nature, different in kind, but tending to the
same end: on one hand, by the intolerable torment of hunger
and thirst; and on the other, by the equally powerful allure-
ments of appetite.

329. Some ascribe hunger to an uneasiness arising in the
stomach from its being empty and unoccupied; others to the
mutual friction of its rugae; others not only to the stimulus
of its fluids, now secreted in abundance, – of the saliva and
gastric juice, but to an acrimony which they acquire when
food is not taken in proper time. (A)

330. Thirst appears referable both to a very unpleasant
dryness of the fauces, and to the particular stimulus of acrid
matters, especially of salts, taken by the mouth. It may be,
therefore, the consequence of excessive absorption in the
cavity of the mouth, such as occurs when the mother applies
her infant to the breast, or, what is not uncommon, when
venesection or purging have been ordered. Violent passions
frequently induce thirst. (B)

331. The necessity of obeying these stimuli is greater or
less according to age, constitution, and especially according to
habit, and nothing can therefore be positively affirmed re-
specting its urgency; but thus much is certain, that an healthy
adult, in whom all the calls of nature are felt in their usual
[Seite 295] force,a cannot abstain from food a whole day without great
prostration of strength, nor scarcely beyond eight days with-
out danger to life. (C)

332. Although thirst is a violent desire, drink appears not
very necessary to life and health; for many warm-blooded
animals, – mice, quails, parrots, &c. do not drink at all; and
some individuals of the human species have lived in perfect
health and strength without tasting liquids.b (D)

333. It has been disputed whether our food, by which we
satisfy these stimuli, is derived more advantageously and the
more consistently with nature from the animal or from the ve-
getable kingdom.c

334. Some contend that man is herbivorous, from the shape
of his teeth,d the length of his intestines,e the difference be-
tween the structure of the small and large intestines, and
from the cells of the colon, &c. Rousseau ingeniously urges
the circumstance that woman is naturally uniparous and pro-
vided with two breasts.f To these arguments it may be
added, that some men have ruminated, – a power peculiar to
herbivorous animals, (E) and that tame vegetable feeders are
easily accustomed to animal food, whereas carnivorous animals,
excepting the dog, can very seldom be brought to feed on ve-
getables.

The arguments of those who, with Helvetius,g regard man
as carnivorous, are derived from the conformation of his sto-
mach, the shortness of his coecum, &c.

[Seite 296]

335. More careful observation, however, proves that man
is not destined for either kind of food alone, but for both.
His teeth, particularly the molares,h (F) and the peculiar
structure of his intestines just alluded to, (G) hold a middle
rank between the same parts in the ferae and in herbivorous
animals. The mode in which the condyles of the lower jaw
are articulated with the temporal bones, demonstrates it in the
most striking manner. (H)

336. As the human race exists in more parts of the globe
than any other kind of animal, we should have been but ill
provided for, if we had been destined to subsist on either de-
scription of food alone; whereas man now inhabits some
countries which afford either vegetable or animal food only.

337. Man is by far the most omnivorous of all animals,
capable not only of feasting on luxurious combinations de-
rived from each kingdom, but of subsisting with health and
vigour on nearly one kind of the most simple food.

Thus, to mention a very few instances, many at present
live on vegetables only, as the tubera of solanum (potatoes),
chesnuts, dates, &c. The first families of mankind most
probably subsisted for a long period merely on fruits, roots,
corn, and pulses.i

The nomadic Moors have scarcely any other food than
gum senega.k (I)

The inhabitants of Kamtschatka and many other shores
scarcely any other than fish.

The shepherds in the province of Caracas in South America
[Seite 297] on the banks of the Oronoko,l and even the Morlachsm in
Europe, live almost entirely on flesh.

Some barbarous nations devour raw animals. This cannot
be denied to have formerly been the case with the Samojedes,n
the Esquimaux,o and some tribes of South America.p

Other nations are no less remarkable in their drink.

The inhabitants of many intertropical islands, especially in
the Pacific Ocean, can procure no sweet water, and instead
of it drink the juice of cocoa-nuts.

Others take only sea-water, and innumerable similar facts
clearly prove man to be omnivorous.


NOTES.

(A) If hunger arise from merely a sense of vacuity in the sto-
mach, why should it be increased by the application of cold to the
surface, and instantly by the deglutition of cold liquids, &c.?

The explanation by friction of the rugae is equally unsatisfac-
tory; because the friction of these, if it does really occur, cannot
be greater than the friction of the stomach against its contents
immediately after a meal, when the organ is in great action, but
at which time hunger does not exist.

Nor can the presence of the gastric juice explain the matter:
because, as every one knows, no sensation arises in any other
organ, which is not excrementory, from the peculiar stimulus of
its natural fluid, and I presume that this is the stimulus intended,
for the mechanical stimulus, from the bulk of the gastric juice,
occurs equally from the presence of food, which does not excite
hunger; because if the hungry stomach is evacuated by vomiting,
as in sea-sickness, the appetite is even greater than before, when
[Seite 298] the sickness has ceased; and because hunger often ceases after
a time, though the gastric juice still remains in the stomach, and
is probably more abundant than ever.

The supposition of an acrimony generated in the gastric juice, &c.
being a cause of hunger, is absurd. The fluid would be unfit for
its purposes, and would be more likely to destroy than produce
appetite.

Hunger has been attributed by some to a sympathy of the sto-
mach with a general feeling of want in the system. But hunger
is removed immediately that a due quantity of food is swallowed, –
long before the general system can have derived benefit from the
meal; fowls are satisfied when their crops are filled, although
their food is not even ground, preparatorily to digestion, till it has
passed from the crop into the gizzard; and ruminating animals leave
off eating before they begin to chew the substances with which they
have distended their stomachs. Again, persons unable to obtain food
in sufficient quantity, lessen their hunger by swallowing any unnu-
tritious and indigestible matter. The circumstance giving rise
to this opinion is the continuance of hunger, although food be
taken in abundance, in cases of scirrhus pylorus and enlarged me-
senteric glands. Here, it is urged, the hunger continues, because
the body receives no nourishment. But, in scirrhus of the pylorus,
vomiting soon follows the reception of food into the stomach, and
therefore this organ is reduced to the condition in which it was
previously, and the return of hunger is easily explicable. In dis-
eases of the mesenteric glands, there is in fact no obstruction to
the course of the chyle. They are found permeable (427), and
the continued hunger appears rather a part of the diseased state
of the chylopoietic viscera. Besides, many cases of imperfect
nutrition, from various causes, occur without any increase of ap-
petite: – and where there is an increase of appetite, the process
of digestion seems to proceed with unusual rapidity, so that the
stomach becomes empty sooner than in health. – In continued ab-
stinence, although the system is daily more in want, hunger usually
ceases after a few days, whether from the stomach falling into a
state of relaxation, becoming distended with wind, or from other
circumstances.

If hunger arose from fatigue of the stomach, it should be
greatest immediately after the laborious act of digestion, and gra-
dually decrease; but it on the contrary increases.

[Seite 299]

Were irritation the cause, hunger should be greatest when the
stomach is filled with food.

On the whole, hunger may perhaps be regarded as a sensation
connected with the contracted state of the stomach.

It occurs when the stomach, being empty, must be contracted;
and is increased instantaneously by a draught of cold liquid, which
cannot but contract the stomach and corrugate its inner coat;
acids, bitters, and astringents, have the same effect, and from their
nature they may be supposed to act in the same way. Cold air
applied to the surface increases it, and, in all probability, by a
similar operation, for the impression of cold upon the skin excites
an attempt at evacuation in the urinary bladder, and when all
other means fail to induce the intestines to expel their contents,
or the uterus to contract after delivery, the affusion of cold water
so frequently succeeds, that the omission of the practice in obsti-
nate cases is highly censurable. It is diminished by heat and
every thing which relaxes. Again, it ceases immediately that the
stomach is filled, and thus the stomach dilated and all corru-
gation removed, and the more the contents of the stomach are of
a nature to be absorbed or passed into the duodenum, the sooner
it recurs. Distension of the stomach is universally acknowledged
to be incompatible with hunger; whence the proverb, – ‘“a full
belly loathes the honey-comb.”’

The Otomacs during the periodical innundation of the rivers of
South America, when the depth of the waters almost entirely pre-
vents fishing, appease their hunger for two or three months by
distending their stomach with prodigious quantities, a pound a day
and upwards, of a fine, unctuous, strong-smelling, yellowish-grey
clay, slightly baked, and destitute of all organic substance, oily or
farinaceous.q The savages of New Caledonia, in the Pacific Ocean,
in times of scarcity, do the same by eating a friable lapis ollaris,
consisting of equal parts of magnesia and silex, with a little oxide
of copper. The wolves, rein-deer, and kids of Siberia, when
pressed by hunger in winter, also devour clay or friable steatites.
The Kamschatkans sometimes appease their hunger by distending
their stomach with saw-dust, for want of something better.

Being, in this view, a sensation connected with a local state of
[Seite 300] the stomach, it will be affected not only by whatever affects this
state, but by whatever affects also the sensibility to this state, and
therefore be subject to the common laws of sensation. Hence
uncivilized tribes enable themselves to traverse large tracts with-
out food by swallowing pills containing tobacco or opium. The
pain of all excessive muscular contraction is lessened by pressure;
whence the uneasiness of hunger is lessened by a belt fixed
tightly over the stomach, and some Northern Asiatic tribes place
a band there, and lace it behind with cords drawn tighter ac-
cording to the degree of the uneasiness. Thus, the state of the
stomach remaining the same, hunger may diminish from the
occurrence of other feelings which attract our attention more
forcibly, by passions of the mind, &c.: as is exactly the case with
all other sensations, even with those that are morbid. Under
strong attention of the mind to pursuits of either intellect or
passion, to delightful or painful sensation, all other feelings cease
to be felt, although really violent; and frequently, from being
unattended to, do not recur. Passions, however, and the narcotic
pills of savages, may affect hunger, not only by increasing or
diminishing the sensibility to the state of the stomach, but by in-
creasing or decreasing this state – the cause of the sensation.

(B) As hunger appears to depend upon the local condition of
the stomach, so does thirst more evidently upon that of the mouth
and fauces. Every consideration renders it probable that thirst is
the sensation of the deficiency of moisture in the parts in which it
is seated. Whatever produces this, either by causing the fluids of
the mouth and fauces to be secreted in small quantity or of
great viscidity, or by carrying off the fluid when secreted, pro-
duces thirst; and vice versa. To be dry means to be thirsty, be-
cause the state is removed by directly wetting the parts, or by
supplying the system with fluid that they may be moistened by
their own secretions. Being a sensation, the same may be re-
peated in regard to it as was observed respecting hunger. Rage
or terror dry up the mouth and throat and cause violent thirst.
Thirst is only momentarily assuaged by wetting the mouth and
throat, because they presently grow dry again. Fluids must be
swallowed to be effectual, that they may be absorbed and the
parts thus preserved moist by constant secretion.

(C) Hippocrates says that most of those who abstain from food
for seven days, die within that period; and if they do not, and are
[Seite 301] even prevailed upon to eat and drink, that still they perish.r Sir
William Hamilton, however, saw a girl, sixteen years of age, appar-
ently not in bad health, who was extricated from the ruins of a
house at Oppido, in which she had remained eleven days without
food: an infant in her arms, but a few months old, had died on
the fourth day, as the young are never so able to endure abstin-
ence.s A moderate supply of water lengthens life astonishingly.
Dr. Willan was called to a young gentleman who had voluntarily
abstained from every thing but a little water, just flavoured with
orange juice, for sixty days: death ensued a fortnight afterwards.t
Redi cruelly found that of a number of starved fowls deprived of
water, none lived beyond the ninth day; whereas one indulged
with water lived upwards of twenty.u If the water is not swal-
lowed, but imbibed by the surface or lungs, it may also prolong
life. Fodéré mentions some workmen who were extricated alive
at the end of fourteen days from a cold damp cavern in which they
had been buried under a ruin.x

A hog, weighing about 160. lbs was buried in its stye under
thirty feet of the chalk of Dover Cliff for 160 days. When dug
out, it weighed but 40 lbs., and was extremely emaciated, clean,
and white. There was neither food nor water in the stye when
the chalk fell. It had nibbled the wood of the stye and eaten
some loose chalk, which from the appearance of the excrement
had passed more than once through the body.y

In abstinence equally great imbecility of mind takes place as
of body; extreme emaciation and oedema of the legs present a
frightful spectacle; urine may still be secreted, but the alvine
discharge is greatly diminished or suppressed altogether; the pain
of hunger ceases in a few days,z probably from relaxation of the
stomach through debility. But when hunger has ceased, though
no food has been taken, weakness and sinking at the pit of the
stomach are still felt.

[Seite 302]

A poor diet, even of vegetable matter, sometimes gives rise to
symptoms of scurvy,a and famine is soon attended by epidemic
fever.

The torment of thirst increases until drink is procured or
moisture applied to the surface or inhaled: inflammation of the
mouth and throat and intense fever at length ensue.b

If abstinence is not forced upon the system, but is absolutely a
part of disease, it may, like suspension of respiration in morbid
states of insensibility,c and like immense doses of powerful medi-
cines in various diseased states, be borne with wonderful indiffer-
[Seite 303] ence, and this occurs chiefly among females. But the most
extraordinary case that I recollect, stated upon unquestionable
authority, is that of a young Scotch woman, who laboured under
an anomalous nervous affection, and, excepting that on two occa-
sions she swallowed some water, received no nourishment what-
ever for eight years. She passed urine enough twice a week to
wet a shilling, and for three years had no intestinal evacuation.d

[Seite 304]

For every example of extraordinary abstinence among females,
we have a counterpart in voraciousness among males. When the
appetite is so great it is seldom nice, and not only all animals in
all states are devoured, but glass, flints, metals, sand, wood, &c.
A Frenchman named Tarare, and described by Drs. Percy and
Laurent in some measure from their own observation,e will form
a good contrast to the Scotch girl. When a lad he once swal-
lowed a large basket of apples after some person had agreed to
pay for them; and at another time a quantity of flints, corks, and
similar substances. The colic frequently compelled him to apply
at the Hotel Dieu; he was no sooner relieved, however, than he
began his tricks again, and once was but just prevented from
swallowing the surgeon’s watch, with its chain and seals. In
1789 he joined the mob and obtained sufficient food without
devouring for money. He was then about seventeen, weighing a
hundred pounds, and would eat five-and-twenty pounds of beef
a day. When the war broke out he entered into the army, and
devoured his comrades’ rations, as long as better supplies from
other sources rendered them of little value. But when at length
his comrades stood in need of them themselves, he was nearly
famished, fell ill, and was admitted into the hôpital ambulant at
Sultzer. He there ate not only a quadruple allowance, the
broken food of the other patients, and the waste of the kitchen,
but would swallow the poultices and any thing else that came in
his way. He devoured so many dogs and cats alive that they fled
at the sight of him. Large snakes he despatched with the greatest
facility, and once gobbled up in a few moments all the dinner
that was provided for fifteen German labourers, viz. four bowls
of curd, and two enormous dishes of dough boiled in water with
salt and fat. At another time, he disposed of thirty pounds of
raw liver and lights in the presence of some general officers, who,
finding that he could swallow a large wooden lancet case, took
the partitions out, enclosed a letter in it, and made him swallow
it and proceed to the enemy’s quarters for the purpose of dis-
charging it by stool, and delivering the letter to a French colonel
who had fallen into the hands of the Prussians. This he contrived
[Seite 305] to do, enclosed the answer in it, swallowed it again, made his
escape, discharged the case again from his bowels, washed it, and,
presented it to Beauharnois and the other officers. Having,
however, been well drubbed by the enemy, he refused any further
secret service, and was readmitted into the hospital to be cured
of his hunger. Being no longer a novelty, he excited less in-
terest, and felt it necessary to have recourse to sheep-folds,
poultry-yards, private kitchens, slaughter-houses, and bye places
where he had to contend with dogs and wolves for their filthy
food. He was detected drinking blood that had been taken from
his fellow-patients, and eating bodies in the dead house. The
disappearance of a young child excited strong suspicions against
him, and he was at length chased away and unheard of for four
years, at the end of which time he applied at the Hospice de Ver-
sailles, wasted, no longer voracious, and labouring under a puru-
lent diarrhoea, and he soon died, aged twenty-six. The body
immediately became a mass of putridity. During his life he was
always offensive, hot, and in a sweat, especially at intervals. His
breath rolled off like steam, and his dejections were constantly
very copious and intolerably foetid. He was of the middle height,
thin, and weak.

All the abdominal viscera were found full of suppurations.

His stomach was of immense size, and this has usually been the
case in persons habitually gluttonous. A polyphagous idiot
opened by the same writers displayed an enormous stomach, more
resembling that of a horse than of a human being: the intestines
also formed several large pouches in succession, which appeared
like additional stomachs. Cabrol dissected a glutton of Toulouse,
and found the oesophagus terminating in an excessively large
cavity, and the intestines running, without a single convolution,
but with merely a gentle sygmoid flexure, to the anus. A large
pylorus, or a very depending position of it, have been found in other
cases. We thus learn the common causes of constitutional vora-
ciousness, and obtain an additional reason for referring hunger to
the want of distention of the stomach: – a great quantity of food
is required to fill these stomachs. If hunger were independent
of the distention of this organ, and connected solely with the
want of the system, an ordinary meal would suffice where the
stomach is very large, as the extraordinary quantity of food can-
not be demanded for nourishment, – when food enough for
[Seite 306] support is taken, hunger should cease. But hunger continues
till the stomach is filled, and the prodigious collection in the
case of Tarare, was disposed of by abundant stools, sweating,
and copious pulmonary exhalation.

The large capacity of the stomach is generally ascribable to
original conformation, but some account for it occasionally by
repeated over distention and the deglutition of indigestible sub-
stances, – an opinion rather improbable when we reflect that city
gluttons, who give a very fair trial to the distensibility of their
idol, never acquire such appetites and capaciousness of stomach
as qualify them for a show. The power of deglutition may be
very much increased by practice. We have all seen the Indian
jugglers, and I frequently conversed with a poor man who had
swallowed nineteen large clasped knives at different times, having
found in a drunken fit that he could get one down his throat for
a wager:f yet in him the appetite and capacity of stomach were
not augmented. Knife and stone eaters are seen in all countries.

Some great eaters are prodigies of strength; as Milo, who killed
an ox with a blow of his fist and devoured it; and the fellow
mentioned in a thesis published at Wittemberg in 1757, who once,
in the presence of the Senate, ate up a sheep, a sucking-pig, and
sixty pounds of plums, stones and all, and could carry four men a
whole league upon his shoulders.

Voraciousness is of course sometimes, like depraved appetite,
as in chlorosis and pregnancy, but temporary, and referable to
merely disordered function. Dr. Satterly details the case of a
lad in whom, while labouring under typhus with marked inflam-
mation in the head, the exacerbations of fever were accompanied
by such hunger, that he ate every day four regular meals, each
sufficient for the stoutest labourer’s dinner, and many pounds of
dry bread, biscuit, and fruit between them. He had no sooner
finished a meal than he denied having tasted any thing,
[Seite 307]

‘“––––– cibus omnis in illo,’
‘Causa cibi est, semperque locus fit inanis edendo,”’

and would suck and bite the bed-clothes or his fingersg if refused
more, cared nothing about the quality of what he ate, would pass
six or seven large solid motions a day by means of physic, and
ultimately recovered.h The stomach here executed its office with
excessive rapidity, and was too soon empty again.

The ant-lion will exist without the smallest supply of food, ap-
parently uninjured, for six months; though when he can get it,
he will daily devour an insect of his own size. A spider has lived
without food under a sealed glass for ten months, and at the end
of that time appeared as vigorous as ever. Reptiles have often
lived upwards of a century enclosed in trees or stones.

On the other hand, herbivorous larvae, as caterpillars, (for in-
sects are carnivorous, herbivorous, and omnivorous, like their
superiors,) will eat twice their weight of food daily.i

(D) Sauvages mentions a member of the Academy of Toulouse
who never thirsted, and passed whole months of the hottest sum-
mer without drinking; and a woman who passed 40 days without
liquids or thirst.k

(E) A striking instance of this occurred at Bristol. A man
twenty years of age, had, as long as he could remember, chewed
his food a second time, after swallowing it. The process began
in a quarter of an hour if he had taken liquid at his meal: later,
if he had not. What had passed down first, always came up first.
Before the second chewing his food appeared to lie heavy in the
lowest part of his throat: after it, the food ‘“passed clear away.”’
He found the taste of the food on its return to be chewed, rather
pleasanter than at first. If this faculty left him it signified sick-
ness, and he was never well till it returned.l

Blumenbach has seen four examples of this kind. In two, the
[Seite 308] process was compulsory; in two, it was optional. These subjects
also were males, and had a real gratification in ruminating.m

(F) In carnivorous animals, the incisors are very large; and
the molares generally of an irregular wedge form, those of the
lower jaw closing in those of the upper like scissors, and being
adapted for lacerating. In the herbivorous, the surface of the
molares is horizontal or oblique, adapted for grinding.

(G) As the food of herbivorous animals requires more prepar-
ation before it becomes the substance of the animal, their stomach
is adapted to retain it for a length of time. The oesophagus
opens nearer the right extremity of the stomach, and the pylorus
nearer the left, so that a blind pouch is left on either side. In the
carnivorous, the reverse is the case, and the stomach cylindrical,
to favour the quick passage of the food. For the same reason, the
intestines in the latter, even among insects, are generally shorter,
and have fewer valvulae conniventes, and, in some instances, no
coecum.

(H) In animals which subsist on animal food, the condyles of
the lower jaw are locked in an elongated glenoid cavity, and all
rotatory motion thus prevented, as motion upwards and down-
wards is sufficient for the laceration of the food. In vegetable
feeders the joint is shallow, so that a horizontal motion is
allowed for grinding the food. For its nature in man, see
paragraph 339.

(I) In 1750, a caravan of Abyssinians had consumed all their
provisions, and would have starved but that they discovered
among their merchandise a stock of gum arabic, on which alone
above a thousand persons subsisted for two months.n Yet M.
Magendie says he finds that dogs perish if fed only with gum or
sugar, olive oil, butter, and similar articles, regarded as nutritious,
which contain no azote.o But although such substances be alone
unable to nourish, yet when united with others they may afford
some support, for persons accustomed to a mixed diet generally
grow thinner if they confine themselves to vegetable food, which
is indubitably good nourishment, and even if we grant that such
substances are not nutritious to dogs, they may be proper food for
other species; and to render it probable even that these are not
nutritious to dogs, the animals should have been gradually brought
[Seite 309] to feed on them only. For animals may be brought to live on food
the most opposite to what their nature inclines them, if the change
is made insensibly: – Spallanzani made a pigeon live on flesh
and an eagle on bread;p if fresh-water molusca are put at once
into sea water, or sea-water molusca into fresh water, they perish;
but if the change is gradually made, they live very well;q a
spider has fed upon sulphate of zinc;r we have seen that the
Otomacs eat little else some months of the year than large
quantities of earth, and that some brutes devour earth. I may
here add that not only the Otomacs are so fond of it, as, when
well supplied with food, to take a little, but that many nations of
the torrid zone have a propensity to geophagism. The negroes
of Guinea, the Javanese, the New Caledonians, and many South
American tribes, eat clay as a luxury, and the Guajeroes,
on the west of Rio da la Hache, carry a little box of lime
as sailors do a tobacco-box. German workmen at the mountain
of Kiffhönser spread clay instead of butter on their bread, and
call it stein butter, and find it every satisfying and easy of
digestion. The Otomacs do not suffer by the practice, but
in some tribes the people grow sick and thin by indulging too
freely in this luxury. Africans who geophagised with impunity
at home on a yellow clay, severely suffer from it in the West
Indies.s The red-clay eaten in Java destroys the appetite and
wastes the body.

It appears that matter which has never belonged to an animated
system is calculated to afford nourishment to animals in some
degree, but subordinately to matter which has belonged to
vegetables or animals, and that it alone will in some instances
support life for a time. Vegetables will indisputably live for a time
with facility on such alone, but eventually they will not thrive
and perfect their seed, unless animal or vegetable remains exist
in the soil; whence the necessity of this kind of manure, which
must have likewise been so changed by putrefaction that its
carbon has formed a compound resembling the extractive princi-
ple, and thus capable of solution in water. It has been contended
[Seite 310] that some animals, as fish, and that vegetables, readily subsist,
growing equally with others, and perfecting their seed, on simple
water, but the experiments in support of this assertion are not at
all decisive.t

The articles of diet generally employed by every nation and
class of society are much determined by the facility with which
they are procured. Generally, too, animal food is preferred in
cold climates and vegetable in warm; a mixture, however, of the
two is usually preferred to either exclusively, and appears better
suited to our necessities. Animal food is chiefly muscle and fat,
milk and eggs; vegetable food, chiefly, seeds and roots, fruits and
leaves, with more or less of the stalks. These articles, which are
rendered more or less masticable or digestible by heat, are
previously subjected to high temperatures in various ways; and
as many saline and aromatic substances are taken, not so much for
their nutritive qualities and their undoubted assistance when the
stomach is weak or chiefly vegetables are eaten, as for their sapid
qualities, and since the admixture of these, and the combination
of various nutritive substances together, often highly increases the
exquisiteness of taste and flavour, the culinary art is cultivated
not only for health, but also for luxury.

The chief proximate principles of animal food are fibrine,
albumen, gelatine, ozmazome, oil, and sugar; of vegetable,
gluten, fecula, mucilage, oil, and sugar. My not less excellent
than distinguished friend, Dr. Prout, in the paper which has just
been honoured with the Copley medal of the Royal Society,u
reduces all the articles of nourishment among the higher animals
to three classes: the saccharine, oily, and albuminous. The
first comprehends sugars, starches, gums, acetic acid, and
some other analogous principles; the second, oils and fats,
alcohol, &c.; the third, other animal matters, and vegetable
gluten, so abundant in wheat. He has favoured me with the
following remarks, which are chiefly an abstract from a work on
digestion, commenced by him in 1823, but not yet published.

‘“Observing that milk, the only article actually furnished and
intended by nature as food, was essentially composed of three
ingredients, viz. saccharine, oily, and curdy, or albuminous
[Seite 311] matter, I was by degrees led to the conclusion that all the
alimentary matters employed by man and the more perfect ani-
mals, might, in fact, be reduced to the same three general heads;
hence I determined to submit them to a rigorous examination in
the first place, and ascertain, if possible, their general relations
and analogies. An account of the first of these classes, viz. the
saccharine matters, has been just published in the Philosophical
Transactions,
and the others are in progress. The characteristic
property of saccharine bodies is that they are composed simply of
carbon united to oxygen and hydrogen in the proportions in which
they form water; the proportions of carbon varying in different
instances from about 30 to 50 per cent. The other two families
consist of compound bases (of which carbon constitutes the chief
element) likewise mixed with and modified by water, and the pro-
portion of carbon in oily bodies, which stand at the extreme of the
scale in this respect, varies from about 60 to 80 per cent.; hence,
considering carbon as indicating the degree of nutrition, which,
in some respects may be fairly done, the oils may be regarded in
general as the most nutritious class of bodies; and the general
conclusion from the whole is, that substances naturally containing
less than 30 or more than 80 per cent. of carbon are not well, if
at all, adapted for aliment.’

‘“It remains to be proved whether animals can live on one of
these families exclusively, but at present experiments are decidedly
against this assumption, and the most probable view is, that a
mixture of two at least, if not of all three of the classes of nutriment
is necessary. Thus, as has been stated, milk is a compound of
this description, and almost all the gramineous and herbaceous
matters employed as food by animals, contain at least two of the
three. The same is true of animal aliments, which consist, at least,
of albumen and oil; in short, it is, perhaps, impossible to name a
substance employed by the more perfect animals as food, which
does not essentially constitute a natural compound of at least
two, if not of all three of the above three great classes of
alimentary matters.’

‘“But it is in the artificial food of man that we see this great prin-
ciple of mixture most strongly exemplified. He, dissatisfied with
the productions spontaneously furnished by nature, culls from every
source, and, by the power of his reason, or, rather, his instinct,
forms in every possible manner, and under every disguise, the
[Seite 312] same great alimentary compound. This, after all his cooking
and art, how much soever he may be inclined to disbelieve it, is the
sole object of his labour, and the more nearly his results approach
to this, the more nearly they approach perfection. Thus, from
the earliest times, instinct has taught him to add oil or butter
to farinaceous substances, such as bread, and which are naturally
defective in this principle. The same instinct has taught him to
fatten animals, with the view of procuring the oleaginous in con-
junction with the albuminous principle, which compound he finally
consumes, for the most part in conjunction with saccharine matter,
in the form of bread or vegetables. Even in the utmost refine-
ments of his luxury and in his choicest delicacies, the same great
principle is attended to, and his sugar and flour, his eggs and
butter, in all their various forms and combinations, are nothing
more nor less than disguised imitations of the great alimentary
prototype, milk, as presented to him by nature.”’

More or less of common salt exists in the food of all animals.
It is equally desired by the greater number, and many traverse
immense tracts and encounter great difficulties to obtain it. Dr.
Prout, I may mention, considers it, or the muriatic acid which it
affords, of the highest importance in the animal economy.

SECT. XXII.
OF MASTICATION AND DEGLUTITION.

[Seite 313]

338. The lower jaw is the chief organ of mastication,
and is supplied, as well as the upper, with three orders of
teeth.

With incisores, generallya scalpriform for the purpose of
biting off small pieces, and not placed in the lower jaw, as in
other mammalia, more or less horizontally, but erect, – one
of the distinctive characters of the human race.

With strong conical canine teeth, by which we divide hard
substances, and which in man neither project beyond the rest,
nor are placed alone, but lie closely and in regular order with
the others.

With molares of various sizes, adapted for grinding, and
differing conspicuously from those of other mammalia, by
possessing gibbous apices excessively obtuse.

339. The lower jaw is connected with the skull by a
remarkable articulation, which holds a middle rank between
arthrodia and ginglymus, and, being supplied with two car-
[Seite 314] tilaginous menisci of considerable strength, has easy motion
in every direction. (A)

The digaster, assisted somewhat by the geniohyoidei and
mylohyodei muscles, draws the lower jaw down, when we
open the mouth.

The masseters and temporal chiefly raise it again when we
bite off any thing, and are most powerfully contracted when
we break hard substances.

Its lateral motions are accomplished by the internal and
external pterygoid.

The latter can also draw it forwards.

340. Substances are retained, directed, and brought under
the action of the teeth by the buccinator, and by the tongue,
which is very flexible and changeable in form. (235)

341. During manducation, there occurs a flow of saliva,b
which is a frothy fluid, consisting of a large portion of water
united with some albumen, and holding in solution a small
quantity of phosphate of lime – the source of the tartar of the
teeth and of salivary calculi. From being constantly applied
to the tongue, it is insipid, although it contains some micro-
cosmic salt (phosphate of ammonia), as well as muriatic and,
invariably, a small portion of oxalic acid. It is antisepticc
and very resolvent. (B)

342. The saliva flows from three orders of conglomerate
glands, placed laterally and interiorally with respect to the
lower jaw.

The parotids,d are the largest, and pour forth the saliva
behind the middle molares of the upper jaw, through the
Stenonian ducts.e

The submaxillary,f through the Whartonian.g

[Seite 315]

The sublingual,h – the smallest, through the numerous
Rivinian.i

343. The excretion of saliva, amounting, according to the
arbitrary statement of Nuck,k to a pound in twelve hours, is
augmented by stimuli and by mechanical pressure, or, if the
expression may be allowed, emulsion.

The latter cause, greatly favoured by the situation of the
parotids, at the articulation of the jaws, occurs when we chew
hard substances, which thus become softened.

The former occurs when acrid substances are taken into
the mouth, which are thus properly diluted; or arises from
imagination (288), as when the mouth waters during the
desire for food.

344. The mucus of the labial and buccal glandsl and of
the tongue, as well as the moisture which transudes from the
soft parts of the mouth, is mixed with the saliva.

345. The mixture of these fluids with a substance which
we are chewing, renders it not only a pultaceous and easily
swallowed bolus, but likewise prepares it for further digestion
and for assimilation.

346. The mechanismm of deglutition, although very com-
plicated, and performed by the united powers of many very
different parts, amounts to this. The tongue being drawn
towards its root, swelling and growing rigid, receives the
bolus of food upon its dorsum, which is drawn into a hollow
form. The bolus is then rolled into the isthmus of the fauces,
and caught with a curious and rather violent effort by the
infundibulum of the pharynx, which is enlarged and in some
measure drawn forward to receive it. The three constric-
[Seite 316] toresn muscles of the pharynx drive it into the oesophagus.
These motions are all performed in very rapid succession, and
require but a short space of time.

347. Nature has provided various contrivances for opening
and securing this passage.o

The important motion of the tongue is regulated by the os
hyoides.

The smallest particle of food is prevented from entering the
nostrils or Eustachian tubes, by means of the soft palate,p which,
as well as the uvula suspended from its arch, and whose use
is not clearly understood, is extended by muscles of its own,
and closes those openings.q

The tongue protects the glottis, for the larynx at the
moment of deglutition is drawn upwards and forwards, and in
a manner concealed under the retracted root of the tongue
and applied to the latter in such a way, that the glottis, being
also constricted and protected by the epiglottis, is most
securely defended from the entrance of foreign substances. (C)

348. Deglutition is facilitated by the abundance of mucus
which lubricates these parts, and which is afforded not only
by the tongue (237), but by the numerous sinusesr of the
tonsils and muciparous cryptae of the pharynx.

349. The oesophagus, through which the food must pass
previously to entering the stomach, is a fleshy canal, narrow
and very strong, mobile, dilatable, very sensible, and con-
sisting of coats resembling, except in thickness, the coats of
the other parts of the alimentary canal.s

[Seite 317]

The external coat is muscular, and possesses longitudinal
and transverse fibres.

The middle is tendinous, lax, and more and more cellular
towards each of its surfaces, by which means it is connected
with the two other coats.

The interior is lined, like all the alimentary tube, with an
epithelium analogous to cuticle (176), and is lubricated by a
very smooth mucus.

350. This canal receives the approaching draught or bolus
of food, contracts upon it, propels it downwards, and, in the
case of the bolus, stuffs it down, as it were, till it passes the
diaphragm and enters the stomach. (D)


NOTES.

(A) The condyles of the lower jaw are prevented from descend-
ing very deeply into the glenoid cavity, and thus being confined
to vertical movements, by a cartilage which is hollow on each sur-
face, and moveable, and permits the condyle to move from the
glenoid cavity to a tubercle which stands before this, and thus to
acquire still greater mobility.

(B) Saliva is composed of

Water 992.9
A peculiar animal matter 2.9
Mucus 1.4
Alkaline muriates 1.7
Lactate of soda and animal matter 0.9
Pure soda 0.2
––––––
1000.0t
––––––

What Berzelius calls mucus, Professor Thomson and Dr. Bos-
tock regard as albumen: This mucus is insoluble in water, and,
when incinerated, but not before, yields a large portion of phos-
[Seite 318] phate of lime. The tartar of the teeth arises from its gradual de-
composition upon them, and consists of

Earthy phosphates 79.0
Undecomposed mucus 12.5
Peculiar salivary matter 1.0
Animal matter soluble in muriatic acid 7.5
–––––
100.0u
–––––

According to a recent examination by Tiedemann and Gmelin,
saliva, mixed with more or less mucus, consists of –

A peculiar matter termed salivary; osmazome; mucus: – all
essential to its composition.

Sometimes a little albumen.

A little fatty matter, united with phosphorus.

Potass united with acetic, phosphoric, sulphuric, hydrochloric,
and sulpho-cyanic acid: – all soluble salts.

A large quantity of phosphate, and a smaller of carbonate, of
lime: a minute quantity of magnesia: – all three insoluble.x

The solid contents amount to about 1/25 per cent. The alkaline
properties of saliva were before ascribed to a free alkali. and that
alkali was supposed to be soda. In the dog the alkali is soda,
very little potass being discoverable.

(C) The glottis, when sound, may be sufficiently closed inde-
pendently of the epiglottis. Dr. Magendie says that he saw two
persons perfectly destitute of epiglottis who always swallowed
without difficulty.y Targioni also met with one, and in that case
neither deglutition nor speech was impaired.z

(D) Professor Hallé observed in a woman, the interior of whose
stomach was exposed by disease, that the arrival of a bolus of
food in the stomach was followed by an eversion of the mucous
membrane of the oesophagus into it, as we observe in the case of
the rectum when a horse has finished discharging its faeces.a

SECT. XXIII.
OF DIGESTION.

[Seite 319]

251. The stomach is the organ of digestion. It exists,
what cannot be affirmed of any other viscus, in perhaps all
animals without exception; and, if the importance of parts
may be estimated in this way, evidently holds the first rank
among our organs.

352. The human stomacha resembles a very large leathern
bottle, is capable in the adult of containing three pints and
upwards of water, and has two openings.

The superior, called cardia, at which the oesophagus, folded
and opening obliquely, expands into the stomach, is placed
towards the left side of its fundus.

The inferior, at which the right and narrower part of the
stomach terminates, is called pylorus, and descends somewhat
into the cavity of the duodenum.

353. The situation of the stomach varies accordingly as it
is in a state of repletion or depletion. When empty, it is
flaccid, and hangs into the cavity of the abdomen, its greater
curvature inclining downwards, while the pylorus, being
directed upwards, forms, by doubling, an angle with the duo-
denum.b

When full, the larger curvature is rolled forwards,c so that
the pylorus lies more in a line with the duodenum, while the
cardia, on the contrary, is folded, as it were, into an angle and
closed.

[Seite 320]

354. The stomach is composed of four principal coats, se-
parated by the intervention of three others, which are merely
cellular.

The external is common to nearly all the alimentary canal,
and continuous with the omentum, as we shall presently
mention.

Within this, and united to it by cellular membrane, lies
the muscular coat, which is particularly worthy of notice from
being the seat of the extraordinary irritability (300) of the
stomach. It consists of strata of muscular fibres,d commonly
divided into three orders, one longitudinal and two circular
(straight and oblique), but running in so many directions that
no exact account can be given of their course.

The third is the chief membrane. It is usually termed
nervous, but improperly, as it consists of condensed mucous
tela, more lax on its surfaces, which are united on the one
hand with the muscular and on the other with the internal
villous coat. It is firm and strong, and may be regarded as
the basis of the stomach.

The interior (besides the epithelium investing the whole
alimentary canal), improperly called villous, is extremely soft,
and in a manner spongy, porous, and folded into innumerable
rugae,e so that its surface is more extensive than that of the
other coats; it exhibits very small cells,f somewhat similar to
those larger cells which are so beautiful in the reticulum of
ruminants.

Its internal surface is covered with mucus, probably se-
creted in the muciparous crypts which are very distinct about
the pylorus.

355. The stomach is amply furnished with nervesg from
each nervous system (214), whence its great sensibility, owing
to which it is so readily affected by all kinds of stimuli,
whether external, as cold, or internal, as food and its own
[Seite 321] fluids, or mental; whence also the great and surprising sym-
pathy between it and most functions of the system; to which
sympathy are referable the influence of all passions upon the
stomach, and of the healthy condition of the stomach upon
the tranquillity of the mind.h

356. The abundance and utility of the blood-vessels of the
stomach are no less striking. Its arteries, ramifying infinitely
upon the cellular membrane and glands, secrete the gastric
juice,
which would appear to stream continually from the
inner surface of the stomach.i

357. In its general composition this fluid is analogous to
the saliva, equally antiseptic, very resolvent,k and capable of
again dissolving the milk which it has coagulated.l (A)

358. Digestion is performed principally by it. The food,
when properly chewed and subacted by the saliva, is dis-
solvedm by the gastric fluid, and converted into the pultaceous
chyme, so that most kinds of ingesta lose their specific qua-
lities, are defended from the usual chemical changes to which
they are liable, such as putridity, rancidity, &c. and acquire
fresh properties preparatory to chylification.n (B)

359. This important function is probably assisted by
various accessory circumstances. Among them, some parti-
cularly mention the peristaltic motion, which, being constant
and undulatory, agitates and subdues the pultaceous mass of
[Seite 322] food.o The existence of a true peristaltic motion in the stomach
during health, is, however, not quite certain; indeed, the
undulatory agitation of the stomach that occurs, appears in-
tended for the purpose of driving the thoroughly dissolved
portions downwards, while those portions which are not com-
pletely subacted are repelled from the pylorus by an antipe-
ristaltic motion.

360. The other aids commonly enumerated, are the pres-
sure on the stomach from the alternate motion of the abdomen,
and the high temperature maintained in the stomach by the
quantity of blood in the neighbouring viscera and blood-
vessels, which temperature was at one time supposed to be of
such importance, that the word coction was synonymous with
digestion.

361. To determine the time requisite for digestion is evi-
dently impossible, if we consider how it must vary according
to the quality and quantity of the ingesta, the strength of the
digestive powers, and the more or less complete previous mas-
tication.

During health, the stomach does not transmit the digestible
parts of the food before they are converted into a pulp. The
difference of food must therefore evidently cause a difference
in the period necessary for digestion.p It may, however, be
stated generally, that the chyme gradually passes the pylorus
in between three and six hours after our meals. (C)

362. The pylorusq is an annular fold, consisting, not like
the other rugae of the stomach, of merely the villous, but also
of fibres derived from the nervous and muscular, coats. All
these, united, form a conoidal opening at the termination of
the stomach, projecting into the duodenum, as the uterus
does into the vagina, and, in a manner, embraced by it.

[Seite 323]

NOTES.

(A) Seven grains of the inner coat of a calf’s stomach were
found by Dr. Young of Edinburgh to enable water poured upon it
to coagulate 6857 times its weight of milk.r

(B) It was once imagined that fermentation, and once that tri-
turation, was the cause of digestion, but, as neither can produce
the same effects on food out of the body that occur in the stomach,
these opinions fell to the ground. Besides, no signs of ferment-
ation appear when digestion is perfect; and food, either defended
from trituration by being swallowed in metallic spheres perforated
to admit the gastric juice,s or immersed in gastric juice out of
the body,t is readily digested.

(C) The digestive process does not go on equally through the
whole mass of food, but takes place chiefly where this is in contact
with the stomach, and proceeds gradually from the surface to
[Seite 324] the centre of the mass, so that the food at the centre is entirely
different in appearance from that at the surface, and, as soon as a
portion is reduced to a homogeneous consistence, it passes into
the duodenum without waiting till the same change has pervaded
the whole.u

The cardiac portion of the stomach is the chief seat of the pro-
cess, and when a part of the food is tolerably digested it passes
along the large curvature to the pyloric portion, where the pro-
cess is completed. As the cardiac half is the great digesting
portion, it is this half that is found sometimes to have been dis-
solved by the gastric juice after death; its contents are much
more fluid than those of the pyloric half; and Dr. Philip, who by
the dissection of about a hundred and thirty rabbits has been
enabled to furnish the completest account of what goes on in the
stomach, relates the case of a woman who had eaten and properly
digested to the last, but whose stomach was ulcerated every
where except at the cardiac end. Sir Everard Home says he
found that fluids which had been drunk were chiefly contained in
the cardiac portion, and, like many others, for upwards of a cen-
tury and a half,x that, if the body was examined early after death,
the two portions of the stomach were frequently in fact divided
by a muscular contraction.y Dr. Haighton observed the same
hour-glass contraction in a living dog, and remarked the peristaltic
motion to be much more vigorous in the pyloric half.z

Van Helmont asserted that the food becomes sour by digestion,
but this was afterwards denied, and acidity said never to happen
except in cases of disorder. Sir Gilbert Blane, many years ago,
however, declared that he had ‘“satisfied himself that there is
such an acid (the gastric) by applying the usual tests to the
inner surface of the stomach of animals. This property in rumin-
[Seite 325] ating animals,”’ he added, ‘“is confined to the digesting stomach.”’a
Dr. Prout has discovered that the acid generated is the muriatic,
both free and in combination with alkalis.b Tiedemann and
Gmelin soon afterwards found the same thing, though without
knowing, they assure us, Dr. Prout’s discovery. They assert the
clear ropy fluid of the stomach without food to be nearly, or
entirely, destitute of acidity, while the presence of food or of the
most simple stimulus to the mucous membrane, occasions it to be-
come acid, and more so, according to the greater indigestibility of
the food. The acid is very copious. They also assert the presence
of acetic acid; but Dr. Prout believes this neither necessary nor
ordinary, and derived from the aliment when it is observed. The
general change of the aliment in the stomach appears a greater
or less approach to the nature of albumen, but Dr. Prout has been
unable to detect true albumen there when none has been taken.

Brutes have been the subjects of these experiments; chiefly the
rabbit, horse, dog, and cat.

Besides the labours of Dr. Prout and of the professors of Heidel-
berg, a work has lately been published on all the subjects of
chymification and chylification by MM. Leuret and Lassaigne,
contradictory in many respects to the results of the others; but,
knowing as I do the extreme accuracy of Dr. Prout in experi-
menting and deducing, and seeing that Tiedemann and Gmelin
have bestowed infinite labour in repeating, varying, and extend-
ing their experiments, and have detailed all their proceedings,
while the French writers merely give results and appear to have
bestowed far less pains, I must be excused for merely mentioning
their work.c

An immense number of curious facts respecting different
articles of food, and many points on the subject of digestion, will
be found in the German work, and a good history of opinions in
the French.

In granivorous birds the food passes into the crop, and from this
into a second cavity, from which it enters the gizzard, – a strong
muscular receptacle, lined by a thick membrane, in which,
[Seite 326] instead of having been masticated, it is ground by means of
pebbles and other hard bodies swallowed instinctively by the
animal; hence true salivary glands do not exist about the mouth
of birds, but abound in the abdomen, opening into the lower part
of the oesophagus and into the crop and gizzard. In carnivorous
birds, the gizzard is soft and smooth. The fluids of both crop
and gizzard contain a free acid, according to Tiedemann and
Gmelin, which is the muriatic or acetic.

Some graminivorous quadrupeds with divided hoofs have four
stomachs, into the first of which the food passes when swallowed,
and from this into the second. It is subsequently returned by
portions into the mouth, chewed, and again swallowed, when, by
a contraction of the openings of the two first stomachs, it passes
over them into the third, and from this goes into the fourth.
The process can be delayed at pleasure when the paunch is quite
full. Some birds and insects also ruminate. The same chemists
found the fluids of the two first stomachs alkaline, and of the
third and fourth, acid. The stomachs of some insects and crus-
tacea contain teeth. Some zoophytes are little more than a
stomach: others have several openings on the surface leading by
canals that unite and run to the stomach, – a structure called by
Cuvier, mouth-root. Between the most distinct kinds of stomach
we see numerous intermediate varieties. The cardiac half of
the interior of the stomach of the horse, for example, is covered
by cuticle, and appears merely recipient, while the pyloric half
is villous and digestive, and the state of the contents in each half
is, therefore, very different: a link thus existing between such
stomachs as the human and the ruminating.

Vomiting cannot occur unless the stomach have the resistance
of the diaphragm and abdominal muscles, or of something in
their stead. Different persons have made the horrid experiment
of giving an emetic to an animal, and, after the abdominal muscles
were cut away, observing how fruitless were all the efforts of
the stomach to reject its contents till they applied their hands
in place of these muscles, when the stomach, being forced by
the diaphragm against the resistance, instantly accomplished
vomiting.

‘“In vomiting, the muscles of the cavity of the abdomen act,
in which is to be included the diaphragm; so that the capacity of
the abdomen is lessened, and the action of the diaphragm rather
raises the ribs, and there is also an attempt to raise them by their
[Seite 327] proper muscles, to make a kind of vacuum in the thorax, that the
oesophagus may be rather opened than shut, while the glottis is
shut so as to let no air into the lungs. The muscles of the
throat and fauces act to dilate the fauces, which is easily felt by
the hand, making there a vacuum, or what is commonly called a
suction.”’d

It is generally accompanied by more or less of a peculiar sensa-
tion in the stomach, called nausea: this frequently exists alone,
and sometimes in a high degree; but where it increases to a cer-
tain amount, usually ends in vomiting. During nausea the pulse
is small, the temperature low, and the head giddy, and a large
quantity of fluid is secreted in the mouth and fauces. It is ex-
cited by disgust, certain articles, pain, sympathy of the stomach
with other organs not in health; by general derangement or disease
of the stomach; by turning round, swinging, or the motion of a
ship, and from the latter cause takes its name.

The stomach has been called the grand centre of sympathy.
Its sympathies are great, but there is no reason for considering it
the centre of sympathy. Blows upon the head or testicle, and dis-
eases of the kidney and uterus, nay, the mere pregnant state of
the latter, severe pain in any part, or a disgusting sight, will often
cause vomiting. Any depressing passion deranges the stomach,
but anxiety is a common source of stomach complaints, although
the stomach generally bears the whole blame, and is in vain
drugged and dieted, or want of exercise or great mental occu-
pation is regarded as the cause, while the anxiety is overlooked.
Pleasurable mental exertion, ‘“constant occupation without care,”’
must be very excessive to injure the stomach.

The stomach itself, except as far as its inner surface is very
extensive and sensible, and therefore highly adapted for the
influence of ingesta, appears to affect other organs, by mere
sympathy, far less than it is influenced by them.

The effects of the division of the par vagum upon the lungs
and stomach were mentioned at page 224; but I should remark,
that Mr. Brodie found even digestion uninfluenced, if the division
was made not in the neck, but close to the stomach.e

SECT. XXIV.
OF THE PANCREATIC JUICE.

[Seite 328]

363. The chyme, after passing the pylorus, undergoes
new and considerable changes in the duodenuma – a short
but very remarkable portion of the intestines, before the
nutrient chyle is separated. To this end, there are poured
upon it various secreted fluids, the most important of which
are the bile and pancreatic juice.

364. Of these we shall treat separately, beginning with the
pancreatic fluid, because it is closely allied both in nature and
function to the saliva and gastric juice already mentioned.

365. Although it is with difficulty procured pure from
living and healthy animals, all observations made in regard to
it establish its close resemblance to the saliva. At the present
day, it would scarcely be worth while to mention the er-
roneous hypotheses of Franc. Sylviusb and his followers –
Regn. De Graaf,c Flor. Schuyl,d and others, respecting its
supposed acrimony, long since ably refuted by the celebrated
Pechlin,e Swammerdam,f and Brunner,g unless they afforded
a salutary admonition, how fatal the practice of medicine may
become, if not founded on sound physiology.

[Seite 329]

366. The source of this fluid is similar to that of the saliva.
It is the pancreas,h – by much the largest conglomerate gland
in the system, excepting the breasts, and extremely analogous
to the salivary glands in every part of its structure, even in
the circumstance of its excretory ducts arising by very minute
radicles and uniting into one common duct, which is deno-
minated, from its discoverer, Wirsüngian.

This duct penetrates the tunics of the duodenum, and sup-
plies the cavity of this intestine with a constant stillicidium of
pancreatic juice.

367. The excretion of this fluid is augmented by the same
causes which affect that of the saliva, – pressure and sti-
mulus.

By the former it is emulged, whenever the stomach lies in
a state of repletion upon the pancreas.

The stimuli are the fresh and crude chyme entering the
duodenum, and the bile flowing through the opening common
to it and the pancreatic fluid.

368. Its use is to dissolve the chyme, especially if imper-
fectly digested in the stomach, and at all times, by its great
abundance, to assimilate the chyme more to the nature of the
fluids and render it fitter for chylification.


NOTE.

Brunner, about 150 years ago, removed almost the whole pan-
creas from dogs, and tied and cut away portions of the duct; and
they lived apparently as well as before. From one he was not
contented with removing the spleen at one time and the pancreas
at another, after which the poor animal pancratice valebat; but,
to render it celebrated for experiments, he on a third occasion laid
bare the intestines and wounded them for an inch and a half,
sewed up the wound, made a suture in the abdominal parietes so
badly that the intestines were found hanging out on the ground one
[Seite 330] morning, purple and cold, and then allowed the animal to lick the
wound into healing. He also performed the operation for aneurism
in the artery of its hind leg, and paracentesis of its chest, inject-
ing a quantity of milk into the pleura and pumping it out again.
This even was not enough for the gentle Brunner; he gave the
dog such a dose of opium, when it had recovered from the oper-
ation on the spleen, that it was seized with tetanus. But this also it
got the better of, and lived upwards of three pleasant months with
its master, ‘“gratus mihi fuit hospes,”’ after all these indulgencies,
and was at last lost in a crowd; stolen, no doubt, because ‘“celebris
ab experimentorum multitudinem, – vivum philosophiae experi-
mentalis exemplum, et splene mutilus, variis cicatricibus notabilis.”’
Brunner offered any money for it again, but to no purpose, (p. 6.
13.)

The pancreatic juice, at least in the sheep, according to Tiede-
mann and Gmelin, has twice as much solid contents as the saliva,
and conversely a large quantity of albumen and fatty matter, with
a small quantity of salivary matter and mucus; is neutral, or has
only a little alkaline carbonate, and no sulpho-cyanic acid.

The use of the pancreatic juice is unknown, but Blumenbach’s
opinion, that it ‘“assimilates the chyme more to the nature of the
fluids,”’ is more precisely given by Tiedemann and Gmelin, who
conceive that it animalises the unazotised principles of vegetable
food. It is certainly much larger proportionately in herbivorous
than in carnivorous animals. They assign the same purpose to
the saliva.

The quantity of the pancreatic juice cannot be accurately as-
certained. It is, no doubt, produced copiously during chylifi-
cation, and cannot be expected to flow readily at other times, or
naturally under the torments of an experiment.

The weight of the human pancreas is about three times that of
all the salivary glands together.i

SECT. XXV.
OF THE BILE.

[Seite 331]

369. The bile is secreted by the livera – the most pon-
derous and the largest of all the viscera, especially in the
foetus,b in which its size is inversely as the age. The high
importance of this organ is manifested, both by its immense
supply of blood-vessels and their extraordinary distribution,
as well as by its general existence, for it is not less common
to all red-blooded animals than the heart itself.c (A)

370. The substance of the liver is peculiar, easily distin-
guished at first sight from that of other viscera, of well-known
colour and delicate texture,d supplied with numerous nerves,e
lymphatics (most remarkable on the surface),f biliferous ducts,
[Seite 332] and, what these ducts arise from, blood-vessels,g which are
both very numerous and in some instances very large, but of
different descriptions, as we shall state particularly.

371. The first blood-vessel to be noticed is the vena porta-
rum,
whose dissimilarity from other veins, both in its nature
and course, was formerly hinted at. (97) Its trunk is formed
from the combination of most of the visceral veins belonging
to the abdomen, is supported by a cellular sheath called the
capsule of Glisson,h and, on entering the liver, is divided into
branches which are subdivided more and more as they pene-
trate into the substance of the organ, till they become ex-
tremely minute, and spread over every part. Hence Galen
compared this system to a tree whose roots were dispersed in
the abdomen, and its branches fixed in the liver.i

372. The other kind of blood-vessels belonging to the
liver, are branches of the hepatic artery, which arises from
the coeliac, is much inferior to the vena portae in size, and in
the number of its divisions, but spreads by very minute rami-
fications throughout the substance of the organ.

373. The extreme divisions of these two vessels terminate
in true veins, which unite into large venous trunks running to
the vena cava inferior.

374. These extreme divisions are inconceivably minute and
collected into very small glomerules,k which deceived Mal-
pighi into the belief that they were glandular acini, hexagonal,
hollow, and secretory.l

375. From these glomerules arise the pori biliarii – very
delicate ducts, secreting the bile from the blood, and discharg-
ing it from the liver through the common hepatic duct, which
is formed from their union.

376. It has been disputed whether the bile is produced
from arterial or venous blood.

[Seite 333]

Although the former opinionm is countenanced by the
analogy of the other secretions which depend upon arterial
blood, nevertheless more accurate investigation proves that
the greater part, if not the whole, of the biliary secretion is
venous.

With respect to arguments derived from analogy, the vena
portae, resembling arteries in its distribution, may likewise
bear a resemblance to them in function. Besides, the liver is
analogous to the lungs, in which the great pulmonary vessels
are intended for their function, and the bronchial arteries for
their nourishment; and if we are not greatly mistaken, the
use of the hepatic artery is similar. We would, however,
by no means completely deny its importance in the secretion
of bile, but must regard it as inconsiderable, adventitious, and
not well established. (B)

377. The bile flows slowly, but constantly, along the hepatic
duct. The greater portion runs constantly through the ductus
communis choledochus into the duodenum, but some passes
from the hepatic into the cystic duct, and is received by the
gall-bladder, where it remains for a short period, and acquires
the name of cystic bile.n

378. The gall-bladder is an oblong sac, nearly pyriform,
adheres to the concave surface of the liver, and consists of
three coats.

An exterior, not completely covering it, derived from the
peritonaeum.

[Seite 334]

A middle, called nervous, and, as in the stomach, intestines,
and urinary bladder, the source of its firmness and tone.

An interior,o which may be, in some measure, compared to
the inner coat of the stomach, (359) as it contains a net-work
of innumerable blood-vessels, abounds in mucous glands,p and
is marked by rugae,q which occasionally have a beautifully
cancellated and reticulated appearance.

379. Its cervix is conical, terminates in the cystic duct, is
tortuous, and contains a few falciform valves.r

380. The bile which has passed into the gall-bladder is
retained until, from the reclined or supine posture of the
body, it flows down from it spontaneously, or is squeezeds
out by the pressure of the neighbouring jejunum, or ileum, or
of the colon when distended by faeces.

The presence of stimuli in the duodenum may derive the
bile in that direction.

The great contractility of the gall-bladder, proved by ex-
periments on living animals, and by pathological phenomena,
although it has no irritability (301), probably assists the
discharge of bile, especially when this fluid has, by retention,
become very stimulating.

381. For the cystic bile, though very analogous to the
hepatic, (377) becomes more concentrated, viscid, and bitter,
by stagnation in the gall-bladder; the cause of which is, in
all probability, the absorption of its more watery parts by the
lymphatic vessels.t (C)

382. Our attention must now be turned to the bile itself –
a very important fluid, respecting the nature and use of which
[Seite 335] there has been more controversy for these thirty years than
about any other fluid.

The cystic bile, being more perfect and better calculated
for examination, will supply our observations.

383. Bile taken from a fresh adult subject is rather viscid,
of a brownish green colour,u inodorous, and, if compared
with that of brutes, scarcely bitter.

384. Its constituent parts, obtained by chemical analysis,
are, besides a large proportion of water, albumen, resin,
soda,x partly united with phosphoric, sulphuric, and mu-
riatic acid, a small portion of phosphate of lime and iron, and
a variable quantity of a remarkable and peculiar yellow matter.y

385. The composition of the bile varies greatly both from
the proportion of its parts, particularly of the albuminous and
resinous, differing under different circumstances, and also
from the addition of other constituents, during morbid states,
especially of adipocerous substance, which gives origin to
most biliary calculi; for these consist either of it alone, or of
it combined with the yellow matter just mentioned. (D)

386. The nature of the bile is not saponaceous and capable
of effecting a combination between water and oils, as Boer-
haave supposed, but which opinion the excellent experiments
of Schröder,z who was formerly of this university, both con-
firmed and extended by other physiologists,a have disproved.
It even decomposes a combination of those substances.b

[Seite 336]

387. The important and various use of the bile in chylifi-
cation is self-evident.

In the first place, it gradually precipitates the faeces, and
separates the milky chyle from the mixed and equable pul-
taceous chyme, while this is passing through the tract of the
small intestines, after being propelled from the stomach into
the duodenum and diluted by the pancreatic juice.c

It separates itself into two portions, the one serous, the
other resinous. The latter combines with the faeces, tinges
them, and is discharged with them; the former is probably
mixed with the chyle and carried back to the blood. (E)

The bile seems to act as a stimulus to the peristaltic mo-
tiond of the intestines.

We shall omit other less probable uses assigned to the bile,
v. c. of exciting hunger by regurgitating into the stomach, –
a circumstance which we think can hardly happen during
health.


NOTES.

(A) The liver exists not only in all red-blooded animals, but in
the invertebral with colourless blood, whenever a heart and blood-
vessels are present. The pancreas exists in all the mammalia,
birds, reptiles, and fishes.

(B) Two instances have occurred in London, of the vena portae
running, not to the liver, but immediately to the vena cava in-
ferior. The bile must have been secreted entirely from the blood
[Seite 337] of the hepatic artery. One of these is described by Mr. Aber-
nethy,f and the other is mentioned by Mr. Lawrence.g

We must not forget that, in the mollusca, there is no vena
portae, and the liver receives its blood from the aorta. M. Simon
informs us, that, after tying the hepatic artery in pigeons, the bile
was secreted as usual; but after tying the vena portae none was
produced.h A. Kaau found water injected into either the vena
portae or hepatic artery, exude on the surface of the liver;i but
this might be mere imbibition.

(C) Many animals have no gall-bladder; v. c. the horse, goat,
&c. All the carnivorous among the mammalia possess it, and all
reptiles, most of which also are carnivorous; while those of the
class mammalia that are destitute of it, are, with the exception of
the porpoise and dolphin, vegetable feeders. Hence, Cuvier
thinks that it is intended as a reservoir of bile where the
animal is subject to long fasting from the uncertain supply
of food. The gall-bladder is sometimes absent in the human
subject. I have read of five instances of this.k

(D) Berzeliusl stated, that bile contains alkali and salts in the
same proportion as the blood, and that no resin exists in it, but
‘“a peculiar matter, of a bitter and afterwards somewhat sweet
taste, which possesses characters in common with the fibrin, the
colouring matter, and the albumen of the blood.”’ This forms,
with an excess of acid, a perfectly resinous precipitate. What
was considered albumen in the bile, Berzelius regarded as the
mucus of the gall-bladder.

[Seite 338]

Bile contained, according to him, of

Water 907.4
Biliary matter 80.0
Mucus of the gall-bladder dissolved
in the bile

} 3.0
Alkalies and salts common to all
secreted fluids

} 9.6
––––––
1000.0m
––––––

Of the weight of alkalies and salts more than one half was pure
soda.

Tiedemann and Gmelin make the bile of the ox to consist of
91.51 water, with 7.30 proximate principles, and 1.19 salts. The
biliary matter, or picromel, they find a compound of resin and
a sweet crystallisable substance, which, together with another,
termed by them biliary asparagin, renders the resin soluble in
water. They discover also ozmazome, and a new acid – the
cholic, also cholesterin, gliadine, casein, the oleic, acetic, phos-
phoric, sulphuric, and muriatic acids, and colouring matter. The
soda, they say, is not pure, but a bicarbonate, and mixed with a
little potash.

(E) Fourcroy first explained the chemical operation of the bile
in chylification.n According to Dr. Prout, during the precipit-
ation of the chyle and the decomposition of the bile, a gaseous
product is usually evolved, the mass becomes neutral, and traces
of an albuminous principle commence, strongest at a certain dis-
tance from the pylorus, – below the point at which the bile
enters the intestine, and gradually fainter in each direction. On
mixing bile with chyme out of the body, a distinct precipitation
takes place, and the mixture becomes neutral; but the formation
of an albuminous principle is doubtful, probably from the want of
the pancreatic fluid.o

The bitter and bilious yellow matter passes off with the faeces,
while the alkali (soda) of the bile probably combines with the
acid, and contributes to the formation of the chyle. The loss
of the alkali which preserved the picromel in solution, causes
the separation of the latter; and Dr. Prout found the distinctive
[Seite 339] qualities of it the more evident the further from the intestine it
was examined.

It is no longer wonderful that in jaundice, so intense that no bile
is seen in the faeces, and, according to Dr. Fordyce, even in artificial
obstruction of the choledochus by ligature, nutrition continues,
though, no doubt, less perfectly than in health. For Tiedemann
and Gmelin, after tying the biliary duct, which proved on dissection
to have continued impervious,p found the thoracic duct still con-
taining an abundance of matter, yellowish, indeed, from the jaun-
dice, but coagulating, and its coagulum becoming red, precisely
like chyle; the small intestines had the soft flakes usually con-
sidered chyle, but thought mucus by them, and both large and
small intestines contained nearly all the principles, except those
of the bile, seen in sound animals; but the contents of the large
intestines were exceedingly offensive. In the less satisfactory
[Seite 340] experiments of MM. Leuret and Lassaigne, the thoracic duct
was still full of chyle.

Although the bile is seen by experimenting upon the contents
of the duodenum, to cause a precipitation (Tiedemann and Gmelin
deny it, but Dr. Prout has almost constantly seen it,) the chyle
may thus be separated without it; but probably, Dr. Prout con-
ceives, in less quantity and perfection.

The neutralising effect of the bile, he informs me, is evident
on laying a piece of litmus paper through the pylorus, when the
portion in the stomach becomes red, and that in the intestines is
unaffected, or even shows alkaline agency.

The further down the intestinal contents are examined, the
more do all traces of albuminous matters disappear, as well as of
all the highly azotised principles of the pancreatic juice, these
being supposed to convert the unazotised principles of the vege-
table food into albumen: in man and carnivorous brutes no traces
of either are discoverable so low down as the caecum.

The hypothesis, that one great use of the liver was, like that of the
lungs, to remove carbon from the system, with this difference, that
the alteration of the capacity of the air caused a reception of calo-
ric into the blood, in the case of the lungs, while the hepatic excre-
tion takes place without introduction of caloric, – was, I recollect,
a great favourite with me when a student, principally from the
facts that a supply of venous blood – blood which has been used
by the system, – runs to both liver and lungs, and to no other
organs; that the higher the temperature the less carbon passed
off by the lungs (less caloric being demanded by the body), and
the more abundant, or more acrid, became the bile; so that bilious
diseases are most prevalent in hot seasons and climates. The
Heidelberg Professors have adduced many arguments to the same
effect. In the foetus, for whose temperature the mother’s heat
must be sufficient, the lungs perform no function, but the liver is
of great size, and bile is secreted abundantly, so that the meco-
nium accumulates considerably during the latter months of preg-
nancy. We shall see, indeed, that at the very time the functions
of the lungs suddenly begin at birth, the liver suddenly loses
much of its supply of blood. Warm-blooded animals with large
lungs, living in the air, have the liver proportionally smaller
than those which live partly in water: in cold-blooded animals,
and reptiles, which have lungs with such large cells as but
[Seite 341] slightly to decarbonise the blood; in fish, which get rid of
carbon but slowly by the gills; and in the mollusca, which
decarbonise still more slowly by gills or lungs, – the liver is
proportionally large. More blood flows to the liver, accord-
ingly as the lungs are less active organs. In the mammalia and
birds it receives the blood of only the stomach, intestines, spleen,
and pancreas; but in the cold-blooded, of many other parts; in
the tortoise, of the hind legs, pelvis, tail, and vena azygos; in
serpents, of the right renal, and all the intercostal veins; in fish,
of the renal veins, the tail, and genitals. They assert, that in
pneumonia and phthisis more bile is secreted, and in the blue dis-
ease,
and other affections of the heart, that the liver is enlarged.
The constituents of the bile contain a large quantity of carbon,
which is chiefly in union with hydrogen, and under the form of
resin or fatty matter, and resin is most abundant in the bile of
herbivorous animals, whose food contains a very large proportion
of carbon and hydrogen. In the lungs the carbon may be said to
be burnt, whence animal heat; in the abdomen it passes off still
combustible.

SECT. XXVI.
OF THE FUNCTION OF THE SPLEEN.

[Seite 342]

388. The Spleena lies to the left of the liver, with which
it has considerable vascular communications; with its oblong
figure,b it accommodates itself, as it were, to the contiguous
viscera, but is liable to great varieties in point of form, num-
ber, &c.c

389. Its colour is livid, its texture peculiar, soft, easily
lacerated, and therefore surrounded by two membranes, the
interior of which is proper to the spleen, and the exterior
derived from the omentum.

390. The situation and size of the spleen are no less
various than its figure, and depend upon the degree of the
stomach’s repletion; for, when the stomach is empty and lax,
the spleen is turgid; when the stomach is full, the spleen,
being compressed, is emptied.

It undergoes a continual, but gentle and equable, motion,
dependent upon respiration, under the chief instrument of
which – the diaphragm, it is immediately situated.

[Seite 343]

391. Its texture was formerly supposed to be cellular, and
compared to the corpora cavernosa of the penis. This
opinion was proved to be erroneous by more careful examin-
ation of the human spleen,d which consists entirely of blood-
vessels, of enormous size in comparison with the bulk of the
organ. They are, in fact, proportionally more considerable
than in any other part of the body.

392. The experiments of Wintringham demonstrate the
great tenuity and strength of the coats of the splenic artery.
It is divided into an infinite number of twigs, the termina-
tions of which resemble pulpy penicilli and give rise to the
splenic veins, which gradually unite into large, loose, and
easily dilatable, trunks.

393. This immense congeries of blood-vessels is connected
and supported by a sparing cellular parenchyma, from which
the absorbents arise. The trunks of these run along the
lower surface of the spleen between the two coats just
described.e

394. This loose structure of the spleen, easily becoming
distended with blood, admirably confirms what we formerly
remarked respecting the turgor of this organ (390). The
congestion and slow return of the splenic blood, if the nature
of the neighbouring organs is also taken into consideration,
illustrates its peculiar properties, which may throw some light
upon the function of this enigmatical viscus – the source of
so much controversy.

395. The splenic blood is very fluid, coagulates with great
difficulty, separates the serum from the crassamentum imper-
fectly, and is of a livid dark colour, like the blood of the
foetus. These circumstances clearly demonstrate the abun-
dance in it of carbonaceous matter; which is likewise proved
indisputably by an easy experiment. Whenever I have ex-
[Seite 344] posed sections of a recent spleen to oxygen gas, they have
acquired a very bright red colour, while the air, losing its
oxygen, has become impregnated with carbon.

396. But since the spleen is the only organ of that descrip-
tion quite destitute of an excretory duct excepting its veins
which run ultimately to the liver, its function is probably
subservient to that of the latter. This opinion has appeared
strengthened by the observation, that in animals from which
the spleen has been removed, – a remarkable experiment very
frequently made from the most remote period,f the cystic bile
is sometimes found pale and inert.

397. Besides at least twenty hypotheses respecting the use
of the spleen, two of more weight have been lately advanced,
both supposing a connection between the spleen and stomach,
but the oneg regarding the spleen as a diverticulum to the
arterial blood destined to form the gastric juice; (A) the
other,h supported by excellent arguments and experiments,
making the spleen to receive a great portion of our drink from
the cardiac extremity of the stomach, so that these may pass
through a short cut, hitherto unknown, from the stomach to
the spleen, and thus into the mass of blood. The latter hy-
pothesis, especially if a few objections were removed,i is highly
deserving of further examination. (B)

[Seite 345]

NOTES.

(A) This opinion was proposed a century ago, by Dr. Stukely.k

Considering the spleen to consist entirely of complications and
inosculations of arteries, veins and cells, nerves, and (as Malpighi
asserted) ‘“a muscular net-work of fibrillae,”’ he supposed that it
contracted and propelled its blood through the splenic vessels
into those of the stomach, when this organ required a larger
supply during digestion. (p. 37.) He maintained, likewise, that it
accelerated the motion of the blood in the mesenteric veins when
the circulation in the vena portae was sluggish, and that it answered
various other purposes. The whole is an hypothesis now forgotten:
the spleen has no muscularity.

Some have thought it a diverticulum for the blood whenever
this fluid is obstructed in any part of the body, as in the cold
stage of fever, great efforts, &c. To prevent too much being
thrown upon organs that might be injured, the spleen, they con-
tend, is formed to allow an accumulation in its substance. This is
ingeniously defended by Dr. Rush.l

Dr. Haighton (Lectures at Guy’s Hospital), and Mr. Saumarez
(New System of Physiology), have explained its operations as a
diverticulum in a very different manner. When the stomach is
full, the compression experienced by the spleen impedes its cir-
culation, and the blood makes its way the more copiously into the
arteries of the stomach, liver, &c. But we have no proof that the
repletion of the stomach compresses the spleen materially, and thus
can impede its circulation: a fact, indeed, which will be mentioned
presently, renders this improbable. Besides, in ruminating animals,
as Blumenbach observes, it lies next the first stomach or paunch,
and if compressed, must be so before digestion begins; and in
proportion as the fourth stomach fills and digestion proceeds more
actively, is the distension of the paunch diminished. It varies
in situation in different animals, not being always attached to the
stomach. The excitement, too, which the liver must experience
[Seite 346] when chyme irritates the extremity of the ductus choledochus,
and still more the provision of a gall-bladder, must render such
aid from the spleen superfluous to the liver. The infinite blood-
vessels and excerning orifices of the stomach cannot, likewise,
but furnish sufficient gastric juice, from the mere excitement
which they must experience whenever the stomach contains food.
No other glands habitually excited to occasional great activity
have such a diverticulum.

A third view of its influence as a diverticulum is, that it serves
for receiving a great part of the venous blood of the intestines
during chymification and especially during chylification. When
this process is going on, there must be a great increase of blood
flowing to the alimentary canal; the vena portae, through which it
all flows, can dilate to only a certain extent, and in order to pre-
vent such a congestion in the mesenteric veins as would retard
the circulation in the organs, the spleen allows an accumulation
in itself. Leuret and Lassaigne found the spleen of a dog weigh
a pound and a half in two hours after the application of a ligature
to the vena portae, while it ordinarily weighs but two ounces; and
observe that it has a vermillion tint when an animal is fasting,
but grows turgid and of a dark purple when the chyme has passed
the pylorus.

If the opinion of Erasistratus that the spleen is useless, was a
little atheistical, the notion of Paley was not much better, – that
the viscera contained, and the abdomen containing, are so clum-
sily adapted to each other, that a pad is necessary to make them
fit, just as hatters put stuffing under the leather of a hat which is
made too big for the head, – ‘“It is possible, in my opinion, that
the spleen may be merely a stuffing, a soft cushion to fill up a
vacuum or hollow, which, unless occupied, would leave the
package loose and unsteady.”’m When I consider the stupendous
power and design displayed throughout nature, Tinstantly revolt
at such an explanation as Paley’s, to say nothing of its anatomical
absurdity.

(B) Sir Everard Home’s friends having, among other experiments,
passed a ligature around the pyloric extremity of the stomach of
a dog, injected into this receptacle a solution of rhubarb; and,
on killing the animal some few hours afterwards, none of the ab-
sorbents of the stomach were found distended, nor could any
[Seite 347] trace of rhubarb be detected in the liver, but evident traces
existed in the spleen and in the urine. When fluids had been
drunk, the spleen was turgid and exhibited cells full of a colour-
less liquid that were at other times collapsed and almost imper-
ceptible, – a circumstance rendering it unlikely that the spleen
is diminished in bulk by the distention of the stomach; for, first,
compression sufficient to prevent the artery from sending into it
the usual quantity of blood, would prevent the entrance of fluids
by any other vessels; and, secondly, we learn that the spleen is
actually distended by the fluid portion of the contents of the
stomach.

During the distention of the spleen, when the pylorus was not
tied, the rhubarb appeared more strongly in the blood of the
splenic than in that of other veins. If coloured solids without
fluids were introduced into the stomach, the cells of the spleen
were not distended, nor did this organ or its veins give more
signs of the colouring matter than others.

From later experiments, published in 1811, the writer com-
pletely changes his opinion. It seems that traces of rhubarb were
discoverable in the bile as well as in the spleen: and that it
tinged the urine if the spleen had been removed before the
experiment: so that he abandons what he had before advanced
as a discovery.

SECT. XXVII.
OF THE FUNCTION OF THE OMENTUM.

[Seite 348]

398. The omentum gastro-colicum or magnuma (to dis-
tinguish it from the parvum or hepato-gastricum),b is a
peculiar process of peritonaeum, arising immediately from the
external coat of the stomach.

399. Although there are innumerable continuations of the
peritonaeum in the abdomen,c and every abdominal viscus is
so covered by it that on opening the abdomen nothing is
found destitute of that membrane, nevertheless, it is afforded
in different ways, which may be reduced to classes.

Over some the peritonaeum is merely extended as a smooth
membrane, or it affords to them only a partial covering, as is
the case with respect to the kidneys, rectum, urinary bladder,
and, in some measure, with respect to the pancreas and gall-
bladder.

To some which project into the cavity of the abdomen,
although adhering to its parietes, it affords a covering for the
greater part of their surface; v. c. to the liver, spleen, stomach,
uterus, and the testes of the very young foetus.

The intestinal tube, with the exception of the rectum, pro-
jects so much into the Cavity of the abdomen, that it is, as it
were, suspended in loose processes of the peritonaeum, called
[Seite 349] mesentery and mesocolon: the broad ligaments of the uterus
are similar to these.

400. The longest and most remarkable process of perito-
naeum, is the omentum – a large, empty, delicate, sac, hanging
from the large curvature of the stomach, extended over the
greater part of the small intestines, applying itself closely to
their convolutions, and, in some measure, insinuating itself
into their interstices.

401. Besides the blood-vessels seen upon the omentum, it
is marked by fatty striae or bands, which are every where
reticulated (whence the German name (Netzhaut) of this
membrane), and in corpulent persons increase occasionally
to a large and even dangerous size, and, by their means, the
whole omentum is lubricated with a halitus, which one might
almost call adipose.

402. On the latter circumstance depends the use commonly
ascribed to the omentum, – of lubricating the intestines and
assisting their continual movements: this also appears the
use of those analogous small bursae which are foundd in such
numbers about the rectume and colon.f

The omentum also prevents the adhesion of the intestines
to the peritonaeum, and the consequent impediment to the
functions of the primae viae.

403. There is another two-fold office attributed with great
probability to the omentum,g viz. that of facilitating the
dilation of the viscera to which it is contiguous, and of
acting as a diverticulum to their blood during their state of
vacuity.

404. If we reflect on the singular structure of the omentum
parvum or hepato-gastricum especially, we may be inclined to
believe that there is another, and, perhaps, principal office
attached to it, unknown at present, and discoverable by com-
parative anatomy.

SECT. XXVIII.
OF THE FUNCTION OF THE INTESTINES.

[Seite 350]

405. The intestinal tube, over which the omentum is ex-
tended, and which receives the chyme to elaborate it further
(362, 363), and separate the chyle from the faeces, is divided
into two principal portions – the small and large intestines,
of whose functions we shall speak separately.

406. The smalla intestines are again divided into three:
the duodenum, jejunum, and ileum.

The first is named from its usual length.

The second from generally appearing collapsed and empty.

The third from its convolutions: it is the longest of the
three, fuller, and, as it were, inflated, and sometimes resem-
bling the large intestines by the appearance of bullae.

407. The coats of the small intestines correspond with
those of the stomach. (354)

The external is derived from the mesentery.

The muscular consists of two orders of fibres: the one lon-
gitudinal, interrupted, external, and found especially about
the part opposite the mesentery; the other, annular and falci-
form, possessing the power of narrowing the canal, while
the former shortens it. Upon both depends the very great
and permanent irritability of the intestines, formerly men-
tioned. (300)

The nervous coat is condensed cellular membrane, easily
reduced by handling, or more particularly by inflation, into a
spumous tela;b in it the intestinal blood-vessels, which arise
[Seite 351] from the mesenteric,c are distributed in a beautifully arbor-
escent form;d the intestines, no less than the stomach, are
indebted to it for their tenacity and strength.

The interior, lined by its delicate epithelium, and deserving
the name of villous in the small intestines more than in any
other part of the canal, forms, in conjunction with the inner
surface of the former coat, here and there, undulated ridges
and rugous plicae, which, in dried and inflated intestines, re-
semble the blade of a scythe, and are termed the valvulae
conniventes or Kerkringhianae.e

408. The villi, which are innumerablef upon the inner
surface of the intestines, and whose beautiful and minute
vascular structure was first carefully investigated, though de-
scribed with exaggeration, by Lieberkühn,g may be, perhaps,
compared, while destitute of chyle, to little loose pendulous
bags, internally soft and spungy; but, when distended with
chyle, they have the appearance of a morel.

409. The base of these villi is surrounded by innumerable
glandular follicles, adhering chiefly to the nervous coat, and
opening into the intestinal canal by a very small orifice,
through which they discharge the mucus that lines the whole
tract of the intestines.

These are distinguished into three orders. The Brun-
nerian, largest, distinct, found in most abundance in that part
of the duodenum which is contiguous to the pylorus.h The
[Seite 352] Peyerian, smaller, aggregated, found chiefly at the termin-
ation of the small intestines, – about the valve of the colon.i
Lastly, the Lieberkühnian, the smallest, said to be distributed
in the proportion of about eight to each villus.k The two
former orders are so inconstant, that I am inclined to consider
the view given of them in the plates alluded to, as morbid;l
for I have more than once been unable to discover the
slightest trace of fungous papillae with a single pore, in the
small intestines of healthy adults; while, on the contrary, in
aphthous subjects, I have found nearly the whole intestinal
tube beset with them in infinite numbers, both solitary and
aggregated.m

410. As the gastric juice is poured into the stomach, so an
enteric or intestinal fluid is poured into the small intestines,
demonstrated, among other ways, by the common experiment,
first, we believe, instituted by Pechlin.n It is probably of a
nature similar to that of the gastric liquor, but an accurate in-
vestigation of it is a physiological desideratum. We can say
nothing respecting its quantity, but Haller’s estimate, – eight
pounds in the twenty-four hours, is certainly excessive. (A)

411. The intestines agree with the stomach in this par-
ticular, that they have a similar, and, indeed, a more un-
questionable, or, at least, a more lively, peristaltic action,o
which occurs principally when the chymous pulp enters them.
This it agitates by an undulatory constriction of different
parts of the canal, and propels from the duodenum towards
the large intestines. Although the existence of an antiperis-
taltic motion, causing a retrograde course to their contents,
[Seite 353] cannot be disproved, it is in health much weaker, and less
common and important, than the former.

412. By these moving powers and by these solvents which
are afforded by means of secretion, the chyme undergoes re-
markable changes.p In the jejunum it becomes a more liquid
pulp, equally mixed, of a grey colour, and acidulous odour:
in the ileum it begins to separate into two parts – into the
faeces, of a pale, yellowish, brown colour,q and nauseous
smell – and the genuine chyle, swimming upon the former,
extracted from the chyme, separated by the bile from the
faeces, and destined for absorption by the lacteal vessels, as
we shall find in the next section. (B) At present, we shall
enquire what course is taken by the faeces.

413. These, after becoming more and more inspissated in
their long course through the ileum, have to overcome the
valve of the colon and pass into the large intestines. To fa-
[Seite 354] cilitate this, the extremity of the ileum is lubricated very
abundantly by mucus.

414. The valve of the colon,r or, as it may deservedly be
termed after its discoverer, the valve of Fallopius,s is a short
process or continuation of the portion of the ileum that pene-
trates into and is surrounded by the cavity of the large in-
testine. Its external lips, while a neighbouring fold of the
large intestine at the same time projects considerably, are
composed,t not like other similar folds, merely of the interior
and nervous coats, but of fibres from the muscular coat also.
Hence it performs the double office of preventing the passage
of too great a quantity of faeces into the large intestines, and
regurgitation into the small.

415. The large intestines, divided like the small into three
parts, commence by the caecum (which has a vermiform process
whose use in man is unknown),u and afford a very ample
[Seite 355] receptacle, in which the faeces may be collected and retained,
till an opportunity for discharging them arrives.

416. They exceed the small intestines in thickness and
strength, as well as in capacity. The muscular coat has this
peculiarity – that its longitudinal fibres, excepting at the
extremity of the rectum, are collected into three bands, called
ligaments of the colon;x and the intestines themselves are
divided into a kind of bulbous segments. The inner coat is
not so beautifully flocculent as that of the small intestines, but
more similar to that of the stomach.

417. Their peristaltic motion is much fainter than that of
the small intestines. On the other hand, they experience to
a greater degree the pressure of the abdominal parietes, to
which the whole length of the colon is contiguous.

418. They gently propel the faeces into the rectum, which
thus becomes internally stimulated to discharge its contents.
The discharge is facilitated by the absence of transverse
rugae, and especially by the great quantity of mucus at the
extremity of the bowels.

419. It is principally effected by the pressure of the abdo-
men downwards, overcoming the resistance of the os coccygis
and of both sphincters, the inner of which is a remarkable
bundle of circular fibres, the outer, a truly cutaneous muscle.
After the excretion, the effort of the abdomen having ceased,
the levator ani chiefly retracts the intestine, which is again
closed by its sphincter.y (C)


NOTES.

(A) Pechlin’s experiment was simply to include a portion of
intestine between two ligatures, so that the fluid secreted into the
canal might be collected.

[Seite 356]

(B) A great part of the chyle is generally formed and absorbed
before the digested mass reaches the ileum.z On arriving in the
large intestines, the mass undergoes fresh changes, at present un-
explained, and is converted into excrement.a Here it is that the
true succus entericus must be poured forth, for the secretion into
the small is probably nothing more than mucus and a simple
watery fluid. Tiedemann and Gmelin support, in some measure,
the old idea of the caecum being a subsidiary stomach, from its
contents being acid, although acidity had disappeared higher up
in the canal, and more acid as the aliment is less digestible; and
from albumen often reappearing suddenly in this part of the canal.
Dr. Prout found the fluids of the large intestines coagulate lymph
even as low as the rectum. The excrementitious mass, consisting
of the indigestible part of the food, the resin, and colouring and
fatty matter of the bile, with intestinal mucus, loses its fluids
gradually as it descends, and in the rectum becomes particularly
dry.

The gas of the stomach contains, besides azote and carbonic
acid gas, oxygen, and very little hydrogen; while that of the
small intestines contains, besides the two former gases, no oxygen,
and abundance of hydrogen: that of the large intestines has less
hydrogen and carbonic acid, and likewise no oxygen. Little or
no gas is found in the stomach during chymification.

The following are the results of MM. Magendie’s and Che-
vreuil’s analysis of the gases of the alimentary canal:

In the stomach of a man just executed, –

Oxygen 11,00
Carbonic acid 14,00
Pure hydrogen 3,55
Azote 71,45
––––––
100,00
––––––

In the small intestines of a subject, four-and-twenty years of
age, who had eaten, two hours before execution, bread and
Gruyère cheese, and drunk eau rougie, –

[Seite 357]
Oxygen 0,00
Carbonic acid 24,39
Pure hydrogen 55,53
Azote 20,08
––––––
100,00
––––––

––––– twenty-three years of age, who had eaten the same
food, and was executed with the former, –

Oxygen 0,00
Carbonic acid 40,00
Pure hydrogen 51,15
Azote 8,85
––––––
100,00
––––––

––––– twenty-eight years of age, who, four hours before
execution, had eaten beef, bread, lentils, and drunk red wine, –

Oxygen 0,00
Carbonic acid 25,00
Pure hydrogen 8,40
Azote 66,60
––––––
100,00
––––––

In the large intestines of these three criminals, were found, –

Oxygen 0,00
Carbonic acid 43,50
Carburetted hydrogen and some
traces of sulphuretted hydrogen

5,47
Azote 51,03
––––––
100,00
––––––
Oxygen 0,00
Carbonic acid 70,00
Hydrogen and pure carburetted
hydrogen

11,06
Azote 18,04
––––––
100,00
––––––

The gas of the caecum and rectum of the third was examined
separately.

[Seite 358]
Caecum,
Oxygen 0,00
Carbonic acid 12,50
Pure hydrogen 7,50
Carburetted hydrogen 12,50
Azote 67,50
––––––
100,00
––––––
Rectum,
Oxygen 0,00
Carbonic acid 42,86
Carburetted hydrogen 11,18
Azote 45,96
––––––
100,00
––––––

Some traces of sulphuretted hydrogen appeared upon the mer-
cury before the last analysis was commenced.

Berzelius finds human excrement to consist of

Water 73,3
Remains of vegetable and animal
matter

7,0
Bile 0,9
Albumen 0,9
Peculiar extractive matter 2,7
Matter composed of altered bile,
resin, animal matter, &c.

14,0
Salts 1,2
–––––
100,0
–––––

The gases are probably disengaged from the contents of the
canal; but I believe, with John Hunter,b that it often secretes
gaseous fluids. For mental emotion will suddenly cause extreme
discharges of air from the stomach, and the intestines to swell
with wind. In many diseases the same will occur, although no
fermentation or unusual change is discernible in the contents of
the canal. Emphysema has occurred without any wound of the
lungs; and air in the serous membranes, or in the cellular, is
known to be absorbed.c

[Seite 359]

The excrements of brutes have been analysed, but not to an
extent capable of affording general views.

(C) Every one knows that the intestines are usually relieved
once in twenty-four hours, but that some little variety occurs in
this respect. In cases of extreme abstinence, they of course
discharge their contents very rarely, as I mentioned formerly.
Heberden, however, mentions a person who naturally had a mo-
tion once a month only, and another who had twelve motions
every day during thirty years, and then seven every day for seven
years, and rather grew fat than otherwise.c

Pouteau’s young lady, mentioned at page 303, had no stool, he
says, for upwards of eight years, although during the last year
she ate abundantly of fruit, and drank coffee, milk, and tea, and
broth with yolks of eggs: but she had copious greasy sweats.

SECT. XXIX.
OF THE FUNCTION OF THE ABSORBENT VESSELS.a

[Seite 360]

420. The chyle, which we left in the ileum just separated
from the faeces, must evidently be a mixture of different fluids.
The proportion derived from the secretions – the saliva, the
gastric, pancreatic, and enteric fluids, the bile, &c., surpasses,
without the least doubt, that which is derived from the ali-
ment, although this cannot be accurately ascertained. Hence
must be derived the solution of the problem, – how ingesta
of such various kinds can be converted into the chyleb – a
fluid constantly of the same appearance, homogeneous, and of
an animal nature.

421. The course of the chyle from the intestines to the
blood, is through a part of the absorbent system, which we
have hitherto only hinted at, but shall now speak of particu-
larly. It is divided into four parts – lacteal and lymphatic
vessels, conglobate glands, and the thoracic duct. Each of
these will now fall under consideration.

422. It is certain that the lacteals originate among the villi
of the internal coat of the intestines; but whether they are an
immediate continuation of these villi, or merely connected
with them by a cellular medium, admits a question. I myself
have never been able to trace them so far as to discover their
immediate connections with the villi, but they appear to arise
here and there in the coats of the intestines, by a conspicuous
[Seite 361] trunk, and we may conjecture that they take up the chyle
from the cellular structure into which it is first drawn by the
villi. This I have in fact observed repeatedly in puppies,
after making them swallow a solution of indigo, according to
the celebrated experiment of Lister,c an hour or two before
opening them alive.d (A)

423. The trunks just mentioned run some inches along the
surface of the intestines, under the external coat, sometimes
meandering in an angular course, before they reach the me-
sentery.

424. In their course through the mesentery they run into
the mesenteric glands, of which there are two series. The
one nearer the intestines, dispersed, small, and resembling
beans in shape; the other, nearer the receptaculum chyli,
large, and aggregated.

425. Both appear nothing more than closely-compacted
collections of lacteals, interwoven with innumerable blood-
vessels,e and retarding the course of the chyle; to the end,
perhaps, that it may be more intimately and perfectly assimi-
lated to an animal nature, previously to its entrance into the
thoracic duct, and its mixture with the blood. (B)

426. It has been inquired whether lacteals exist also in
the large intestines, and their existence has been advocated,
from the effects of particular injections, nutrient, inebriating,
&c., and also from the circumstance that the faeces, if retained
for any length of time, become hard and dry. Although
these arguments do not demonstrate the absorption of genuine
chyle below the valve of Fallopius, nevertheless it is rendered
probable by the visible existence of an abundance of lymph-
atics, in the large intestines,f having the same structure and
[Seite 362] function with the lacteals; for these absorb lymph from the
intestines,g during the absence of chyle.

But the very different structure of the internal coat of the
large intestines from that of the villous coat of the small,
strongly argues that they are not naturally intended to absorb
chyle.

427. There is another question more important and diffi-
cult of solution, – whether all the chyle absorbed from the
small intestines passes through the thoracic duct, or whether
some enters the blood by more secret passages.h

The latter opinion rests upon very unstable arguments.
Thus the assertion of Ruysch, – that the mesenteric glands
become, in advanced life, indurated and unfit for continuing
their functions, was long since disproved: and affections of
these glands, swellings, &c., are improperly called obstruc-
tions,i as the glands remain pervious, readily allowing a pas-
sage to quicksilver. The well-known phenomenon of tepid
water, injected after death into the mesenteric veins, passing
into the cavity of the intestines, has little weight with me in
regard to a function which occurs during life; and much less
weight can be allowed to the brass tube with two legs and two
branches invented by Lieberkühnk to prove the existence of
[Seite 363] these passages. (C) The assertion – that chyle has been
seen in the mesenteric veins,l requires farther investigation
and proof; so that I cannot believe that they, at least after
birth,m carry any thing more than blood, very carbonised and
destined for the formation of bile.n (D)

428. The ultimate trunks of the lacteals, arising, like the
lymphatics, from the combination of a great number of small
twigs,o unite into the receptaculum or cisterna chyli, – the
appellation by which the lower and larger part of the thoracic
or Pecquetian duct is distinguished.

429. This duct isp a membranous canal, slender, strong,
more or less tortuous, subject to great varieties in its course
and division,q destitute of muscular fibre and nerves, and
possessing here and there valves. At about the lowest cer-
[Seite 364] vical vertebra, after passing the subclavian vein, it turns back
again,r and is inserted into this, being furnished with a pecu-
liar valve at the point of insertion.

430. The motion of the chyle throughout its course is to
be ascribed to the contractility of its containing vessels, to
their valves, and to the vis-a-tergo. (E)

431. The use of the valve placed at the opening of the
thoracic duct, is probably not so much to prevent the influx of
blood, as to modify the entrance of the chyle into the vein, –
to cause it to enter by drops.

By this contrivance, fresh chyle is prevented from having
access to the blood so rapidly as to stimulate the cavities of
the heart too violently and be imperfectly and difficultly
assimilated; for fresh chyle consists of very heterogeneous
elements, brought not only from the primae viae by the lacteals,
but from every part of the body by the lymphatics.

432. These lymphatics,s which constitute the third part of
the absorbent system, and resemble the lacteals in their struc-
ture and function, are much more, and perhaps, indeed, uni-
versally, diffused.t They arise principally from the mucous
web, which we therefore called the grand bond of connection
between the sanguiferous and absorbing system; (27) but in
great numbers likewise from the external common integuments,u
from the fauces and oesophagus, (330) the pleura and perito-
naeum, and from the thoracic and abdominal viscera.x

433. Their origin is similar to that of the lacteals in the
intestines, so that the radicle of each lymphatic absorbs the
[Seite 365] fluid from the neighbouring cellular membrane, as from its
territory, and propels it onwards.

434. The lymphatics have double valves, set more or less
thickly in different parts; they almost all enter conglobate
glands; those which are contiguous to each other anastomose
here and there; and those found on the surface of certain
viscera, as the lungs, liver, &c. form a most beautiful
network.

435. Besides other aids to their functions, evident from
what has already been said, no inconsiderable assistance is
derived from the combination of great strength with thinness
in their coats, by which they are enabled to support a heavy
column of quicksilver. In the limbs, especially, the motion
of the muscles, pressing them on every side, is highly useful in
increasing their power.

436. But their principal action, by which they take up
fluids more or less rapidly, eagerly absorbing some and abso-
lutely rejecting others,y depends upon the peculiar modification
of their vitality, and is ascribed by the very acute Brugmans
to a certain vita propria. (42)z

437. The far greater part of these lymphatics terminate in
the thoracic duct; except, however, those of the right arm,
the right side of the neck, the right lung, and the right por-
tion of the diaphragm and liver, which terminate in the sub-
clavian vein of the same side.

438. From the universal existence of the lymphatics, and
especially from their great number on the surface capable of
absorbing fluids from without, the heterogeneous nature of
the lymph must be obvious; and this is further proved by
[Seite 366] accurately examining it in different parts of a subject; v. c.
that contained in the hepatic or splenic lymphatics is perfectly
different from that in the uterine.

439. We will enumerate the principal fluids which are
continually absorbed during health, to say nothing of many
different kinds of substances taken up during disease. There
is, besides the chyle separated from the faeces in the small
intestines, the halitus of the cavities, properly so called, espe-
cially that of the fauces and of all the mucous tela, the more
watery part of those secreted fluids which are retained for
some time in their ducts, v. c. in the breast, the vesiculae se-
minales, the gall-bladder, &c. and not a small portion of the
stillatitious fluids which are applied to the common integu-
ments.a

440. The solids, after performing their purpose in the eco-
nomy, insensibly melt away and are absorbed, as is proved by
the absorption of the greater part of the thymus gland during
infancy, of the roots of the first teeth, and of the alveoli after
the second teeth have fallen out. The constant change of
the whole osseous system, arising from the insensible renova-
tion of the bony matter, of which we have treated elsewhere
professedly,b may also be adduced.

441. It is therefore evident, since so great a variety of
matter is absorbed, and at the same time nothing crude or
improper allowed to enter the blood, that there is a necessity
for some peculiar medium to previously subact and assimilate
the various substances.

442. It appears to be the chief office of the conglobate glands,
which constitute the last part of the absorbent system, to pre-
vent the ill effects upon the heart of the improper admixture
of crude fluidc with the blood, by assimilating the extremely
[Seite 367] various fluids more and more to an animal nature, by retard-
ing their motion, and perhaps also by superadding to them
some fresh secreted fluid. (F)

443. Those glands which are dispersed generally through
the body, and aggregated here and there, as in the groin
and axillae, are perfectly similar to those found in the mesen-
tery, consisting, like them, in a great measure, of convoluted
absorbent vessels, supplied with an immense number of
blood vessels, and liable to the same diseases.d (G)


NOTES.

(A) Dr. W. Hunter, Mr. Cruikshanks, and others, are said to
have seen the villi of the intestines perfectly white in a person
who had died soon after eating, and twenty or thirty orifices, in a
single villus, forming tubes that ran to its base and united into
one trunk.e

(B) If a gland is well injected, the numerous ramifications of
the absorbents prevent cells from appearing, but if injected less
minutely, cells are very evident, and distinct from the convolu-
tions and ramifications of vessels. ‘“If an absorbent gland of a
horse is filled with quicksilver and dried, and then carefully slit
open, the cells will be seen of a large size, and bristles may with
ease be passed through the openings by which they communi-
cate.”’ It is imagined that the vasa inferentia pour their contents
into these cells, and that the efferentia afterwards absorb it from
them.f

[Seite 368]

(C) Lieberkühn’s tube was of this shape: –

xxx

Water propelled into A, passed out at B and C, but not at F.
Even if F was immersed in a coloured fluid, this ascended to H,
and passed out at B with the water.

A G may represent an artery, and G C a branch of it, opening
into the cavity of the intestines; B H a vein, and H F one of its
branches, doing the same.

(D) Dr. Magendieg contends that the lacteals absorb nothing
but chyle, asserting that neither he nor Hallé have ever seen the
chyle in these vessels tinged by coloured ingesta, and that neither
he nor the veterinary surgeon Flandrin ever found any thing but
chyle enter the lacteals. Lister’s experiment has succeeded with
Blumenbach, John Hunter, Fordyce,h and numerous others, and
Hunter in the presence of several persons poured milk into the
intestines of a dog, and they all observed it quickly to fill the
lacteals. Among other insignificant objections, Dr. Magendie
urges that Hunter should have first noticed whether the vessels
contained chyle, whereas it is expressly mentioned that before the
milk was poured into the intestine, the lacteals were seen dis-
tended by a nearly colourless and pellucid fluid.i

Tiedemann and Gmelin, however, have made an abundance of
these experiments with the same result as Magendie, though in
some few instances the substance introduced into the canal was
discovered in the chyle.

He also revives the old opinion – that the lymphatics arise
from arteries only, and are destined to convey lymph from them.k
[Seite 369] John Hunter, after pouring water coloured by indigo into the
peritoneum of an animal, saw the lymphatics filled with a blue
fluid. In the hands of MM. Magendie, Flandrin, and Dupuytren,
this experiment likewise has failed. Magendie does, however,
allow, that, in a woman who died with a collection of pus in the
thigh, the surrounding lymphatics were distended with pus to the
size of a crow’s quill; – a pretty decisive fact. The absorbents of
fish have no valves except at their termination in the red veins,
and may therefore be injected from the principal trunks: the
injection passes out of the mouths of the absorbents in numerous
streams, and especially on the back, if the skate is employed; –
another decisive fact. Peyer, Fallopius, and Kerkring saw bile in
lymphatics about the liver. Down to Boerhaave and Haller the
doctrine that the lymphatics absorb was maintained, and it
was first seriously attacked by Dr. William Hunter. Dr. Munro
soon afterwards did the same, and commenced a very acrimo-
nious quarrel with Dr. William Hunter for the honour of priority
of attack. Dr. Baillie expressly states, that Dr. Hunter had de-
livered such opinions six years before Dr. Munro professes to
have made his discovery, and the world has generally given
priority to Dr. Hunter. Dr. Munro had also an equally acrimo-
nious dispute with Mr. Hewson for the honour of the discovery of
the lymphatics in fish, but the Royal Society adjudged Hewson
the Copley medal in 1769 for the discovery. It is amusing
to reflect that the very doctrine, for the honour of having first
attacked which so much violence was shown, is now again in high
favour, and that Dr. Munro would be now lauded had he shown
that Dr. Hunter only had attacked it.

The ancient doctrine of veins being organs of absorption forms
a prominent feature in Dr. Magendie’s physiology.l John Hunter
deposited various fluids in the intestines, but, although he found
manifest traces of them in the absorbents, he could discover none
in the mesenteric veins. Dr. Magendie, however, relates two
experiments in which a decoction of nux vomica, introduced into
the alimentary canal, produced its usual effects, notwithstanding
the thoracic duct was tied and ascertained to be single. In fact,
Sir Everard Home, many years ago found substances to be taken
into the circulation and into the urine from the stomach, though
[Seite 370] the thoracic duct was tied.m In a similar experiment, instead
of the thoracic duct being tied, the portion of intestine containing
the solution was totally separated from the body, except in one
artery and one vein: but here it may be said, that the poison
might be conveyed by absorbents in the coats of the vessels.
Another experiment appears at first sight unobjectionable, because
not only was every part of a limb separated from the body except
the large artery and vein, but even these were cut asunder, quills
having been previously introduced into them and fixed to carry on
the circulation, and yet some upas plunged into the paw of the
animal exerted its peculiar influence, which besides was suspended
and permitted at pleasure by compressing or liberating the vein
under the finger and thumb. But to all these experiments an ob-
jection presents itself: – 1. Many connections have been seen be-
tween absorbents and veins, v. c. Mr. Bracy Clarke discovered com-
munications in the horse between the thoracic duct and lumbar
veins,n and Mr. Abernethy traced lymphatic vessels to veins;
Tiedemann and Gmelin, and many before them, propelled mercury
into the vena portae by absorbents; Mr. Cruikshanks long ago
remarked, that in animals destroyed by violence the lymphatics
about the spleen and in the cavity of the abdomen, in peritoneal
inflammation sometimes the lacteals, and in peripneumony the lym-
phatics of the lungs, are tinged with blood, though no extravasa-
tion has occurred, and therefore he believed that lymphatics arise
from the internal surface of arteries and veins;o the connection
of the lymphatics with the veins, in the four classes of vertebrated
animals has of late years been demonstrated by Lippi, Fohmann,
and Louth, and in the Anatomical Museum of Heidelberg are
numerous beautiful specimens, showing this fact:p and, 2. Dr.
Magendie allows that the absorbents communicate with arteries,
and may frequently be injected from them. Consequently, his
poison might be imagined to be taken up by absorbents, carried
into blood-vessels, and conveyed with the blood through the body.
Indeed, when the poison was placed in a wound, it might contami-
nate the blood without being taken up by absorbing extremities of
[Seite 371] vessels, and if Magendie is right in believing that fluids soak
through even living solids, another objection is thus afforded. It
is universally known, that, after death, fluids penetrate through the
various textures of the body; – the aqueous humour diminishes in
the eye, which consequently becomes flat, the intestines near the
gall-bladder become yellow,q and water poured into the stomach or
intestines exudes.r Dr. W. Hunter contended that this imbibi-
tion occurs also during life, although not in the case of blood-
vessels, and others admitted it.s Dr. Magendie supports the same
opinion. After separating a blood-vessel from the surrounding
cellular membrane, and laying tincture of nux vomica upon it,
the animal was poisoned, and the blood within tasted bitter; ink
placed in the pleura of a young dog, dyed, in less than an hour,
the pericardium, heart, and intercostal muscles. Dr. Fodera in-
troduced a solution of prussiate of potass into the pleura, and of
sulphate of iron into the abdomen of a living animal, when the
two fluids became blue by union at the diaphragm, in five or six
minutes, and instantaneously if a galvanic current was established.t
Still there is not the slightest reason to imagine that the natural
fluids of parts penetrate their substance during life and in a sound
condition.u Dr. Magendie found absorption (of poisonous matters,
for example, applied to surfaces) greatly impeded on rendering the
vascular system turgid by injecting water into the veins, and
equally accelerated on lessening the repletion by blood-letting.
We should expect that the greater the repletion of the sanguineous
system, the more difficulty must the contents of the absorbents
have to advance, and v. v.; and from the wise arrangements
observed in every function, we should conceive, that supposing
absorption a vital action (as I cannot but believe it to be, as soon
as a substance has fairly entered the vessel perhaps by mere phy-
sical attraction), the vessels would be less disposed to propel their
contents in proportion as repletion existed. How it favours the
idea of absorption being a mere imbibition through the coats of
[Seite 372] the absorbents, – a notion unsupported and contradictory to
established facts, I cannot see.x

Against the result of an experiment in which, after a solution
of prussiate of potass was swallowed, the salt was discoverable in
the urine and not in the lymph, Dr. Magendie himself supplies an
objection when treating of the urine. For he states, that a minute
portion of this substance may be readily detected in the urine,
while the quantity in the blood must be large to be discoverable.
As the contents of the thoracic duct so nearly resemble blood, he
should have ascertained whether it is not difficult to detect in
them also a portion of the prussiate which would be easily mani-
fest in the urine. A similar experiment with a decoction of
rhubarb, lies under the same difficulty.

In starting all these doubts, I am only desirous of showing that
Dr. Magendie’s experiments are not so unobjectionable as he
believes, and readily grant that John Hunter’s experiments deserve
repetition, and the whole subject farther investigation. I am not
prepared to deny that veins absorb, or, what comes to nearly the
same thing, that there are lymphatics which do not form trunks,
but convey their contents to small blood-vessels; and I have
nothing to suggest against the following facts.

‘“Three ounces of diluted alcohol were given to a dog; in a
quarter of an hour the blood of the animal had a decided smell
of alcohol; the tymph (of the thoracic duct) had none.”’y

‘“In the horse, the usual contents of both the large and small
intestines are mixed with a large quantity of fluid that gradually
decreases towards the rectum, and is therefore absorbed as it
passes along the canal. Now, Flandrin, having collected the
contents of the lacteals, did not find them smell like this intestinal
fluid, whereas the venous blood of the small intestines had a taste
distinctly herbaceous; that of the caecum a sharp taste and a
slightly urinous smell; and that of the colon the same qualities
in a more marked degree. The blood of other parts presented
nothing analogous.’

‘“Half a pound of assafoetida dissolved in the same quantity of
honey was given to a horse, which was afterwards fed as usual and
killed in sixteen hours. The smell of assafoetida was perceptible
in the veins of the stomach, small intestines, and caecum; but not
in the arterial blood, nor in the lymph.”’z

[Seite 373]

Dr. Segalas cut a portion of living intestine from the rest of the
canal, and passed a ligature around its blood-vessels, leaving the
absorbents free, and introduced a solution of nux vomica for an
hour without ill effect: he then liberated the vein, and the animal
was poisoned in six minutes.

In Tiedemann and Gmelin’s experiments, among a variety of
substances taken, coloured, odorous, or saline, very few could be
detected in the chyle, but many were found in the blood.

(E) The force of their contraction is shown by the rupture of
the thoracic duct from over-distention when a ligature is passed
around it.a Tiedemann and Gmelin saw the thoracic duct con-
tract from exposure to air.

(F) Although some albumen is discovered actually in the duo-
denum, and, as Dr. Prout allows, even in the stomach if animal
food has been taken, and some fibrin in the first lacteals, the con-
tents of the absorbents are found to possess more and more of
these substances in proportion to their progress towards the left
subclavian vein. The chyle contains a certain fatty matter, which
is considered as incipient albumen, and, in proportion as this de-
creases, does the quantity of fibrin and albumen increase.b

The use of the conglobate glands is elucidated by the observ-
ations of Tiedemann and Gmelin, mentioned, p. 381. Amphibia
and fish are said to have no lymphatic glands.c Dr. Magendie
denied the existence of lymphatics in nearly all birds, but has
been amply refuted by Dr. Louth and many others.

Dr. Carson argued that the thoracic vacuum would not only
draw the blood along the veins, but draw it into their open mouths,
thus being an agent of absorption. He concluded that the blood of
the corpora cavernosa penis entered the veins in this way, but, as
the lymphatics only were believed the organs of absorption, pro-
perly so called, when he wrote, he had not a more extended idea
[Seite 374] of the co-operation of the vacuum in producing venous absorption.
It must, however, evidently extend to every absorbing vein, and if
the veins absorb generally, as is now believed, it must be general.
As the great trunk of the absorbents terminates in a vein, they must
be circumstanced in this respect exactly like veins, and equally
subject to the influence of the thoracic vacuum. Indeed, Dr. Barry
found that while a cupping-glass was applied over a wound to which
poison was applied, no absorption occurred, no poisonous effects
ensued: nor did they, even for some time afterwards; and when
they became apparent, they instantly subsided on the re-applica-
tion of the glasses. The pressure of the rim of the glass was not
the cause of the non-appearance of poisoning, because if the
deleterious substance was passed under the skin beyond the
boundary of the glass, no ill effect occurred as long as the glass
remained over the wound: an incision between the site of the
poison and the rim, destroyed the efficacy of the glass.d

These experiments, however, do not prove that atmospheric
pressure is the cause of absorption: they merely show its co-
operation, and that the propulsive powers of the absorbents are
insufficient when opposed by the removal of it. Pecquet, nearly
two centuries ago, considered whether the chyle was absorbed by
suction, and concluded against the opinion, by observing, that, if
a ligature was placed upon the thoracic duct, or the lacteals of the
mesentery, and all effect of vacuum thus prevented, the lacteals
swelled on the intestinal side; therefore, said he, ‘“non trahitur
chylus sugiturve.”’e The pressure of ordinary respiration and of
muscular efforts is also seen to drive the chyle forwards in the
lacteals.

(G) A short account of the first discovery of the absorbent
system may be acceptable at the close of this section.

Hippocrates knew that the nutritive portion of the contents of
the alimentary canal was conveyed by certain vessels to the
system. Erasistratus actually saw the lacteals containing chyle –
[Seite 375] ἀρτηριας, γαλαϰτος πλήρεις. From Galen we learn that they were
known also to Herophilus. From the year 150 to 1622 no advance
was made, except that in 1563 Eustachius discovered the thoracic
duct, but he remained ignorant of its use. In 1622 Aselli in Italy
saw the lacteals by chance when demonstrating the recurrent
nerves to some friends. Thinking they were nerves, he at first
paid no attention to them; but soon observing that they did not
pursue the same course as the nerves, and ‘“astonished at the
novelty of the thing, he hesitated for some time in silence,”’ while
all the circumstances of the controversy and quarrels of anatomists
passed before his view. He had by chance been reading Costaeus
on this subject the day before, and, in order to examine the matter
further, he ‘“took a sharp scalpel to cut one of those chords, but
had scarcely struck it when,”’ he continues, ‘“I perceived a liquor
white as milk, or rather like cream, to leap out. At this sight, I
could not contain myself for joy, but, turning to the bystanders,
Alexander Tadinus and the senator Septalius, I cried out ἕυρηϰα!
with Archimedes, and at the same time invited them to look at so
rare and pleasing a spectacle, with the novelty of which they
were much moved. But I was not long permitted to enjoy it, for
the dog now expired, and, wonderful to tell, at the same instant
the whole of that wonderful series and congeries of vessels, losing
its brilliant whiteness, that fluid being gone, in our very hands
and almost before our eyes, so evanished and disappeared, that
hardly a vestige was left to my most diligent search.”’ The next day
he procured another dog, but could not discover the smallest white
vessel. ‘“I now,”’ he says, with the same admirable naïveté, ‘“be-
gan to be downcast in my mind, thinking to myself that what had
been observed in the first dog, must be ranked among those rare
things which according to Galen are sometimes seen in anatomy.”’
At length he recollected that the dog had been opened ‘“athirst
and unfed,”’ and therefore opened a third, after feeding him ‘“to
satiety.”’ ‘“Every thing was now more manifest and brilliant than
in the first case.”’ He gave his whole attention to the subject,
and was so diligent that not a week, or certainly not a month,
passed without a living dissection of dogs, cats, lambs, hogs, and
cows, and he even bought a horse and opened it alive. ‘“A
living man, which Erasistratus and Herophilus of old did not fear
to anatomise, I confess I did not open.”’

Notwithstanding this discovery of distinct chylous vessels, a
large number of high authorities adhered firmly to the old
[Seite 376] opinion of Galen, that they were only mesenteric vessels. ‘“There
is not one among the doctors,”’ we read in a letter of Thomas Bar-
tholin written at Montpellier, during his journey to Italy, ‘“who ac-
knowledges the lacteal veins, so wedded are they to the authority
of Galen, for which they contend as pro aris et focis, and disregard
the experiments of the moderns.”’ Unluckily, he did not trace
the lacteals to the left subclavian vein, but fancied they went
to the liver, distributing the chyle through it for sanguification;
this organ, according to the established doctrine, receiving the
chyle from the mesenteric arteries and veins to convert it into
blood.

In 1649, Pecquet, a physician at Dieppe, was removing the
heart of a dog, when he noticed a quantity of white fluid pouring
from the upper cava mixed with blood. He at first thought
he had opened some strange abscess, and, after pressing first
upon one part and then upon another, he compressed the me-
sentery, whose lacteals were full of chyle, when instantly a large
quantity of this poured from the superior cava. He traced the
lacteals to the thoracic duct, and thus overthrew the doctrine of
the liver being the great seat of haematosis.

Of course, there was as great an outcry against this innovation
in doctrine, as there had been against the existence of lacteals,
and even Harvey, who was now nearly eighty years of age,
could not at once loosen himself from the bonds of early pre-
judice, and Thomas Bartholin, whose eyes had always been open
to improvement in medicine, still thought that perhaps the finer
parts of the chyle went by the new ducts to the chest, ‘“while
the grosser, needing a larger concoction, enter the liver.”’

About eighty years after the discovery of Asellius, Rudbeck,
professor at Upsal, or Thomas Bartholin who was professor at
Copenhagen and son of Caspar Bartholin, or Joliff, an English
student, discovered the lymphatics.f

SECT. XXX.
OF SANGUIFICATION.

[Seite 377]

444. There is scarcely occasion to remark that we employ
the term sanguification to denote the assimilation of the chyle
to the blood, and the constant reparation, by means of the

former, of the constant loss sustained by the latter.

445. The division of all our fluids into three classes (45) –
crude, sanguineous, and secreted, turns upon this; – that the
middle class contains the stream of the vital fluid itself, from
which the numerous secreted fluids are perpetually withdrawn,
and to which, on the other hand, there is a constant afflux of
chyle and lymph from the absorbent system.

446. But since the blood is a peculiar fluid, sui generis,
without its fellow in nature, various assistances and media are
evidently requisite to subact and assimilate the heterogeneous
and foreign fluids which pass to it from the thoracic duct.

447. This is, in the first place, especially in the mesenteric
and other conglobate glands, favoured by those windings,
mentioned formerly, of the lacteals and lymphatics, which are,
at the same time, gradually more impregnated, as it were,
with an animal nature.

448. We must also take into consideration, that a great
part of the lymph which enters the left subclavian after its
admixture with the intestinal chyle in the thoracic duct, has
been derived from the substance of the viscera and other soft
parts, formerly secreted from the blood, and, therefore, already
imbued with an animal nature, and easily, without doubt,
again miscible with the mass of blood, to which it does but
return.

449. Something is contributed by the slow and almost
stillatitious manner in which the chyle joins the blood through
[Seite 378] the last valve of the thoracic duct, these very minute portions
becoming thus the more intimately combined with the blood.

450. The heart, too, by means of the remarkable papillary
muscles of the ventricles, agitates and mingles the blood just
impregnated with fresh chyle.

451. The great importance of the lungs which receive the
blood immediately after its addition of fresh chyle, and also
of respiration, in the business of assimilation,a will be evident
on considering the extraordinary vascularity of those organs,
(140) and their constant and regular alternate motion.

452. The remaining part of sanguification is accomplished
by the general circulation and the powers which aid it, par-
ticularly by muscular motion, &c.

453. Although so many means are provided for the com-
bination of the chyle with the blood, and although the consti-
tuents of the chyle somewhat resemble those of this fluid;
nevertheless, it is commonly asserted that many hours are re-
quired for the complete change of the colour of the chyle and
for its assimilation. Besides other arguments in favour of this
assertion, the pathological fact is urged, that chyle is fre-
quently seen in blood drawn many hours after digestion. I
myself have witnessed this appearance in cases where the
blood too evidently bore an inflammatory disposition, to use
a common phrase; but I am persuaded that no inference can
be hence deduced in regard to the healthy state, which alone
is the object of physiology.


NOTE.

The fluid collected from the thoracic duct is opake and white;
without smell; sweetish, and slightly acid to the taste; and re-
[Seite 379] stores the blue colour of litmus paper reddened by acetic acid,
proving the presence of an alkali. It separates, like the blood,
into a solid and a serous portion. If formed from vegetable food
only, it is nearly transparent, may be kept weeks or even months
without putrefying, and affords a faintly pink coagulum. If from
animal food, it is white and opake, begins to putrefy in a few days,
affords an opake coagulum which acquires a more marked pink
hue by the influence of the atmosphere, and throws upon its sur-
face a white creamy substance. The former gives three times as
much carbon as the latter; but the latter being so much richer
gives much more carbonate of ammonia and heavy fixed oil, when
subjected to the destructive distillation.b

Chyle collected from lacteals is whiter, coagulates less perfectly,
or not at all, and does not acquire a red colour by exposure to the
air,c so that sanguification proceeds gradually, as the chyle passes
towards the left subclavian vein, – a circumstance already stated
in the last section, Note (F). The pink colour, acquired by the
coagulum of chyle when exposed to the atmosphere, shows the
use of the lungs in sanguification.

White globules exist in the chyle even at a very early period
of its formation, and these most probably it is that become
coloured when the chyle grows pink by the action of the air.
There are also much larger white particles in the chyle, appearing
to be formed of the caseous-like and oily principles, and, being in-
soluble in the serum, naturally assume the globular form.d

Dr. Marcet had reason to believe that the appearance of creamy
matter floating in the serum of blood occurs most frequently when
the food is chiefly animal, and when therefore rich chyle is poured
into the blood faster than it can be assimilated. The serum at first
appears milky; but it gradually becomes clear, from the creamy
matter separating and rising to the surface.

The coagulum of the fluid of the thoracic duct is much less
firm than that of blood, and after a few days, if allowed to remain
in a separate vessel, it passes almost entirely to the fluid state.
Vauquelin regards it as unfinished fibrin, something between
albumen and fibrin.

[Seite 380]

I once saw a young married woman whose urine contained
very large coagula of chyle. She always dined at noon. In the
evening the coagula were white; in the morning pale with pink
streaks. After fasting twenty-four hours at my request, the coa-
gula still appeared in the urine, extremely pale, and showing more
pink streaks. She had been some months in this way, was in
very fair health, and had a great appetite, and perhaps some other
general symptoms of diabetes; but there was no sugar in the urine.
Notwithstanding the fluid discharged seemed to present as much
coagulum as urine, the quantity of chyle proved on drying to be
very minute, and from its looseness to have been extremely dis-
tended by the urine. As this was a state of disease, I draw no
inference from the case respecting the time necessary for the
change of chyle to blood. She would not allow me to take any
blood from the arm for observation.

I know that similar cases have been seen by Dr. Prout and
other gentlemen now practising in London, and there may be
several on record, but the only one of which I have read is quoted in
Shenkius. ‘“I saw,”’ says the author whom he quotes (in Castro
Itri, Comitatus Sundorum), ‘“a young man, thirty years of age, who
daily made a considerable quantity of urine, depositing a white
substance like the curd of milk, sufficient to fill a common pot de
chambre,
besides the urine which was above it. He was in perfect
health, not experiencing the slightest ill effect.”’e

Shenkius is generally thought a credulous collector of incredible
cases, and no doubt some of his histories as well as of his opinions
are ridiculous. But careful modern observation discovers facts
precisely similar to the greater number that he has collected.
I should have doubted the history just related, more especially
the good health of the patient, had not the case of the woman
occurred to me. He gives some instances of black urine made
by persons in perfect health, and Dr. Marcet has published two
such in the Transactions of the Medical and Chirurgical Society.f
Dr. Prout showed me a specimen of urine from one of these.

[Seite 381]

Lymph from the hind extremities of a horse was found by Em-
mert to be white, with straw-coloured globules, to contain rather
less albumen, to coagulate more imperfectly, and become less
easily red on exposure to air, than the contents of the thoracic
duct.g

According to the recent observations of Tiedemann and Gmelin,
the chyle has no fibrin, so as scarcely to coagulate, nor any red
particles, before it passes through the mesenteric glands; but im-
mediately afterwards, and especially after it is mixed with the
lymph of the spleen, – a fluid abounding both with them and
fibrin, – presents both, still more copiously than the lymph of the
extremities.

No fatty matter is discoverable in the lymph, nor indeed in the
chyle if the animal fasts or takes food destitute of fat. The fatty
matter is merely diffused through the chyle, and found even in
the blood after butter has been eaten.

The serum of the chyle they observed to be nearly always
alkaline.

Ligature of the choledochus they found to augment the quan-
tity of fibrin and red particles, and to diminish that of fatty mat-
ter, in the chyle.

SECT. XXXI.
OF NUTRITION.

[Seite 382]

454. Besides the function of the blood formerly inves-
tigated, – of distributing oxygen (as is probable) through the
system and removing carbon, its principal use is to afford
nourishment to the body in general, and to the secreting
organs the peculiar fluids which they possess the power of
deriving from it. Nutrition shall be first examined.

455. Nutrition is the grandest gift of nature, and the com-
mon and highest prerogative of the animal and vegetable
kingdoms, by which they, beyond measure, surpass, even at
first sight, all human machines and automatons. Upon these
no artist can bestow the faculty, not to say of increasing and
of coming to perfection, but even of existing independently
and repairing the incessant losses incurred from friction.a

456. By the nutritive faculty of the body, its greatest and
most admirable functions are performed; by it we grow from
our first formation and arrive at manhood; and by it are
remedied the destruction and consumption which incessantly
occur in our system during life.b

457. Respecting the nature of this consumption, there has
been much dispute whether it affects the solids,c or, whether,
[Seite 383] according to some very acute writers,d these, when once
formed and perfected, remain invariably entire.

458. There can be no doubt that some of the similar
solids, v. c. the epidermis and nails, are gradually destroyed
and renewed; and the same is proved respecting even the
bones, by the well-known experiment of dyeing them, in
warm-blooded animals, with madder root, (A) and by the
frequently surprising attenuation of the flat bones, espe-
cially of the skull, from defective nutrition, in old age.e

459. If I am not mistaken, those solid parts undergo
this successive change, which possess the reproductive power
an extraordinary faculty, by which not only the natural loss
of particles, but even the accidental removal of considerable
parts through external injuries, is repaired and perfectly sup-
plied, as the bonesf and a few other parts sufficiently demon-
strate.

460. On the other hand, I have been led by many expe-
riments, upon man and other warm-blooded animals, to the
conclusion – that this genuine reproductive power appears
completely bestowed upon scarcely any similar solid part which
possesses any other vital power
besides contractility, i. e.
irritability, sensibility, or a vita propria.g (B)

[Seite 384]

461. In those parts, therefore, whose vital powers are, as it
were, of a higher order, the parenchyma, constituting their
base, appears permanent, and is liable to this change only,
– that the interstices of the fibres and parenchyma, while nu-
trition is vigorous, are constantly full of nutrient animal gela-
tine; but, when nutrition languishes, are deprived of the
gelatine, collapse, and consequently become thin.

462. For as the plastic lymph, the importance of which
has been frequently mentioned, is readily converted into cel-
lular membrane, so it appears to constitute the principal
material of the body, and, as it were, the animal gluten,
which is nourished by its means.

463. During the growth of the body, peculiar powers
are exerted, by which the lymph deposited in the cellular
membrane from the blood-vessels is properly distributed and
intimately assimilated to the substance of each organ, &c.

This is referable both to the laws of affinity, by which we
imagine particles attract, and, as it were, appropriate others
which are similar and related to themselves; and to the nisus
formativus, which we shall enlarge upon hereafter, and to
which the proper application of shapeless elementary matter
and its modification to particular forms must be ascribed.

464. The union of both these powers, we conceive, must
be the source of the nutrition of such similar parts as are not
supplied with blood itself, but are, nevertheless, at first gene-
rated by a most powerful and infallible nisus, grow, are
nourished throughout life, and, if destroyed by accident, are
very easily reproduced;h such are the nails, hairs, &c.

465. As this appears to be the true account of nutrition in
general, so, on the other hand, this function evidently has great
varieties of degree and kind, especially where, from the more
[Seite 385] or less lax apposition of the nutritious matter, the structure of
the similar parts is more or less dense, and the specific weight
of the whole body more or less considerable.i In this respect,
not only individuals, but whole nations, differ from each other.
The Yakuts and Burats, who are remarkable for the lightness
of their bodies, are a sufficient example of this.


NOTES.

(A) The redness imparted to the bones by feeding animals
with madder, does not prove that the matter of the bones is con-
stantly changing; because the opinion that the madder unites
with the phosphate of lime in the blood, and thus reddens all the
bony matter subsequently deposited, is erroneous. Mr. Gibson
proved, by numerous experiments, that the serum has a stronger
affinity than the phosphate of lime, for madder. The serum being
charged with madder, the phosphate of lime of the bones, al-
ready formed, seizes the superabundant madder, and becomes
red. If the madder is no longer given to the animal, as it is
continually passing off with the excretions, the stronger attraction
of the serum draws it from the bones, and they re-acquire their
whiteness.k

(B) The constant renewal of the epidermis is demonstrated
by wearing black silk stockings next the skin. That the hair
and nails not only grow perpetually, but are even reproduced, is
certain from the great quantity of the former which falls off
the head whole if worn long, while a good head of hair still
continues; and from the renewal of the latter, after the loss of
a great part of a finger. I once attended a middle-aged woman,
in St. Thomas’s Hospital, who had lost nearly the whole of the
first phalanx of a finger, and yet the stump was tipped by a nail,
though certainly a clumsy one. An instance of a nail at the end
of the stump, after the complete removal of the first phalanx,
[Seite 386] may be seen in the London Medical and Physical Journal.l
Tulpius declares he has seen examples after the loss of both the
first and second phalanges – in secundo et tertio articulo.m The
glans penis (in truth a mere continuation of the corpus spongiosum
urethrae) was entirely renewed in one case.n Nothing more can,
I apprehend, be said, respecting the entire restoration of organs
in the human body. Portions of cutis, bone, membrane, blood-
vessels, absorbents, and nerves, are replaced. That portions
of large nerves, fully capable of all the functions of the destroyed
pieces, are reproduced, is now a matter of certainty. Minute
blood-vessels and absorbents are of course allowed on all hands to
be produced in the cure of most solutions of continuity, whether
by wounds, ulceration, or whatever else;o but Dr. Parry, senior,
has shown, that in the ram, at least, when a blood-vessel which
proceeds some way without giving off a branch is obstructed, new
branches sprout forth and establish a communication on each side
of the obstruction.p The continuance of circulation was previously
[Seite 387] attributed solely to the enlargement of the small anastomosing
vessels. Muscle is supplied by tendinous matter. The substance
formed in the situation of destroyed cellular membrane is so
little cellular, that it does not become distended in emphysema
or anasarca.q

Brutes far surpass man in both the ordinary renewal of the
integuments and appendages, and in the extraordinary restoration
of destroyed organs. The horse periodically sheds its hair, the
bird its feathers,r the stag its horns, the serpent its cuticle,
the lobster its shell and the teeth which are in its stomach.s
The fall of the leaves of trees is an analogous circumstance. In-
sects not only change their coats frequently, but undergo com-
plete metamorphoses, are first worms, then grubs, and finally
winged beings. The crystalline lens extracted from an healthy
eye is speedily reproduced in cats, dogs, and rabbits,t and probably
in other brutes. The extraordinary reproductive power of some
brutes is almost incredible. A lobster can reproduce a claw, a
water-newt an extremity: Blumenbach actually observed the
reproduction of the whole head with its four horns in a snail, and
the complete eye, – cornea, iris, crystalline lens, &c. in a water-
newt.u Besides greater powers of reproduction than man, brutes
generally possess greater also of reparation – will survive injuries
which would prove fatal to us, perhaps under any circumstances,
or at least without great care. I related Brunner’s numerous
attempts upon the life of a dog, of which, violent as they were,
‘“vim elusit, vegetusque evasit,”’ as an illustration of this. Less
violent injuries are recovered from with far less danger and incon-
venience than we experience. The lower we descend in the scale,
the greater tolerance of violence and the greater powers of repar-
ation and renewal do we observe. If the polype, which is a
gelatinous tube, with one end closed and the other fringed for
[Seite 388] the purpose of receiving food and conveying it, is divided,
the two halves change at one end, the one closing, the other
acquiring fringes, so that both halves become perfect animals; or,
if a polype is inverted, the outer surface forms a digesting cavity.

Vegetables endure extreme violence. A log of mulberry-tree
has sent forth shoots on being placed in the ground as a post,
after many years of neglect; a gooseberry-bush will grow if
planted with its branches in the earth and its roots in the air.

SECT. XXXII.
OF THE SECRETIONS IN GENERAL.

[Seite 389]

466. Besides the nutritious fluids, others of extremely
various descriptions are produced from the blood by means
of secretion, which Haller, no less than his predecessors, with
truth and regret declared to be among the most obscure parts
of physiology.a

467. The secreted fluids differ, on the one hand, so con-
siderably among themselves, and, on the other, have so many
points of resemblance, that their classification cannot but be
extremely arbitrary. If we arrange them according to the
degree of difference between them and the blood from which
they are formed, they will stand in the following order. –

First, the milk, which may be in some degree considered
as chyle reproduced, and appears formed by the most simple
process from the blood newly supplied with chyle.

Next, the aqueous fluids, as they are commonly denomi-
nated from their limpid tenuity, although the greater part
differ importantly from water in the nature of their consti-
tuents, and especially in the proportion of albumen: such are
the humours of the eye, the tears, in all probability the
vapour contained in the cellular interstices and the cavities of
the abdomen and thorax; nearly similar, also, is the fluid of
the pericardium and of the ventricles of the brain.

The liquor amnii of pregnancy, and the urine, remarkable
for the peculiar nature and mixture of its proper constituents,
are generally enumerated among these.

[Seite 390]

The salivary fluids, concerned in mastication, digestion, and
chylification, appear more elaborated.

Next the mucous, which line the cavities of most of the
organs performing the natural and genital functions, and like-
wise the tract of the nostrils, larynx, and trachea.

The mucus within the eye, and under the epidermis, is
nearly similar.

In the same class may be included the cerumen of the
ears, the unguent of the Meibomian glands and of the joints,
and, perhaps, the ambiguous and nameless fluid commonly
poured forth by the vagina during the venereal oestrum.

The adipose are, besides the common fat, the medulla of
the bones and grease of the skin.

Related to these are the secretion of the corona glandis
under the preputium, and of the external female genitals.

The truly serous, or albuminous, are the fluid of the ovarian
vesicles of De Graaf, and the liquor of the prostate.

The semen virile and the bile are each sui generis. (A)

468. It is obvious that so great a variety of secreted fluids
cannot be secreted from the mass of blood in the same way,
nor by similar organs. They differ extremely from each
other in the simplicity or complexity of their preparation.

469. The most simple mode of secretion is diapedesis, or
transudation: which is the case with the fat and the bony
fluid.b

[Seite 391]

470. Secretion by glandsc is more complicated. Such is
considered the secretion even by follicles and cryptae, which
are found, v. c. in some parts of the corium, the fauces, and
aspera arteria, and denominated the most simple glands.

Properly speaking, the conglomerate (as they are called to
distinguish them from the lymphatic conglobate) are the only
true secreting organs; such as the salivary and lachrymal
glands, the pancreas and breasts. They are provided with
an excretory duct coming immediately from the large lobes,
which are composed of others, smaller, and whose interior
structure was once the source of warm disputes in the schools
of medicine. Malpighid considered the miliary globules,
which are easily discoverable in most glands, as acini, according
to his expression, internally excavated. Ruysch, on the con-
trary, contended that these supposed hollow acini were nothing
more than glomerules of blood-vessels, – an opinion shown
to be far more consistent with nature by microscopical ob-
servation and the effects of minute injection.

471. The structure of some secreting organs, especially of
the liver and kidneys, the latter of which strikingly exhibit
the glomerules of Ruysch or the acini of Malpighi, are not,
excepting in their peculiar parenchyma, very dissimilar from
this structure, and indeed throw considerable light upon the
question. On the outer part of these, small twigs arise from
the sides of the capillary arteries and run into vascular glo-
merules, hanging from them like granules as from stalks:
from these arterial glomerules spring both very minute co-
[Seite 392] lourless secreting vessels whose origin from the extremities
of arteries was formerly alluded to (92), and the radicles of
veins into which the arteries are continued, and which convey
back into the venous trunks the remaining blood deprived of
the secreted fluid.e

472. The organisation of some other secreting parts is
evidently peculiar, v. c. of the testes, which are composed of
very long and numerous vessels, closely compacted, &c.

473. That the different nature of the secreted fluids de-
pends not so much on the size and external form of the se-
creting organs as upon their interior structure and corre-
sponding vital powers, is rendered probable by the example of
many of our fluids, which, although secreted by organs at
first sight very different, have considerable resemblance to
each other in nature; v. c. the saliva and gastric juice. And
comparative anatomy teaches us, that the same fluids are
formed by organs very different in external appearance, in
different animals.f

474. We shall now investigate the causes why particular
fluids are found in particular organs, – the most difficult
part of the doctrine of secretion, and still open to very many
doubts.

475. There can be no question that the absolute cause of
most secretions is the intimate structure of the secreting
organ. This depends, in the conglomerate glands and se-
creting viscera especially, both upon the peculiar direction
and distribution of the extreme blood-vessels, and upon the
peculiar parenchyma of each secreting organ, in some instances
distinguishable at first sight from the substance of every other
part. (20)

476. It is likewise probable, and indisputable arguments in
favour of the opinion have been continually afforded in the
[Seite 393] course of this work, that secreting organs have not only a
peculiar parenchyma, but a vita propria – a peculiar species
of vitality distinct from the common vital powers of con-
tractility, irritability, and sensibility.

477. The absorbent system seems to us of much import-
ance in the business of secretion. In every secreting organ,
it absorbs, for the purpose of transmission to the blood, a
fluid which is, as it were, contaminated by the secretion of
the part: v. c. a bilious fluid in the liver; a spermatic in the
testes.

A constant circle would, therefore, appear to exist in the
secretory system, so that the elements of the secretions are
incessantly carried to the blood from the secreting organs,
and, when they return to the organs, are the more easily at-
tracted by a species of affinity, and draw with them those
parts of the blood whose nature is related to their own.

478. The blood, from which some secretions are produced,
is endowed with peculiar qualities. The bile, for example, is
derived from blood which contains an abundance of carbon-
aceous element.

479. We omit other assistances afforded to certain secre-
tions; v. c. congestion and derivation, so striking in the se-
cretion of milk, &c. (B)

480. There is this difference among the various fluids
secreted by the organs and powers now described, – that
some pass to the place of their destination immediately, while
others are deposited in receptacles, and detained there for a
length of time, becoming more perfect before their excretion.
The milk in its ducts, the urine, bile, and semen in their re-
spective bladders, and in some degree the serum of the vesi-
cles of De Graaf, are examples of this.

[Seite 394]

NOTES.

(A) Dr. Bostock arranges the secretions as the aqueous, albu-
minous, mucous, gelatinous, fibrinous, oleaginous, resinous,
and
saline.h

The aqueous are the perspiration and pulmonary halitus, in
which the proportion of water is so great as to give the chief
character.

The albuminous, – all the membranous or white parts of animals,
the fluids of serous membranes and of the cellular membrane, the
former differing from the albumen of the blood chiefly in being
freed from extraneous matter and coagulated; the latter from
serum, chiefly in containing much less albumen.

The mucous are the mucus of all mucous membranes, the saliva,
gastric juice, tears, and semen. The animal matter which is their
basis, much resembles coagulated albumen, and their salts are
neutral, while those of the albuminous fluids are alkaline.

The gelatinous are named from containing jelly, – a substance
not found in the blood nor any of the fluids, but abundantly in
membranes, and particularly in the skin; and as albumen may be
converted into it by digestion in dilute nitric acid, it appears to
be the albumen of the blood with an addition of oxygen. It
abounds in the young, so that those parts which at the beginning
of life are almost entirely jelly, consist chiefly of albumen as age
advances: Since it is not found in the fluids, it must be deprived of
its oxygen again, and, probably, reduced to the state of albumen.

The fibrinous are the muscular fibres, abounding in azote, and
thus more completely animalised, resembling the fibrin of the
blood, – apparently their source.

The oleaginous are the fat, marrow, and secretions of sebaceous
glands, and perhaps the milk, as its properties depend so consi-
derably upon oily matter.

The resinous are the bile, cerumen, and urea, very similar to
the former, but owing their specific characters to a kind of resin.
Osmazome, an animal principle in all parts of the body, is referred
to this class.

The saline are the acids, alkalis, and neutral and earthy salts of
the various solids and fluids; generally more copious in the fluids
[Seite 395] than in the solids, absent in the simple oleaginous secretions, and
abundant in the compound; and still more so in the resinous
secretions. Their quantity is greatest in the bones, which are
principally phosphate of lime; but, with this exception, the urine
possesses the greatest proportion, as well as the most variety.
1. In some secretions they are absent; as the fat. 2. In some
they exist in definite quantity, and this different from that in the
blood; as the saliva. 3. In others, they are found in the same
quantity, and of the same nature as in the blood; as the fluid of
serous membranes. 4. In some, they are different from the salts of
the blood, and of variable quantity; as the urea. These four divi-
sions are, i. The solid albuminous, the gelatinous, and simple
oleaginous. ii. The mucous, fibrinous, and compound oleaginous.
iii. The liquid albuminous. iv. The aqueous and resinous.

This arrangement is certainly good; but, like every ar-
rangement of natural objects, convenient for general views and
memory rather than correct. The semen is mucous, but unlike
every other fluid: the gastric juice and cerebral substance are
equally sui generis. Fibrous matter as well as mucus exists in
semen, and is probably, indeed, its specific part: albumen exists
abundantly in milk, united into an emulsion with the oleaginous
portion. The bile and urine have few properties in common;
and urea is certainly not a resinous substance.

Berzelius adopts the old division of secretions and excretions,
and makes the following remarks.

‘“There are two classes of secreted fluids, viz. the secretions,
properly so called, or the fluids intended to fulfil some ulterior
purpose in the animal economy, and the excretions, which are
directly discharged from the body. The fluids of the former class
are all alkaline, and of the latter all acid. The excretions are the
urine, the perspired fluid, and the milk. All the other fluids
appear to belong to the former class.’

‘“The alkaline secreted fluids may be divided into two very
distinct species. The former of these contains the same quantity
of water as the blood, so that the change induced by the nervous
influence, seems to be confined to that of altering the chemical
form of the albuminous materials,i without affecting their relative
proportion to the water and other substances dissolved in the
[Seite 396] blood. The bile, spermatic fluid, &c. are of this kind. The latter
species consists of fluids, in which the influence of the nervous
system has separated a large portion of the albuminous matter,
and left the remaining liquid proportionally watery. The saliva,
the humours of the eye, and the effused serum of membranes, are
of this species, and in these the quantity of salts, and in general
also of alkali, is the same as in the blood.’

‘“The influence of the chemical agent of secretion is, there-
fore, chiefly spent upon the albuminous materials of the blood,
which seem to be the source of every substance that peculiarly
characterises each secretion, each of which is sui generis, and is
its principal constituent. All the other parts of the secretion
seem to be rather accidental, and to be found there only because
they were contained in the blood out of which the secretion was
formed. Therefore, in examining the secreted fluids, the chief
attention should be paid to the peculiar matter of the fluid, which
varies in all. This matter sometimes retains some of the pro-
perties of albumen, at other times, none; and hence an accurate
analysis, showing the quantity and nature of this peculiar matter,
is above all to be desired.’

‘“If the several secretions be supposed to be deprived of their
peculiar matter and the remainders analysed, the same residue
would be found from them all, which also would be identical
with the fluid separated from the serum after its coagulation.
Thus we should find, first, a portion soluble in alcohol, consisting
of the muriates of potash and soda, lactate of soda, and of an ex-
tractive animal substance, precipitable by tannin; and secondly,
of a portion soluble only in water, containing soda (which acquires
carbonic acid by evaporation, and is separable by acetic acid and
alcohol) and another animal substance, not extract, precipitable
from its solution in cold water, both by tannin and muriate of
mercury. Sometimes a vestige of phosphate of soda will also be
detected.’

‘“The excretions are of a more compound nature. They all
contain a free acid, which is termed lactic, and in the urine this is
mixed with the uric acid. Urine seems to contain only a single
peculiar characteristic matter; but milk has as many as three,
viz. butter, curd, and sugar of milk, which, however, seem to be
produced by different organs that mingle their fluids in the same
receptacle. The perspired fluid appears to have no peculiar
matter, but to be a very watery liquid, with hardly a vestige of
[Seite 397] the albumen of the blood, and, in short, is the same as the other
excretory fluids would be when deprived of their peculiar matter.
If we suppose this matter taken away from those excretions which
possess it, the remaining fluid will be found to have properties
very different from the fluid part of the secretions, when equally
freed from their peculiar matter. That of the excretions is acid,
contains earthy phosphates, and when evaporated, leaves a much
larger residue than the fluid of the secretions. This residue is
yellowish-brown, of the consistence of syrup, with an unpleasant,
sharp, saline taste of the salt that it contains. It reddens litmus,
is most soluble in alcohol, and this spirituous solution contains the
muriates of the blood, together with free lactic acid, much lactate
of soda (the soda being the free alkali of the blood, neutralised by
this acid), and the extractive matter, which always accompanies
this neutral salt. The part insoluble in alcohol contains a dis-
tinguishable quantity of phosphate of soda, a little of a similar
animal matter to that found in the secretions, and also the earthy
phosphates which were held in solution by the lactic acid, and
were precipitated by the action of the alcohol. The urine pos-
sesses also a number of other substances, which will be specified
when describing this secretion in particular.”’k

(B) It is of no consequence, in the case at least of some organs,
by what vessel the blood is conveyed to the secretory apparatus.
Mr. Hodgson, on opening the body of a diabetic person, found
the cavity of one renal artery obliterated by an accumulation of
atheromatous and calcareous matter in its coats. The glandular
structure was perfectly natural. The pelvis contained urine, and
a considerable quantity of that fluid was found in the bladder.
The kidney was supplied with blood by a large branch from one
of the lumbar arteries and by the arteries of the renal capsule.l
The liver we have seen to have been sometimes supplied by the
hepatic artery.

In the next place, some secretions are frequently performed by
vessels not destined nor originally employed for their production.
Fat accumulates in diseased ovaria, and even the fleshy substance
of the heart may be converted into it, as I once saw in a patient
of my own. Bone is every day deposited between the inner and
[Seite 398] middle tunics of the arteries, and the serous membranes are con-
tinually ossified. If the kidneys refuse to secrete, urine may be
found in the ventricles of the brain, and when there was no outlet
for it, an urinous fluid has been furnished by the stomach, in-
testines, or skin, &c.m In the latter cases, it may be said to have
been fabricated by the kidneys and discharged by the other
vessels, just as the pus of an abscess has sometimes been absorbed
and discharged by the kidneys;n still we have the singular fact
of vessels allowing to stream through them a fluid totally different
from that which is natural to them.

Such facts as the ossification of soft parts show that, the blood
remaining the same, a new disposition of secreting vessels can
change the secretion: and such as ischuria renalis followed by
urinary deposition in the brain, that the accumulation of the ele-
ments of a secretion in the blood will force healthily disposed vessels
to form a new secretion, – that secretion depends importantly upon
the state of the blood. The inevitable alteration of every se-
cretion by the irritation of the particular vessels, v. c. of the bland
mucus of the urethra to a foetid puriform fluid in gonorrhaea, and
of yellow bile, and mild intestinal fluids, to a green, or dark, scalding
bile, and foetid intestinal discharges under the influence of acrid ca-
thartics, are also facts of the former kind; and Dr. Wollaston’s ob-
servations on the change of the urine of birds to nearly pure uric
acid if animal food only is taken, and, above all, the actual appear-
ance of urea in the blood, if the kidneys are removed, so that none
can be secreted, are other facts of the latter.o

In the case of nutritive secretion, the new substance may pass
through pores in the sides of the secreting vessel, or even through
the substance, for we have seen that a solution of prussiate of
potass in the pleura, and of sulphate of iron in the peritonaeum,
instantly act upon each other when galvanism is applied; and a
[Seite 399] fluid, as milk, enclosed in a membrane, as a piece of intestine, will
pass from it, and water around the exterior be transferred into the
cavity when the same agent is employed. But in the case of
glandular secretion the new substance is formed in the cavity of
the canals and streams along them. Yet in this case, no less than
in the other, the change must be chemical. Gelatine is merely
oxydised albumen; diabetic sugar, urea deprived of azote and
some of its hydrogen; and the labours of Dr. Prout are displaying
the various proximate principles of animals and vegetables to have
the same elements, and to differ merely in the proportion of com-
ponent water, or by the presence of a minute proportion of ad-
ditional substance, hitherto regarded as accidentally present and
unimportant. Some substances, it is true, exist in vegetables and
animals that cannot at present be entirely ascribed to external
sources. Dr. Prout, from most careful experiments, concluded,
that there is strong reason to believe that the bones of the chick
are not derived from the shell, but from internal production.p
Vauquelin found the lime of the excrements of hens, and of the
shell, to be too great to be ascribed to the food;q and the products
of plants, fixed in sand and moistened with distilled water, contain
so much more carbon and earthy matter than can be supposed to
enter them from the atmosphere or the water, that Dr. Bostock
and others of our best chemists conceive their existence inex-
plicable entirely upon these sources.r If such is the fact, we
may conclude that these substances, though classed, as air and
water once were, as elements, because not yet decomposed by
chemists, are really not so; for creation is impossible. But al-
though secretion is, I apprehend, merely a chemical process, de-
pendent upon the quality of the blood and aided by the length
and diameter of the vessels and other mechanical circumstances,
the chemical relations of the various particles, existing quite in-
dependently of life, are brought into play – circumstanced so as
to become efficient – by the vital powers: how, we know not.
But life cannot create any more than it can annul the physical or
[Seite 400] chemical qualities of matter. It may counteract one inanimate
force by opposing to it another inanimate force; it may render
one inanimate force efficient by withdrawing opponent inanimate
forces. But this is all; how it accomplishes this, is yet unknown.

Secretion does not depend on the mind, though, like every
function, much influenced by it. Fear increases the production of
urine; any depressing passion will vitiate the milk. How far it
depends upon nervous influence was considered when speaking of
the nervous system.

The formation of the new substance within the vessels may be
demonstrated ‘“by forcing coloured injections into the arteries of
growing bones, when the lime is seen to issue from their orifices
in the form of a white powder, and deposit itself, like the farina of
a flower, for the office of consolidation. In a similar way, the in-
jected arteries of the common domestic hen, while her eggs are
incomplete, will show the deposition of lime from their exhalant
branches upon the membrane which afterwards becomes the
shell.”’s

SECT. XXXIII.
OF THE FAT.

[Seite 401]

481. Of most of the secreted fluids, a concise and con-
nected view of which was given in the last section, distinct
mention has been made in its proper place: the rest will be
described as opportunity may permit. Two remain, which
cannot be discussed more appropriately than at present, –
at the close of our inquiry into the natural functions. The
one – the fat, is a part of the system (4); the other – the
urine, is excrementitious. We will examine each separately.

482. The fata is an oily fluid, very similar in its general
character to vegetable oils,b bland, inodorous, lighter than
water; containing, besides the two elements common to
water, to the oils just mentioned, and to wax, viz. carbon
and hydrogen, sebacic acid,c which is pretty similar to the
acetic.

483. When secreted from the blood and deposited in the
mucous tela, it exists in the form of drops, divided by the
laminae of the tela, in a manner not unlike that in which
the vitreous humour of the eye is contained in very similar
cells.

484. The relation of fat to different parts is various.

[Seite 402]

In the first place, some parts, even those whose mucous
tela is extremely soft and delicate, never contain fat. Such
are the palpebrae and penis.

In very many parts, it is diffused indefinitely, especially in
the panniculus adiposus, the interstices of the muscles, &c.

In some few, it is always found, and appears to be con-
tained in certain definite spaces, and destined for particular
purposes. Such we consider the fat around the basis of the
heart:d and in the mons veneris, where it forms a peculiar
and circumscribed lump.e

485. Its consistence varies in different parts. More fluid
in the orbit, it is harder and more like suet around the
kidneys.

486. It is of late formation in the foetus; scarcely any trace
of its existence is discoverable before the fifth month after
conception. (A)

487. There have been controversies respecting the mode
of its secretion: some, as W. Hunter, contending that it is
formed by peculiar glands; others, that it merely transudes
from the arteries. Besides other arguments in favour of the
latter opinion, we may urge the morbid existence of fat in parts
naturally destitute of it; – a fact more explicable on the sup-
position of diseased action of vessels, than of the preternatural
formation of glands. Thus, it is occasionally formed in the
globe of the eye; a lump of hard fat generally fills up the
place of an extirpated testicle: and steatoms have been found
in almost every cavity of the body. (B)

The glands which some celebrated characters have con-
tended secrete the fat, are only imaginary.f

[Seite 403]

Whatever may be the truth of this matter, the deposition
and absorption of the fat take place with great rapidity.

488. The use of the fat is multifarious.

It lubricates the solids and facilitates their movements;
prevents excessive sensibility; and, by equally distending the
skin, contributes to beauty.

We pass over the particular uses of fat in certain parts,
v. c. of the marrow of the bones.

During health, it contributes little or nothing to nourish-
ment.g

The modern opinion has more probability, – that it affords
a receptacle for the superfluous hydrogen, which could not
otherwise be easily evacuated.h


NOTES.

(A) Fat is accumulated under the skin chiefly in the first years
of childhood, and again between the fortieth year and old age.
Women grow fat earlier, and especially if married.

(B) The intestines occasionally discharge lumps of fat.i I
have seen several such cases, and some were attended by violent
pain.

[Seite 404]

(C) The fattest person on record is, I believe, Lambert of
Leicester. He weighed seven hundred and thirty-nine pounds,k
and died at the age of forty years. In him rats and mice might
certainly have nested, if it is true that a Bishop of Mentz, or

‘“A Saxon Duke did grow so fat’
‘That mice (as histories relate)’
‘Ate grots and labyrinths to dwell in’
‘His postique parts without his feeling.”’l

Excessive formation of fat may be strongly opposed by regu-
larly taking great exercise, little sleep, and little, but dry, food.m
Fretfulness of temper, or real anxiety of mind, will prevent any
one from getting fat, and make any fat man thin. A passage
that occurs in the most magnificent of Shakspeare’s Roman plays,
and is founded on some information of Plutarch’s, will instantly be
remembered.

Caesar. Let me have men about me that are fat;
Sleekheaded men, and such as sleep o’nights;
Yond’ Cassius has a lean and hungry look;
He thinks too much: such men are dangerous.
Antony. Fear him not, Caesar, he’s not dangerous;
He is a noble Roman, and well given.
Caesar. ’Would he were fatter: – But I fear him not:
Yet if my name were liable to fear,
I do not know the man I should avoid
So soon as that spare Cassius.n

Great obesity occurs frequently in infants. I saw a pro-
digiously fat female, but a year old, who weighed sixty pounds,
and had begun to grow fat at the end of the third month. She
was also of Herculean general development, and, like most
dwarfs, had a flat nose. At an early age I believe females are
more commonly the subjects of the affection than males.

SECT. XXXIV.
OF THE URINE.

[Seite 405]

489. Besides the nutritious fluids and those which form a
part of our system (4), others are superfluous and excre-
mentitious, commonly termed the excrements of the second
digestion, and of two kinds. The one exhaled by perspir-
ation, of which we treated formerly; the other – the urine,
streaming from the kidneys.

490. The kidneysa are two viscera, situate at the upper
part of the loins on each side, behind the peritonaeum; rather
flattened; more liable than any other organ to varieties of
figure and number;b suspended by the emulgent vessels,c
which are excessively large in proportion to them; and im-
bedded in sebaceous fat. (485)

491. They are enveloped in a membrane of their own,
which is beautifully vascular; and each, especially during
infancy, consists of eight, or rather more, smaller kidneys,
each of which again consists, as Ferrein asserted, of seventy
or eighty fleshy radii, denominated by him pyramides albidae.

492. A kidney, if divided horizontally, presents two sub-
stances; the exterior, called cortex; the interior, medulla.d

Each abounds in blood-vessels, but the cortical portion has
[Seite 406] likewise very minute colourless vessels which secrete the urine;e
the medullary part contains those which carry it off.

These secreting ducts arise in the manner formerly de-
scribed (471), from minute arteries formed into glomerules in
the cortical part, of which they constitute the greatest portion.
They may be readily distinguished by their angular course
from the excreting or Bellinian tubes, in which they ter-
minate. These, pursuing a straight course, run from the
cortical to the medullary substance, which principally con-
sists of them, and, after they have coalesced into fewer trunks,
their mouths perforate, like a sieve, the papillae of the pelvis
of the organ.f

493. These papillae usually correspond in number with the
lobes which form the kidneys, and they convey the urine,
secreted in the colourless vessels of the cortex and carried
through the Bellinian tubes of the medulla, into the infundi-
bula,
which finally unite into a common pelvis.

494. The pelvis is continued into the ureters, which are
membranous canals, very sensible, lined with mucus, extremely
dilatable, generally of unequal size in the human subject in
different parts,g and inserted into the posterior and inferior
surface of the bladder in such a way, that they do not imme-
diately perforate its substance, but pass a short distance
between the muscular and nervous coats, which at that part
are rather thicker than elsewhere, and finally open into its
cavity by an oblique mouth. This peculiarity of structure
prevents the urine from regurgitating into the ureters from
the bladder. (A)

495. The urinary bladder,h varying in shape according to
[Seite 407] age and sex, is generally capable, in the adult, of containing
about two pounds of urine. Its fundus, which in the foetus
terminates in the urachus, is covered posteriorly by the peri-
tonaeum. The other coats correspond with those of the
stomach.

The muscular consists of interrupted bands of fleshy fibres,
variously decussated, and surrounding the bladder.i These
are usually called the detrusor urinae: the fibres which im-
perfectly surround the neck and are inconstant in origin and
figure, have received the appellation of sphincter.

The nervous chiefly imparts tone to this membranous viscus.

The interior, abounding in cribriform follicles,k is lined
with mucus, principally about the cervix.

496. The urine conveyed to the bladder gradually becomes
unpleasant by its quantity, and urges us to discharge it. For
this purpose the urethra is given, which varies with the sex,
and will be farther considered in our account of the sexual
functions.

497. The bladder is evacuated from the constriction of the
sphincter being overcome both by the action of the detrusor
(495) and by the pressure of the abdomen. To these in
men is superadded the action of the acceleratores, which
force out even the drops of urine remaining in the bulb of
the urethra.

498. The nature of the urine varies infinitelyl from age,
season of the year, and especially from the length of the period
since food or drink was last taken, and also from the quality
of the ingesta,m &c. The urine of a healthy adult, recently
[Seite 408] made after a tranquil repose, is generally a watery fluid of a
nidorous smell and lemon colour, which qualities depend on
a peculiar uric substance, besides a variety of other mattersn
held by a large quantity of water in solution, and differing in
their proportion to each other in different persons. There is
a remarkable quantity of phosphoric acid united with other
constituents, forming phosphates of soda, ammonia, and lime.
A peculiar acid – the lithic or uric, is found in the urine
only.o (C)


NOTES.

(A) Mr. Charles Bell has described two long muscles running
from the back of the prostate gland to the orifices of the ureters.
Their action is not only to assist in emptying the bladder, but to
pull down the orifices of the ureters, thus assisting to preserve
that obliquity of insertion which the ureters have a tendency to
lose in proportion as the bladder is depleted.p

(B) Sir Everard Home observed, in his experiments on the
spleen, that colouring matters began to manifest themselves in the
urine about seventeen minutes after they were swallowed, became
gradually more evident, then gradually disappeared, and after
some hours, when the mass had unquestionably passed into the
intestines, again tinged it as strongly as ever.

[Seite 409]

(C) The following is Berzelius’s analysis of urine:q

Water 933.00
Urea 30.10
Sulphate of potass 3.71
Sulphate of soda 3.16
Phosphate of soda 2.94
Muriate of soda 4.45
Phosphate of ammonia 1.65
Muriate of ammonia 1.50
Free lactic acid
Lactate of ammonia
Animal matter soluble in alcohol, and usually
accompanying the lactates
Animal matter insoluble in alcohol
Urea, not separable from the preceding


} 17.14
Earthy phosphates with a trace of fluate of lime 1.00
Uric acid 1.00
Mucus of the bladder 0.32
Silex 0.03
–––––––
1000.00
–––––––

Like the blood, urine affords carbonic acid gas under the re-
ceiver of an air-pump,r and more after a meal.s

It is a common mistake, even at present, to ascribe, as Blumen-
bach does, the colour and smell of urine to the urea, which is
now known to be colourless, and to have an extremely faint, and
by no means urinous, smell. Dr. Prout has established that urea
consists of

Hydrogen .266
Carbon .799
Azote 1.866
Oxygen 1.066
–––––
4.000t
–––––
[Seite 410]

The large proportion of azote in the urea, leads to the con-
clusion that the kidneys are the great outlet for azote, as the
lungs and liver are for carbon.

Dr. Prout procured from uric acid a curious substance which
he denominates the purpuric acid.u

The urine of birds is generally discharged with the faeces, and
becomes solid by exposure to the air. That of serpents is dis-
charged only once in some weeks, is of a caseous consistence,
and likewise becomes perfectly solid afterwards. Both are urate
of ammonia.x The urine of the turtle and tortoise is also
destitute of urea, but does not contain urate of ammonia so
pure. The analysis of the urine of brutes is highly interesting,
but not yet either extensive or accurate. Dr. Wollaston found
the uric acid to be only 1/200 part in a goose feeding on nothing
but grass; and in birds taking nothing but animal food, to consti-
tute nearly the whole mass.

In disease no urine has sometimes been secreted for twenty-
two weeks.y Dr. Richardson mentions a lad of seventeen who
had never made any, and yet felt no inconvenience.z

SECT. XXXV.
OF THE GENERAL DIFFERENCES OF THE SEXES.

[Seite 411]

499. Although the functions hitherto examined are
common to both sexes, some are performed very differently
in each. The most prominent differences shall be briefly
reviewed before examining the sexual functions, properly so
called.a

500. In general, each sex has its peculiar form; more or
less striking after birth, but not very obvious in the young
foetus; for the genitals of the male and female, at this period,
are not at first sight different, on account of the clitoris being
remarkably largeb and the scrotum scarcely formed.c (A)

[Seite 412]

501. During infancy, the general figure is but little dif-
ferent, but becomes more so as age advances, when the round
and plump breasts, the general conformation, the delicacy,
softness, and the proportionally low stature of the female,
form a striking contrast with the sinewy and robust body of
the male.d

502. The relation of parts, in well-formed females, is
somewhat different from that in the male. For instance, in
the female the face is proportionally smaller; the abdominal
and lumbar portion of the trunk longer; the hips broader,
not, however, if well formed, broader than the shoulders; the
buttocks larger; the legs in their descent gradually approach
each other towards the knees. (B)

503. A similar difference is remarkable in the osseous
system. In females, the bones are, caeteris paribus, smoother
and rounder, the cylindrical more slender, and the flat thin-
ner; to pass over individual differences, v. c. the very slight
prominence of the frontal sinuses, the more elliptic edges of
the alveoli, the greater narrowness of the chest, the greater
capacity on the contrary of the pelvis, the difference of the
clavicles, thigh bones, &c.e (C)

504. With respect to the soft parts, the female mucous
tela is more lax and yielding, so as to dilate more easily during
pregnancy; the skin is more delicate, and of a clearer white,
from the quantity of fat below it.

The hair of the head is commonly longer: but other parts,
which are covered with hair in men, are either quite smooth
[Seite 413] in women, as the chest and chin; or less hairy, as the peri-
naeum; or smaller in circumference, as the pudenda; or co-
vered with merely a very delicate and soft down, as the arms
and legs. (D)

505. Among the particular differences of function, must
be mentioned the pulse, which is, in females, caeteris paribus,
more frequent (116); and the quantity of blood passing to
the abdomen is greater. The lungs, on the other hand, are
smaller, from the greater narrowness of the chest, which is
however more moveable above. The os hyoides is much
smaller; the larynx scarcely prominent and more contracted,
whence the voice is less grave.

506. As to the animal functions, besides the greater abun-
dance of nerves in the organs of generation, the general nervous
system of females is far more mobile, and their liability to emo-
tion stronger. On the other hand, the muscular system is
weaker, and the muscles (with the exception of the glutei,
psoae, quadrati lumborum, and a few others) proportionally
smaller. (E)

507. In regard to the natural functions, the stomach and
the appetite for food are less;f the growth of the body more
rapid; and the periods of dentition, puberty, and full growth,
earlier.

508. But by far the greatest difference exists in the genital
functions, which are intended in man for impregnating, and
in woman for conceiving. The fuller investigation of these
now remains to be prosecuted. (G)


NOTES.

(A) Sir Everard Home has published a singular hypothesis.g
He suggests that the sex is not determined at the first formation
[Seite 414] of the individual, but that the parts of generation are originally
so situated, and of such a nature, that they are capable of be-
coming either male or female organs when the sex is subsequently
fixed. His arguments are the following. – 1. The testes and
ovaria lie originally in the same situation. 2. The clitoris is at
first of great size. 3. When the female among brute mammalia
has inguinal mammae, so likewise has the male; men also possess
breasts. 4. The scrotum occupies in the male the place occu-
pied in the female by the labia, and is of the same structure with
them. 5. The nymphae of the female exactly correspond to the
preputium of the male. 6. Twins are usually of the same sex, as
if the same cause had influenced the generative organs of each;
when they are of different sexes, it is a common remark that they
seldom breed, nature probably having been disturbed in her
operations. 7. When among black cattle twins are produced of
different sexes, that which appears the cow is really an imperfect
hermaphrodite, possessing a mixture of incomplete male and fe-
male organs, sometimes, for instance, having testicles in the place
of ovaria, sometimes four substances, looking like testes and
ovaria, is incapable of breeding, and vulgarly termed a free martin;
– a circumstance in every respect analogous to the preceding.h
It may be added, that the round ligaments of the female descend,
like the two spermatic chords of the male, to the abdominal ring;
that marsupial bones exist, without any function whatever, in the
males of some marsupial animals; that the hen has a bursa Fa-
bricii; and that the glans clitoridis of the female opossum is bifid.
Comparative anatomy furnishes many similar facts. But the ex-
istence in both sexes of parts which can be useful only in one, –
confessed by Paley to have been a complete puzzle to him,i is
now universally regarded as merely an instance of Nature’s ob-
servance of general rules in the formation of beings:k even some
[Seite 415] species of animals have parts that are useful only in others. The
resemblance of the scrotum to the labia, and of the nymphae to
the preputium, and the original identity of the situation of the
testes and ovaria, may be similarly explained. The usual identity
of the sex of twins still shows only Nature’s general plans, and the
frequent infecundity of twins of different sexes, together with the
circumstances of the free martin, even when of that description in
which testes are substituted for ovaria, shows only that general
plans have been somehow thwarted.l And it must be remem-
bered, that if testes are occasionally substituted for ovaria in the
free martin, an attempt is sometimes made to produce both
testes and ovaria, a fact not explicable on the supposition of a
substance capable of becoming either testes or ovaria.

Mr. Knight considers that the sex of the offspring is deter-
mined by the female rather than by the male. He observed that
individual cows, &c. however various the males, produce one sex
rather than the other, so that he has with tolerable certainty pre-
dicted the number of male and female young; while nothing
similar was ever observable in regard to his bulls, rams, &c.
Even the external appearance and the habits of brutes and
vegetables, he has found much more, and sometimes altogether,
influenced by the female. The quantity of pollen employed in
the fecundation of female plants, he found of no importance in
this respect.m

But M. Girou de Busareingue, from repeated and extensive
experiments, has lately ascertained that, whatever may be the
influence of particular individuals, the age of the male, among
sheep and horses, has a very great general influence upon the
sex. The younger the males, the greater the number of females
produced, and v. v. The better also the mothers were fed,
[Seite 416] the greater the number of females and twin births.n The stronger
also the mother, and the more in her prime, the greater the
number of females; the weaker from any cause, or if she was
below or beyond her prime, the more males were produced.
This was noticed also among cows.

(B) The form as well as the texture of the female is more
delicate: her surface has no muscular protuberances, but is beau-
tifully rounded; her legs, therefore, have no calves, but, like the
arms and fingers, gently taper; her feet and hands are small;
her stature one sixth shorter than that of the male; her neck
longer. From the smaller stature and the greater size of the
abdominal and lumbar regions, it follows that the middle point
which lies at the pubes in the male, is situated higher in the
female. Her abdomen is more prominent and rounded, and her
shoulders stand less forward and distant from the trunk. Her
thighs are more voluminous and distant from each other.

(C) The greater capacity of the female pelvis, which contains
the chief organs of generation and affords a passage for the
child, arises from the greater expansion of the ossa ilei, the
larger angle of the junction of the ossa pubis, and the greater
concavity and breadth of the os sacrum: the os coccygis like-
wise is more slender and moveable. The clavicles are less bent;
the thorax more projecting, whence deeper, although narrower
and shorter; the sternum shorter and broader; the cartilago
ensiformis shorter; the two superior ribs flatter. Camper re-
marks, that if the male and female forms are traced within two
ellipses of equal dimensions, the male shoulders will stand with
out and the pelvis within, while the female shoulders will remain
within and the pelvis without.o The face and brain are abso-
lutely smaller than in men, the face likewise proportionally so;
yet such is the relative size of the cranium, that, while in the male
the head, including the teeth, is as 1 to 8 or 10, in the female it
is as 1 to 6, of the weight of the rest of the skeleton.

(D) Hen birds have a far less beautiful and copious plumage
than cocks.

An instance is related by M. Roux of a woman forty years of
age, who had one child, and whose breasts were well developed,
[Seite 417] having a strong and long beard: the lobes of her ears were also
covered with hair.q

(E) Inferior to man in reasoning powers and corporeal
strength, woman possesses more sensibility of both body and
mind, more tenderness, affection, and compassion, more of all
that is endearing and capable of soothing human woes, but less
firmness of character, except indeed where affection subsists; –
although Varium et mutabile semper foemina, is a true character,
yet nothing is too irksome, too painful, or too perilous, for a
mother, a wife, or a mistress, to endure or attempt for the object
of her love.

‘“A thousand acts in every age will prove’
‘Women are valiant in a cause they love.’
‘If fate the favour’d swain in danger place,’
‘They heed not danger, – perils they embrace,’
‘They dare the world’s contempt – they brave their name’s disgrace.’
‘They on the ocean meet its wild alarms,’
‘They search the dungeon with extended arms,’
‘The utmost trial of their faith they prove,’
‘And yield the lover to assert their love.”’

The head of the female is as different from that of the male as
her mental character. It is altogether smaller. The forehead is
smooth, from its various parts being equally developed; full above
the nose; narrower, but of only moderate height, and gently
retreating: the inferior parts of the sides and occiput are small
(amativeness, destructiveness, combativeness); but the develop-
ment immediately above is proportionally considerable (philo~
progenitiveness, adhesiveness, secretiveness); the summit of the
head is proportionally high (veneration).r

(F) And beastly gluttons are generally men.

(G) All the Linnaean classes of vegetables whose sex is known,
are hermaphrodite, excepting Dioecia and in part Polygamia.
Some inferior animals also are naturally hermaphrodite; and
among others, for instance, moths, eels, carp, crabs, monstrous
hermaphrodites are not uncommon, each half of the body possess-
ing the characteristics of a different sex. There probably exists
[Seite 418] no authentic account of a true hermaphrodite,s capable of im-
pregnating and being impregnated, among mammalia. Yet,
[Seite 419] occasionally, brutes of this class have perfect organs of one sex,
combined with imperfect ones of the other;t and both they and
the human subject each set imperfect, so as to be, though in va-
rious proportion to each other in different cases, neutrumque et
utrumque.
u Nor that in such combinations in the human subject
[Seite 420] at least one testis and one ovarium now and then exist, do I at
all doubt, after reading the case given by Maret,x and seeing the
creature shown here lately under the name of Lefort. In the
former, a testicle on one side and an ovarium on the other are
decidedly said to have existed, besides vesiculae seminales, a Fal-
lopian tube, an uterus, a blind vagina, and a blind penis: from
[Seite 421] the middle upwards the general characteristics of the female were
conspicuous, and from the middle downwards those of the male.
Lefort had the general characteristics of each sex. The relative
proportion of the trunk and extremities, that of the shoulders and
pelvis, and the conformation and dimensions of the latter, were
those of the male; the chin had as good a beard, and the breasts
and extremities were covered with as abundant hair, as we usually
observe in fair young men of the same age. Yet there were
beautifully formed breasts with perfect areolae and nipples, the
hands and feet were small, and, like the other portions of the ex-
tremities, most elegantly tapering. Its unforeseen departure from
London deprived me of the advantage of a second interview, but
I thought that the voice, face, cranium, and mental character
were a mixture of those of both sexes. I could not have said, on
seeing such a face only, whether it belonged to a man or a woman.
The eyes certainly sparkled with desire. Now had this been a
man with imperfect organs, there might indeed have been the
characteristics of the female more or less marked, but certainly not
those of the male; and vice versa: nor would the eyes in either
case have expressed the warmth of passion. On this account I
am disposed to believe it in possession of at least one testis
and one ovarium. The best judges in Paris pronounced it a
woman; the best in London, a man. With respect to the genitals,
I own myself to have been disinclined to examine them at
a first interview, but learn there was a small clitoris – with
an imperforate gland, and an urethra running along it inferiorly
(a structure perhaps unknown in monstrous formation of simply
female organs), and opening underneath by five small holes.y A
passage existed at the foot of the clitoris into which a catheter
passed, but which afforded no urine. The catheter introduced
into it might be directed downwards behind a membrane that
united the labia below – where the opening of the vagina is com-
monly found, and would probably be divided with advantage, as
the menses come through this passage. In fact both they and
the urine pass through it and the five holes of the canal that is
under the clitoris, and the urine is reported to come through both,
although the catheter could bring none, and neither passed into
the bladder nor excited a desire to make water, if introduced
into the lower canal. Whence there is probability in the con-
[Seite 422] jecture, that the urethra communicates with this passage within,
by similar openings to those observed externally in its lower
part.

Lefort has been seen to menstruate, and those who have not
inspected the pudenda when visiting it at this period, have de-
clared the countenance to be pale and languid as in a menstru-
ating woman. It boasts of having menstruated ever since eight
years of age, of having desires for each sex, and of being able
fully to enjoy both. But a little exaggeration of this kind must
be expected. The attendant told me that it had kept a young
French girl some years. Whether seminal discharge takes place,
is doubtful, as the communication between the testes (if there are
any) and urethra may be deficient in some point. That it can
derive any pleasure from sleeping with a male, except in the
general contact, is impossible. On the contrary, the membrane
that unites the labia must prevent coition and render every ap-
proach of the male organ extremely painful. No wonder, there-
fore, that, though its habits are feminine (it does needle-work),
perhaps in some measure from confinement, it has chosen a girl
for its associate. Independently, however, of these circumstances,
I do not suppose that Lefort’s beard and disgusting hairiness of
breasts and limbs would easily procure a cavalier servente.

This is a good opportunity for speaking of malformation in
general.

In the important points of our frame the same plan is pretty
steadily followed; but in indifferent particulars Nature is so far
from uniform that she appears delighted with variety. We are
seldom disappointed in expecting the natural structure of the
spine, great vessels, or important viscera; but it is not very
uncommon to find the brachial artery dividing near the axilla,
the obturatrix arising from the epigastric, the palmaris or plan-
taris muscle wanting, the biceps having an additional slip from
the os humeri, or the latissimus dorsi from the angle of the
scapula, or the spleen accompanied by one or more little ones.
These merit the name of varieties only, and in the arrangement of
minute blood-vessels, the length of bony processes, and other
little insignificant matters, there exists so much uncertainty that
it would be difficult to say which is the natural structure. In
truth, were we all alike, there would be the confusion of indis-
tinguishableness. The existence of small moles can hardly be
[Seite 423] deemed even a variety; large ones may be considered such.
Deviations of a more striking and uncommon character are called
lusus naturae. Such are, the absence of colouring matter in the hairs
and in the cutis and iris in Albinoes (XLIV. last note); spots and
patches of white in the skin of piebald negroes; and of brown and
black, often seen with tufts of hair, in truth, very large hairy
moles, in whites; a peculiar colour of the whole or a portion of
one iris, of the eyelashes of one eye, or of some of the hair of the
head; the cuticle of the porcupine family (p. 179); the course of
the vena portae to the inferior cava, without distribution in the
liver (p. 336); the malformations of the heart in the morbus
coeruleus (p. 155); the situation of the heart on the right side,z
and the general transposition of the thoracic and abdominal
viscera; oval irides; irides entirely deficient under the centre of
the pupil; a bifid uvula, the two parts sometimes very distant,
and the soft palate deficient above; a bifid glans penis, with two
fraena; the termination of the urethra behind the glans, or in the
vagina; a double uterus; deficient vagina; deficiency of tendinous
parietes of the abdomen, so that a connate ventral hernia ex-
ists; a supernumerary, whole or partial, thumb or toe: an instance
of each of which, and of several more than one instance, I have
myself seen, (with the exception of the unusual course of the vena
portae, and with the exception of the heart, &c. and uterus,) in the
living subject. If the deviation among visible parts is still more
considerable, and, indeed, though it be much less than those of
invisible parts, but, by being obvious, greatly disfigures, it is
termed a monstrosity. Such was the deficiency of the upper
extremities from below the shoulders in Miss Biffin, whom most
frequenters of English fairs have seen, and of the arms and legs
in Marc Catozze,a the Venetian, whose hands were attached to
his shoulders, and his feet to his hips or thighs; absence of the
radius and ulna on one side, between the os humeri and hand,
or of one or more metacarpal bones; absence of the front of the
bladder and abdominal parietes, so that the ureters terminate and
discharge urine externally; or of the phalanges; or an additional
forearm and hand; are not so rare but that I have seen them also in
[Seite 424] the living subject.b Zacchias saw a globular head upon the clavi-
cle without the intervention of a neck.c Extreme hairiness of the
skin, such as described at p. 180, is a monstrosity; the skin may be
considered as covered by a hairy mole; the absence of gastrocnemii
is a lusus naturae.d Similar aberrations from Nature’s usual course
out of the animal kingdom were designated ostenta, portenta,
prodigia,
e from the notion of their being ominous; whence the
opinion of Cicero is highly probable that these aberrations in the
forms of human beings are called monstra from the superstition of
their pointing out something that will happen; not, as Licetusf
contends, because they are shown as sights. Whatever may have
been the reason of the appellation, it clearly implies something
visible, obvious to all; which circumstance is the reason that
mere degree of deviation does not constitute a monster, and that
visible disfigurement is requisite to the idea; whence the defini-
tion of the most learned Zacchias, – ‘“an animal formed enor-
mously
different from the goodness and simplicity of figure belong-
ing to its species.”’g

Varieties, lusus naturae, and monstrosities, may all be arranged
accordingly as they are excesses, deficiencies, or misplacements. To
[Seite 425] this classification of monsters by Buffon,h unnatural formations
are added by Blumenbach,i as a part may be monstrously formed,
although neither excessive, defective, nor misplaced.k

Buffon’s arrangement relates to whole organs; but were it
applied to portions of them also, Blumenbach’s fourth class
would be exceedingly small. For instance, the first illustration
given of it by Mr. Lawrence, is when the anterior part of the
urinary bladder and corresponding integuments are absent, the
ossa pubis not conjoined, and the posterior part of the bladder
projecting between the recti abdominis muscles, forming, ‘“by its
mucous lining, a soft, red, sensible protuberance on the lower part
of the abdomen, contiguous at its circumference with the common
skin, with the ureters opening upon it, and constantly allowing a
free passage to the urine.”’ Now this is really a case of deficiency
as far as respects the bladder and integuments, and of misplace-
ment as respects the ossa pubis and recti muscles. Spina bifida,
again, is in fact an example of deficiency. Another instance
adduced is a single cyclopic eye in the middle of the forehead,
– a monstrosity which is a misplacement of each eye, for the
organ is plainly always two united; or of an union of the two
kidneys into one. The propriety of apptying these subdivisions
to deviations of portions as well as of the whole of organs is
proved by the occasional deficiency or redundancy of portions
only, v. c. when the arm between the shoulder and hand, or only
the front of the urinary bladder, is absent. The hare-lip, which
is often accompanied by a cleft in the palate also; the termin-
ation of the rectum in the bladder or vagina, or its termination
without an opening; a bifid glans penis: – fairly belong to this
fourth subdivision, they being instances neither of excess, defect,
nor misplacement, but of unnatural structure.

Few cases are unmixed. Defect, excess, or misplacement,
are often, sometimes indeed necessarily, combined with un-
natural structure: and not unfrequently excess, defect, and
unnatural structure, all make up the derangement together.

There may be different kinds of deviation in different parts of
[Seite 426] the same subject, and it is worthy of notice that considerable
deviations are generally accompanied by minor ones of other
parts. Spina bifida and club feet very frequently co-exist. When
the brain is absent, so that the foetus has no forehead and looks
like a cat (called in Germany katzenkopf), there is often some-
thing wrong about the extremities or the viscera of the trunk;
and absence of heart is always, according to Mr. Lawrence, ac-
companied by considerable deviations in other parts.

The highest degree of deviation may combine the extremes
of more than one of the four subdivisions, and sometimes presents
a being very like a brute. In old books we read of women bring-
ing forth dogs, pigs, monkeys, nay, even lions, elephants,l and fish,m
and even little devils with hoofs, claws, horns, tail, and a black
skin,n since intercourse of this kind was two centuries ago thought
common enough, and monsters were ascribed to it.

As an instance of the lowest degree of unnatural structure,
I may mention a minute opening in the lachrymal sac on the
side of the nose of a young lady whom I know: the highest
degree is perhaps instanced in the malformations of the heart.
The lowest degree of misplacement is exemplified when a testis
is placed for life in the groin: the highest is perhaps witnessed in
the transposition of the viscera.o The lowest degree of defect is
instanced in the absence of the gall-bladder: the highest, where only
the lower half of the trunk with the lower extremities, or only one
extremity, exists. In excess the addition may be merely attached,
or may be mingled with the same part into one larger. The highest
degree of excess is where a second foetus is attached. Zacchias saw
[Seite 427] at Rome, in 1617 and 1623, a well-formed handsome boy, named
Lazarus Coloreto, to whose chest there grew another, with only
one leg, and that too short, mutilated arms, a hideous face, a
thick head unable to take food, perpetually dribbling, and with no
sense but that of touch, which he showed by moving himself
when hurt, and who had been christened John Baptist.p

[Seite 428]

Where there is no great difference in the size of the two beings,
the case can hardly be styled an excess, or at any rate either
party has an equal right to consider the other the exuberance.
Such were the Hungarian sisters mentioned by Blumenbach (78),
who were united at the back below the loins. All the viscera
were double; but the recta and vaginae of both formed one
common opening. The aortae and inferior cavae also united.
They menstruated, evacuated, felt hungry, slept, and were ill
at different times, but of course died together.q One was rather
stronger than the other, and dragged her sister with her when
they wished to go in contrary directions, and they sometimes
quarrelled when one only wished to retire; but fortunately
Judith and Helen were extremely fond of each other. They
attained the age of twenty-one.

One of the most extraordinary compound monsters is described
by M. Mannoir, of Geneva,r and the subject is preserved in our
Hunterian Museum. The two children of which it was com-
posed may be fancied to have been divided transversely, and the
two upper halves united at the cut part, and the two lower like
wise, and then the two compound pieces laid across each other.

The additional being is sometimes not united in this way, but
contained in a cyst, and attached to the exterior of the. other. A
perfect child was born in Devonshire, 1746, with a tumour at-
tached to the sacrum, containing the rudiments of a foetus.s

The second child, thus encysted, is occasionally placed inter-
nally, and may at last cause serious inconvenience. At Genoa,
[Seite 429] in 1699, a boy, fourteen years of age, had a perfect foetus taken
from his abdomen, through an opening made in a very large
tumour just above the umbilicus, that had been increasing from
his birth.t A girl, five years old, born at Dangerhorst, proved
to have in her abdomen all the distinct parts of a foetus.u The
Medical and Chirurgical Society has published the case of a boy
in whose abdomen was a cyst, containing all the rudiments of a
foetus; and of a girl, two years and a half old, who had a large tu-
mour in the left side, occasioned by a cyst with parts of a foetus.x A
boy who had reached his fifteenth year in good health, was found
to bear in his abdomen a pretty large imperfect female foetus, by
Mr. Highmore, in Dorsetshire.y A boy, fourteen years of age,
was some years ago discovered after death, at Paris, to have the
rudiments of a foetus in his abdomen;z and in the last century one
at Tours.a A girl at Naumburg became such a kind of a mother
in eight days from her birth.b A male greyhound is said to
have voided a live whelp per anum, at Chester in 1695.c An
egg has sometimes been contained within another.d

Of the same nature as these are perhaps certain cases, in
which hair and sebaceous fat, and frequently teeth, are found
collected. The hair has no roots, and occasionally is in immense
quantity, the greater part making a compact ball, and the rest
immersed in the fat. The teeth are generally molares, and have
no fangs. The usual seat of these collections is the ovaria, but
then it is the ovaria of virgins. A case lately occurred, in which
the mass was situated in the anterior mediastinum of a young woman,
twenty-one years of age, and consisted of serous fluid, hair, fat,
two cuspidati, two incisores, and three molares, a portion of bone
resembling the superior maxillary, and alveolar processes around
[Seite 430] several of these teeth.e Such a mass has been situated in the loins
of a gelding; – probably in a testis which had not descended.f

Monstrous formations are frequently discharged prematurely.
Autenreith observes ‘“that he found three abortions monstrous out
of nineteen whose parts could be distinguished; that Wrisberg met
with two among five; and Ruysch two in twelve: – altogether
seven to twenty-nine.”’

Sömmerring states that most monstrous abortions are of the
male sex.

A sound offspring is frequently born at the same time with a
monstrous production, and monstrous productions occasionally
alternate with well-formed children.

Sometimes one unusual formation only occurs in a large family;
sometimes several, and perhaps in immediate succession.

These circumstances show, as Duverney, and immediately after
him Winslow, contended about a century ago (Mem. de l’Acad. des
Sc.
1743), that monstrosity generally arises from original faulty
formation, or rather faulty powers in the ovum, and not from sub-
sequent injury. How far the mind can influence the formation
we will consider in the section on the nisus formativus.

SECT. XXXVI.
OF THE GENITAL FUNCTION IN MAN.

[Seite 431]

509. The male genital fluid is. produced by the two testi-
cles, which hang in the scrotum, by their spermatic chords,
through a ring called abdominal, or through, more properly,
a fissure in the tendon of the external oblique muscle of the
abdomen. (A) Besides abundant lymphatics, three orders of
vessels are found in the testes. –

The spermatic artery, which is, in proportion to the fine-
ness of its calibre, the longest artery, by far, in the system,
and usually conveys blood to the testicle immediately from
the abdominal aorta.

The ductus deferens, which carries to the vesiculae semi-
nales the semen secreted from the arterial blood.

The pampiniform plexus of veins, which return to the
cava or renal vein the blood remaining after secretion. (B)

510. The testes are not originally suspended in the
scrotum. In the very young male foetus, they are placed in
a very different part, and the nature and successive changes
of their situation that were first accurately investigated
by Haller,a but have since been variously stated, have
given rise to numerous controversies.b I shall derive my
account of this subject from the natural appearances which I
have preserved in a great number of small embryos, dissected
by me with this view.

[Seite 432]

511. On opening the lower part of the abdomen of a
young foetus, there appears in each groin, at the ring of the
oblique muscles, a very small opening in the peritonaeum,
leading downwards to a narrow passage which perforates the
ring and runs to a peculiar sac that is extended beyond the
abdominal cavity towards the scrotum, is interwoven with
cellular fibres, and destined for the future reception of the
testicle.

512. At the posterior margin of this abdominal opening,
there is sent off another process of peritonaeum, running
upwards, and appearing, in the young foetus, little more than
a longitudinal fold, from the base of which arises a small
cylinder, or rather an inverted cone, that terminates above
in a globular sac, containing the testis and epididymis, so that
the testis, at first sight, resembles a small berry resting on its
stalk, and appears hanging, like the liver or spleen, into the
abdomen. (399)

513. The vessels, which afterwards constitute the sper-
matic chord, are seen running behind the very delicate and
pellucid peritonaeum; the spermatic artery and vein de-
scending along the sides of the spine, and the vas deferens
passing inwards, in the loose cellular substance behind the
peritonaeum, towards the neck of the bladder. They enter
the testis in the fold of peritonaeum just mentioned.

514. After about the middle period of pregnancy, the
testis gradually descends and approaches the narrow passage
before spoken of (511), the fold of peritonaeum and its
cylinder becoming at the same time bent down, until it lies
directly over the opening of the passage.

515. The testis being now ready for descent, the opening,
which was hitherto small, becomes dilated, so as to allow the
organ to pass it, the abdominal ring, and the whole passage,
and to descend into the bulbous sac (511); after this occur-
rence, the opening soon becomes strongly closed and even
grows together, leaving scarcely any vestige of itself in
infancy.

516. In proportion to the slowness with which the testis
[Seite 433] proceeded towards the opening, does its transit through the
abdominal passage appear rapid, and, as it were, in-
stantaneous. It is common to find the testis in mature
foetuses either lying over the peritonaeal opening, or, having
passed this, resting in the groin; but I have once only met
with the testis, and then it happened to be the right and in
a twin foetus, at the very time when it was adhering, and in a
manner strangled, in the middle of the passage, being just
about to enter the sac; in this instance, the left testis had
passed the abdominal canal and was already in the sac, and
the abdominal opening of the same side was perfectly closed.

517. This remarkable passage of the testis from the
abdomen through the groin is limited to no period, but
would seem to occur generally about the last month of
pregnancy; the testicles are found, however, not very rarely
in the abdomen or the upper portion of the groin at birth.
For they have always another part of their course to finish,
after leaving the abdomen, viz. to descend, together with their
sac, from the groin into the scrotum.

518. Repeated observation demonstrates this to be the
true course of the testicles. To assign the powers and causes
of its accomplishment is no easy matter. For I am every day
more convinced that neither of the powers to which it is
usually ascribed, viz. the action of the cremaster or dia-
phragm, or the mere contractility of the cellular membrane,
interwoven with tendinous fibres, that exists in the cylindrical
process of peritonaeum (512), and is called the Hunterian
gubernaculum, is sufficient to explain so singular a movement,
and least of all to explain the transit of the testis through the
passage so often mentioned; but that the whole affords, if
any thing does, a striking illustration of a vita propria,
without the peculiar influence of which, so remarkable and
unique a course, similar to no other function of the system,
cannot even be imagined. (C)

519. The coats of the testes, after their descent, are con-
veniently divided into common and proper.

The common is the scrotum, consisting of the skin having a
[Seite 434] very moderate substratum of fat, and differing from the rest
of the integuments in this, – that it is continually changing
its appearance, being sometimes lax and pendulous, sometimes
(especially during the venereal orgasm and the application of
cold) constricted and rigid, and in the latter case, singularly
marked by rugae and furrows.c

520. With respect to the coats proper to each testis, the
dartos lies immediately under the scrotum, and is endowed
with a peculiar and strong contractile power, which deceived
the celebrated Winslow, Haller, &c. into the belief of the
presence of muscularity. (D)

521. Next to this, with the intervention, however, of
much soft cellular substance, are found three orders of tunicae
vaginales;
d viz. an exterior, common to the testis and sper-
matic chord, and to which the cremaster muscle adheres by
disjointed bundles of fibres.

And two interior, one proper to the chord, and one to the
testis; the latter of which usually adheres by its fundus to
the common coat, but is internally moistened, like the
pericardium, by a lubricating fluid. (E)

522. The origin of these vaginal coats, – the subject of so
much controversy, may, I think, be readily explained, from
the circumstances, already mentioned, attending the descent
of the testis.

The coat common to the testis and chord arises from the
descending bulbous sac or peritonaeal process. (511)

The proper coat of the testis, from that production of the
peritonaeum which, ascending from the cylinder (512), origi-
nally invests the testis.

The coat proper to the chord, from that fold and short
[Seite 435] cylinder of the peritonaeum in which the fold terminates
before it surrounds the testicle. (F)

523. To the body of the testise there adheres very firmly,
like the bark of a tree, a coat called albuginea, through the
combination of which with the internal part of the vaginal
coat, blood-vessels penetrate into the pulpy substance of the
testis.f This pulpy substance is entirely composed of innu-
merable vessels, about a span in length,g and convoluted into
lobules, both conveying blood and secreting semen,h the latter
of which is carried, through the rete vasculosum of Halleri
and the vasa efferentia of de Graaf, to the apices of the cones
of the epididymis.k

524. The epididymis, lying on the side of the testicle and
consisting of one vessel about thirty feet in length, is divided
into about twenty glomerules or cones at the part called its
head,l and is continued into the vas deferens, at its lower
part, which gradually becomes thickerm and is denominated
its tail.

525. Each vas deferens, ascending towards the neck of the
urinary bladder and converging towards the other under the
prostate gland, is then directed backwards and dilated into
the vesiculae seminales, in such a manner, that the common
mouth both of the vesicles and vasa deferentia opens into the
urethra, behind the caput gallinaginis.n

526. The vesiculae seminales, which adhere to the posterior
and inferior surface of the bladder, surrounded by an
[Seite 436] abundance of fat, resemble two little intestines winding in
various directions and branching into numerous blind ap-
pendices.

They consist of two coats, nearly similar to those of the
gall-bladder: the one strong, and of the description usually
termed nervous; the other interior, delicate, abounding in
cells, and divided into compartments by prominent ridges,
like those found in the cervix of the gall-bladder.o

527. In these passages is slowly and sparingly secreted
and contained after puberty, the semen, a very extraordinary
and important fluid, of a milky yellowish colour,p of a pe-
culiar odour, of the same viscidity as mucus, and of great
specific gravity, of greater indeed than any other fluid in the
body.q

528. Semen has also this peculiarity, first observed by
Lewis Hamme of Dantzic, in the year 1677,r – of being ani-
mated by an infinite number of small worms visible by the
microscope, of the kind denominated infusoria,s and of dif-
ferent figures in different genera of animals. In man,t these
spermatic animalcules are oval and have very fine tails: they
are said to be found in prolific semen only, so that they are
in some degree an adventitious criterion of its prolific ma-
turity; we say adventitious, because we hope, after so many
weighty arguments and observations,u there is no necessity
[Seite 437] at present to remark, that they have no fecundating principle,
and much less are the germs of future offspring. (G)

529. The genital fluid gradually collected in the vesicles is
retained for subsequent excretion, and by its stay experiences
changes nearly similar to those of the bile in the gall bladder,

– becoming more inspissated and concentrated by the re-
moval of its watery portion.x

530. For as the whole of the testis and spermatic chord
abounds in lymphatic vessels, which carry back to the blood
a fluid with a seminal impregnation and thus facilitate the
secretion of semen in the manner before described (477); so
the vesiculae seminales are likewise furnished with a similar
set of vessels, which, by absorbing the inert watery part,
render the remaining semen more powerful.

531. But I very much doubt whether genuine semen is
ever absorbed during health; still more that it ever passes, as
is sometimes asserted, into the neighbouring veins; and most
of all, that by this absorption, if it does occur, unseasonable
venereal appetites are prevented, since, if we compare the
phenomena of animals, procreating at particular periods, with
the constitution of those which are castrated, we must con-
clude that this absorption is rather the cause of ungovernable
and almost rabid lust.

532. We conceive that this end is accomplished in a very
different mode, by a circumstance which occurs, as far as we
have been able to discover, in no animal but man, – by noc-
[Seite 438] turnal pollutions,
which we regard as a naturaly excretion in-
tended to liberate the system from the otherwise urgent super-
fluous semen, more or less frequently, according to the variety
of temperament and constitution.z

533. The semen is never discharged pure but mixed with
the prostatic fluid, which is very much of the appearance of
the white of egg, and has acquired its name from the organ
by which it is produced, – an organ of some size, of a
peculiar and very compact texture, lying between the vesiculae
seminales and the bulb of the urethra, and commonly deno-
minated prostate gland. The passages for the course of this
fluid are not well known, unless perhaps they communicate
with the sinus of the seminal caruncle, the orifice of which
opens into the urethraa between the two mouths (525) of the
seminal vesicles.

534. The male urethra is the common outlet of three dif-
ferent fluids, – the urine, semen, and prostatic liquor. It is
lined with mucus which proceeds from numerous sinuses dis-
persed along the canal.b We find it surrounded by a spongy
texture, upon which lie two other spongy bodiesc of much
greater thickness, constituting the major part of the penis.

[Seite 439]

The penis is terminated anteriorly by the glans – a continu-
ation of the spongy texture, and usually covered by a delicate
and very moveable skin, which is destitute of fat, and, at the
corona of the glans, forms the preputium, and freely moves
over the gland, nearly as the eyelids do over the eyeball. The
internal duplicature of the preputium, changing its appear-
ance, is reflected over the glans, like the albuginea of the eye,
and is beset at the corona with many Littriand glands, simi-
lar to the Meibomian of the eyelids and secreting a peculiar
smegma.e

535. The virile organ, thus constructed, possesses the
power of erection, – of becoming swollen and stiff and chang-
ing its situation, from the impetuous congestion and effusionf
of blood into its corpora cavernosa either by corporeal or
mental stimulus, and of detumifying and collapsing after the
return of the blood.g (I)

536. When in a flaccid state, it is considerably bent at its
origin from the neck of the bladder,h and thus perfectly
adapted for the discharge of the urine, but quite unfit for the
[Seite 440] emission of semen,i because the beginning of the urethra
then forms too acute an angle with the openings of the seminal
vesicles.

537. When the penis swells from desire, the prostatic fluid
generally flows first, and indeed is often discharged pure,
though rarely together with the urine: its principal use is to be
emitted with the semen and by its albuminous lubricity to
correct the viscidity and promote the emission of this secretion.

538. The emission of semen is excited by its abundance in
the vesicles and by sexual instinct; it is effected by the violent
tentigo which obstructs the course of the urine, and, as it were,
throws the way open for the semen; by a kind of spasmodic
contraction of the vesiculae seminales; by a convulsion of the
levatores anik and of the accelerators urinae; and by a suc-
cussion of the whole system, short and less violent, though
almost of an epileptic nature and followed by depression of
strength.l (L)


NOTES.

(A) Instances of more than two testes are extremely rare.
Three, four, and even five, are said to have existed, and several
authors declare that they themselves have seen three in individuals
many of whose families were equally well provided.m Unless
such cases are related by an experienced medical man from his
own observation, they deserve no credit, and even then must be
regarded with suspicion, if anatomical examination or the peculiar
pain of pressure have not proved the additional bodies to be ana-
logous to testes no less in structure than inform and situation. The
[Seite 441] late eccentric Dr. Mounsey, who ordered that his body should
either be dissected by one of his friends or thrown into the
Thames, was found to have in his scrotum a small steatom, which
during life might have given the appearance of three testes.

The writers of such wonderful cases completely disagree in
their account of the powers of these triorchides, tetrorchides,
and pentorchides, some asserting them to be prodigious, others
greatly below those of ordinary men.

One testis is commonly larger than the other, and, the right
spermatic chord being for the most part shorter than the left, the
right testis is generally the higher.

(B) The original situation of the testes accounts for the cir-
cumstance of their blood-vessels arising from the loins, as John
Hunter remarked; for parts generally derive their vessels from
the nearest source. The same applies to their nerves. Hence,
too, the right spermatic artery frequently springs from the
right renal as being nearer than the aorta, and the left sper-
matic vein frequently pours its blood into the left renal as being
nearer than the inferior vena cava.

The original situation of the testes accounts also for the cir-
cumstance of the vas deferens arising from the lower part of the
epididymis and bending upwards; in the foetus this is not the
case, but it is the necessary consequence of the subsequent
change in the situation of the testes.n

(C) The descent of the testes into the scrotum must, I appre-
hend, be owing to the growth of their nerves and vessels, and to
the direction afforded by the contraction of the gubernaculum;
the growth of the former, and therefore the whole process, is
accounted for in the minds of some by the contraction of the
latter.o Mr. Hunter’s original account of the gubernaculum
may not be unacceptable. ‘“At this time of life, the testis is
connected in a very particular manner with the parietes of the
abdomen, at that place where, in adult bodies, the spermatic ves-
sels pass out, and likewise with the scrotum. This connection is
by means of a substance which runs down from the lower end of
[Seite 442] the testis to the scrotum, and which at present I shall call the
ligament or gubernaculum testis, because it connects the testis
with the scrotum, and seems to direct its course through the rings
of the abdominal muscles. It is of a pyramidal form; its large
bulbous head is upwards, and fixed to the lower end of the testis
and epididymis, and its lower and slender extremity is lost in the
cellular membrane of the scrotum. The upper part of this liga-
ment is within the abdomen, before the psoas, reaching from the
testis to the groin, or to where the testicle is to pass out of the
abdomen; whence the ligament runs down into the scrotum, pre-
cisely in the same manner as the spermatic vessels pass down in
adult bodies, and is there lost. That part of the ligamentum
testis, which is within the abdomen, is covered by the peritonaeum
all round, except at its posterior part, which is contiguous to the
psoas, and connected with it by the reflected peritonaeum and by
the cellular membrane. It is hard to say what is the structure or
composition of this ligament: it is certainly vascular and fibrous,
and the fibres run in the direction of the ligament itself, which is
covered by the fibres of the cremaster or musculus testis, placed
immediately behind the peritonaeum. This circumstance is not
easily ascertained in the human subject; but is very evident in
others, more especially in those whose testicles remain in the
cavity of the abdomen after the animal is full grown.”’p

(D) We know that the skin of every part relaxes by heat and
contracts by cold, although it be not muscular: in the cold fit of
an ague, it is constricted throughout so forcibly as to have
acquired, during this state, the appellation of Cutis Anserina.
The scrotum, being much more lax than any other portion of the
skin, experiences these effects to the greatest extent. What is
termed dartos is merely thick cellular membrane.

(E) A coat, exterior to the rest, is described by M. Roux,
and termed Envelope fibreuse. It is an elongated sac, large below
to contain the testis and epididymis, and narrow above, affording
a sheath to the chord. It vanishes among the cellular membrane
of the ring.q M. Roux considers this coat as having been known
to Haller, from the following passage in Haller’s account of the
testicle. ‘“Ita fit ut interiores caveae duae sunt; superior vasculis
[Seite 443] spermaticis circumjecta; inferior testi propria.”’ But Haller con-
tinues thus: ‘“Ita saepe se habet, ut etiam aquae vis aut in partem
testi propriam solam, intacta parte vasculosi funiculi, aut in istam
solam, intacta testis vagina, effundatur, neque flatus impulsus de ea
vaginali ad istam commeet.”’r He appears therefore to describe
merely the tunicae vaginales of the chord and testis.

(F) The cremaster deserves a little attention. This muscle
arises from the superior anterior spinous process of the ileum,
from the transversalis abdominis, the internal surface of the Fal-
lopian ligament and neighbouring parts, and, passing through the
ring, spreads upon the chord, vanishing upon the beginning of
the testicle. Its office is evidently to support the testicle, and to
draw it upwards against the groin during procreation. In those
animals whose testes, instead of hanging in the scrotum, lie in the
perinaeum, in the groin, or in the abdomen, this muscle is, as
might be expected, much less considerable.

It may here be mentioned that the human testes do not always
descend into the scrotum, but occasionally remain, one or both,
in the groin or abdomen. Individuals so circumstanced were
called ϰρυψόρχιδς or testicondi, by the ancients. A ridgil is a bull
in which one only has descended. In these instances the genera-
tive powers are not impaired; – a testicle which has not descended
is prevented by the pressure of the neighbouring parts from fully
evolving itself, but such persons, it is certain, ‘“militant non sine
gloria.
”’

The generative powers indeed are not impaired by the removal
of one testis: the Hottentots have been said frequently to deprive
their sons of one on arriving at eight years of age,s from the
belief that monorchs are swift runners. We read in Varro, that,
if a bull is admitted to a cow immediately after both testes are
removed, impregnation takes place, – ‘“Exemptis testiculis, si
statim admiseris, concipere (vaccas).”’t This at least is certain,
that some men have perfectly performed the act of copulation,
though unfruitfully, after castration.u Many such accounts are
suspicious, but in a case mentioned by Sir Astley Cooper in his
[Seite 444] surgical lectures as perfectly unquestionable, the complete power
of coition positively remained some time after the removal of both
organs by that surgeon, and gradually diminished.

The notion that each testicle, or each ovarium, is destined for
the procreation of but one sex, is too nonsensical.

(G) Lewis Hamme, a young German, discovered the seminal
animalcules, and shewed them to Leeuwenhoeck; and the saga-
cious Dutchman, catching eagerly at the discovery, published an
account of them illustrated by plates. Hartzoeker, ambitious of
the honour of the discovery, wrote upon the subject the following
year, and asserted that he had seen the animalcules three years
before they were observed by Hamme. The subject, being the
very summit of filthiness, excited the earnest attention of all
Europe. Physiologists, naturalists, Popish priests, painters, opti-
cians, and booksellers, all eagerly joined in the pursuit of the
seminal animalcules, and the lascivious Charles the Second of
England commanded them to be presented to him swimming
and frisking in their native fluid. Some of the curious could not
find them. Others not only found them, but ascertained their
length was 3/100000 of an inch, their bulk such as to admit the
existence of 216,000 in a sphere whose diameter was the breadth
of a hair, and their rate of travelling nine inches in an hour.
They saw them too in the semen of all animals, and, what is
remarkable, of nearly the same size and shape in the semen
of the largest and of the smallest, – in the semen of the sprat and
of the whale; they could distinguish the male from the female;
in the semen of a ram they beheld them moving forwards in a
troop with great gravity like a flock of sheep; and in the human
semen, Dalenpatius actually saw one indignantly burst its wormy
skin and issue forth a perfectly formed human being. The little
creatures would swim in shoals towards a given point, turn back,
separate, meet again, move on singly, jump out, and dive again,
spin round, and perform various other feats, proving themselves,
if not the most delicate, at least the drollest, beings that ever
engaged the attention of philosophers. Their strength of con-
stitution being an important object of enquiry, they gave proofs
of their vigour not only by surviving their rough passage through
the urethra, three, four, and seven days, but by impregnating a
female at the end of this time, and, on being removed from her,
by impregnating even a second.

[Seite 445]

Surely never was so much folly and bestiality before committed
under the name of philosophy.

Abr. Kauw, Boerhaave, Maupertuis, Lieutaud, Ledermuller,
Monro Secundus, Nicolas, Haller, and, indeed, nearly all the phi-
losophers of Europe, were satisfied of the existence of the
animalcules. Buffon and his followers, prejudiced in favour of an
hypothesis, although they did not deny that the semen contained
innumerable rapidly moving particles, contended that these were
not animalcules, but organic particles, and Linnaeus imagined
them to be inert molecules thrown into agitation by the warmth
of the fluid. Their reality, however, might be regarded as esta-
blished. But, finally, to determine the question, and accurately
to ascertain every circumstance relating to them, the celebrated
Spallanzani began a long course of observations and experiments
about the middle of the last century, unbiassed in favour of any
opinion, and endeavouring to forget entirely all that had been
written upon the subject. The human semen the worthy Abbé
assures us that he procured from dead bodies immediately after
dissolution; but that of brutes was obtained either after death or
during life.

He found in the former innumerable animalcules with an oval
body and a tail, or appendix, tapering to a point. This appendix,
by moving from side to side, propelled them forwards. They were
in constant motion in every direction. In about twenty-three
minutes their movements became more languid, and in two or
three hours they generally died, sinking to the bottom of the
fluid, with their appendices extended. The duration of their
life, however, depended much upon the temperature of the
weather; at – 2° (Reaumur) they died in three-quarters of
an hour; while at 7° they lived two hours; and at 12 1/2°, three
hours and three-quarters. If the cold was not too intense, they
recovered upon the temperature being raised; when only – 3°
or – 4° they recovered after a lethargy of fourteen hours and
upwards; and, according to the less intensity of the cold, they
might be made to pass from the torpid to the active state more
frequently. They were destroyed by river, ice, snow, and rain-
water; by sulphur, tobacco, camphor, and electricity. Even the
air was injurious to them; – in close vessels their life was pro-
longed to some days, and their movements were not constant
and hurried. They were of various sizes and perfectly distinct
from all species of animalcules found in vegetable infusions, &c.
[Seite 446] The seminal animalcules of different kinds of animals had gene-
rally each some peculiarity. In short, Spallanzani completely
confirmed the principal observations of Leeuwenhoeck, and satis-
factorily explained the sources of the inaccuracies of other
enquirers.x

Although these beings are most numerous in the semen, he
detected them occasionally in other fluids; – in the mesenteric
blood of female frogs and salamanders, and in the blood of a
tadpole and a calf.y

According to Vauquelin’s analysis of the semen, 100 parts
contain,

Of Water 90
Mucilage 6
Phosphate of lime 3
Soda 1

In some days it putrefies and becomes covered with the byssus
septica.z

(H) Mr. Hunter’s arguments are the following: – 1. ‘“The
semen, first discharged from the living body, is of a blueish
white colour, in consistence like cream, and similar to what is
found in the vasa deferentia after death; while that which fol-
lows is somewhat like the common mucus of the nose, but less
viscid. The semen becomes more fluid upon exposure to the
air, particularly that first thrown out; which is the very reverse
of what happens to secretions in general. The smell of the
semen is mawkish and unpleasant, exactly resembling that of
the farina of a Spanish chesnut: and to the taste, though at first
insipid, it has so much pungency, as, after some little time, to
[Seite 447] stimulate and excite a degree of heat in the mouth. But the
fluid contained in these vesiculae in a dead body, is of a brownish
colour, and often varies in consistence in different parts of the
bag, as if not well mixed. Its smell does not resemble that of
the semen, neither does it become more fluid by being exposed
to the air.”’ On opening two men immediately after death, the
contents of the vesiculae were of a lighter colour than he usually
found them in persons who had been some time dead, and in one
of the instances so fluid as to run out upon cutting the vesiculae,
but they were similar to the semen neither in colour nor smell.
An examination of the vesiculae of the horse, boar, rat, beaver,
and guinea-pig, afforded the same results. In the last animal,
the contents near the fundus of the vesiculae were viscid, and
gradually firmer, till, near the opening into the urethra, they
were as solid as common cheese, and no such substance could
be detected in the vagina of the female after her union with the
male. 2. During lasciviousness, the testicles swell, and they
become painful if the semen is not discharged; in coition, it
may be added, they are drawn forcibly by the cremaster against
the pubes, as if to assist the discharge of their contents at the
period of emission. 3. In the old and debilitated, the vesiculae
are as full as in the young and vigorous. 4. Nay, in four men
who had each lost a testicle, the vesicula on one side was equally
full as on the other, although the men had survived the operation a
considerable length of time. The same was discovered in two
cases, where, by mal-formation, one testicle had no communica-
tion with the corresponding vesicle. In the gelding and the
stallion their contents are similar and nearly equal in quantity.
The vas deferens has no communication in some animals with
the vesiculae, and in others, as the horse, where a communi-
cation does exist, the common duct is not of sufficient length to
permit the regurgitation of the semen into the vesiculae. 4. Some
animals, especially among the carnivora, have no vesiculae semi-
nales, yet in their copulation they differ not from those which
have. M. Richerand indeed asserts, that animals destitute of
these organs are longer in coition than others, from having no
reservoir for an accumulation of semen.a But he is mistaken.
For on inspecting Cuvier’s account of animals without and with
[Seite 448] vesiculae, no connection whatever appears between their presence
or absence and the length of copulation,

In opposition to these arguments it is urged, that a fluid, gently
propelled along the human vas deferens, does not pass into the
urethra, but regurgitates into the vesicula.b But, granting this
true, we have no proof that the secretion of the testes leaves the
vasa deferentia except during emission, when this regurgitation is
impossible. It may also be contended that, in many men, the act
of straining at the water-closet often instantly discharges from the
urethra, without the least sensation, a large quantity of a fluid,
which is exactly similar, in colour, consistence, and odour, to that
of a nocturnal emission. The compression cannot squeeze this
fluid from the testes. If a partisan of Mr. Hunter should say that
the extremities of the vasa deferentia afford it, we may reply to him
that Mr. Hunter found them full of the same kind of fluid as the
vesiculae. I believe, however, that we are unacquainted with the
pure secretion of the testes, and that far the greatest portion of an
emission is secreted by the vesiculae seminales and prostate gland;
and that therefore some persons may, by forcing down, occasion
a discharge apparently identical with an emission, though not
containing a particle of matter furnished by the testes. The fact,
already mentioned, of emission occurring for a long period after
the removal of both testes, – till the removal had much deranged
the whole genital system, forcibly corroborates this idea. The dif-
ference discovered by Mr. Hunter between the fluid found in the
human vesiculae seminales after death and that of an emission, is
nothing more than might be expected if we were certain that they
were the same,c and as the matter squeezed out by some in strain-
ing exactly resembles that of a regular emission, this fact alone
would be fatal to Mr. Hunter’s opinion, in regard to man, unless
we relinquish the notion of the fluid of human emission being
chiefly true semen from the testes.

In different species of brutes the fluid of emission may be fur-
nished in different proportions from the testes, vesiculae, and pros-
tate, and the effects of pressure and seminal debility in them are
unknown. Additional vesiculae seminales are sometimes seen open-
[Seite 449] ing separately. Cuvier says, that the muscular part of the urethra
in brutes is full of semen at rutting time, so that it may pass into
the additional vesiculae.

(I) Accumulation of blood it is supposed may be produced in
three ways. 1. By a mechanical impediment to its return: but
there is no reason whatever to ascribe ordinary erection to com-
pression. 2. By an increased flow of blood to a part, so that the
vessels receive it faster than they convey it away. Here the
vessels of the part itself in which the accumulation exists, are said
by some to act more violently than usual; by others, the neigh-
bouring larger vessels which supply these: their frequency of
action, however, is not increased, but always remains correspond-
ent with that of the heart. Were the vessels of the part itself to
act more violently than usual, that is to say, to contract to a
smaller and relax to a greater dimension than usual, (though an
ordinary alternate contraction and relaxation are hypothetical)
more blood would indeed subsist in them during their relaxation,
but less than usual would subsist in them during their contraction,
and there could be no accumulation, no inflammation. If the
neighbouring large vessels act more violently than usual, (though
their ordinary alternate contraction and relaxation are also hypo-
thetical) they may be conceived to produce an accumulation of
blood and a distention of the smaller vessels. 3. If the vessels of
any part become dilated and do not contract in proportion, this
circumstance will be sufficient to produce an accumulation, with-
out any necessity for supposing an increased action of the neigh-
bouring larger vessels. This explains inflammation: and in Bichat’s
Anatomie Descriptive, this explanation is given of erection. The
corpora cavernosa (which always contain florid blood,) sponta-
neously dilate, and accumulation ensues. For this purpose it is not
necessary that they should be muscular, but Mr. Hunter asserts
their muscularity: in a horse he found them muscular to the eye,
and they contracted upon being stimulated.

The heart, however, as in all cases of what is called increased
determination of blood, lends its powerful aid by acting with aug-
mented force.

As to the final cause of erection, the organ, by acquiring
increased bulk, firmness, and sensibility, becomes adapted for
affording and experiencing to the utmost extent the effects of
friction both as exciting pleasure and as stimulating the secreting
[Seite 450] vessels; the increased length and narrowness of the urethra render
the emission more forcible.e

(K) If Gall is right in placing the seat of sexual desire in the
head, this kind of erection may be explained by supposing the
irritation, arising in the cerebellum from the great accumulation
of its blood, to produce a correspondent irritation in the organs
of generation: thus the epileptic paroxysm is not unfrequently
accompanied by an emission. Nocturnal emissions occur most
frequently after a person has been long in bed and supine, – the
cerebellum the lower part of the encephalon, if the occiput is,
as usually, raised by a pillow. That may, however, be explained
by the urine accumulating in the bladder during the continuance
of repose, and stimulating the generative parts connected with
this receptacle the more readily in the supine posture; and this
view is countenanced by the large quantity of urine generally
made on waking after nature has been thus relieving the chaste
unmarried man.

(L) The discharge of semen resembles the discharge of the fluids
of other glands. It is excited by the abundance of the fluid,
by mental or local stimulus, but most by mechanical irritation of the
extremity of the excretory duct, for in such a point of view must be
regarded the friction of the glans penis in copulation. The fluid is
accumulated in the bulb of the urethra, since it must be accumu-
lated somewhere to be emitted so copiously, and no other use can
be assigned to the bulb; and if the vesiculae do not receive it, no
other part than the bulb can; besides, it is upon the bulb that the
muscular contraction of the venereal paroxysm first acts. ‘“The
semen acting as a stimulus to the cavity of the bulb of the urethra,
the muscles of that part of the canal are thrown into action, the
fibres nearest the bladder probably act first, and those more
forward in quick succession, and the semen is projected with
some force. The blood in the bulb of the urethra is by the same
action squeezed forward, but requiring a greater impulse to propel
it, is rather later than the semen, on which it presses from behind;
[Seite 451] the corpus spongiosum being full of blood, acts almost as quick
as undulation, in which it is assisted by the corresponding con-
striction of the urethra, and the semen is hurried along with a
considerable velocity.”’f

(M) Zeno’s practice was conformable to his principles. He is
recorded to have embraced his wife but once in his life, and then
out of mere politeness.

Zenobia, the celebrated Queen of Palmyra and the East, was
as extraordinary a wife. She never admitted her husband’s em-
braces but for the sake of posterity, and, if her wishes were baffled,
she reiterated the experiment in the ensuing month.g

Epicurus, Democritus, &c. were nearly of the same opinion with
Zeno, and the Athletae, that their strength might be unimpaired,
never married. The Rabbies, in their anxiety to preserve their
nation, are said to have ordered, with the view of preventing the
loss of vigour, that a peasant should indulge but once a week, a
merchant but once a month, a sailor but twice a year, and a
studious man but once in two years. Moses forbad indulgence
before battle. Many plants die as soon as they have flowered:
stags and fish are emaciated after the sexual season, and the latter
are no longer fit to eat: while the prevention of fructification by
the removal of the sexual organs renders annual plants biennial and
the latter triennial.

SECT. XXXVII.
OF THE GENITAL FUNCTION OF WOMAN IN GENERAL.

[Seite 452]

539. As the male organs are fitted for giving, so the
female organs are fitted for receiving, and are correspondently
opposite to the former. In some parts, the organs of both
sexes are very analogous to each other in structure. Thus
the clitoris, lying under the pubes in the superior commissure
of the labia, agrees in many respects with the penis of the
male, although distinct from the urethra and therefore im-
perforate, and extremely small in well-formed women. It is
recorded to have been, in some adult females, of as compara-
tively large size as we stated it usually to be in the foetus,
(492) and these instances have probably given rise to most of
the idle stories of hermaphrodites.a Like the penis, it has
its corpora cavernosa, is capable of erection, is covered with a
prepuce, and secretes a smegma not dissimilar from the Lit-
trian. (525)b

540. From the clitoris the nymphae descend, also occasion-
ally of great size,c which has been the source of other idle
[Seite 453] tales,d and, like the clitoris, possessing a high degree of sen-
sibility. They appear in some measure to direct the stream
of urine, because the opening of the urethra, which is very
short in females, lies under their commencement; and it is
frequently ciliated, as it were, with small papillary folds.e

541. Under the termination of the urethra lies the opening
of the vagina,
surrounded by various kinds of cryptae, v. c. the
lacunae urethericae of De Graaf,f and the orifices of the
prostates, as they are improperly termed, of Casp. Bartholin,g
which secrete an unctuous mucus.h

542. Across the opening of the vagina, the Hymeni is
extended, – a membrane generally circular, and found, as
far as I know, in the human subject only, of this form and
in this situation.k

The remains of the lacerated hymen become the carunculae
myrtiformes,
which are of no regular number, and are infalli-
ble signs of the loss of virginity. (C)

543. The vagina, ascending between the urinary bladder
[Seite 454] and rectum, consists of a very vascular cellular parenchyma,
is surrounded inferiorly by the constrictor cunni,l and lined
internally with a very soft coat, which is marked by two
beautiful columns of rugae,m – an anterior and posterior,n
pouring forth a mucus into its cavity.

544. Upon the superior part of the vagina rests the uterus,
suspended on either side by its broad ligaments.

Its cylindrical cervixo is embraced by the vagina, and per-
forated by a narrow canal, which, like the vagina, is marked
by rugae denominated the arbor vitae, and is generally lined
with a viscid mucus at each opening, but particularly at the
superior or internal.

545. The substance of the uterus is peculiar, – a very
dense and compact parenchymap abounding in blood-vessels,
which run in a curious serpentine direction,q and the veins
are destitute of valves. It has also on its external surface a
supply of lymphatics,r and of nerves,s which occasion its
remarkable sympathy with other parts.

546. The uterus is covered externally with peritonaeum;
its internal cavity is small, and lined, especially at the fundus,
with a soft and very delicate spongy membrane, which is
composed, according to some, (92) of colourless arteries and
veins, (92) and,t according to others, of lymphatics.u

547. With respect to its muscularity, asserted by some,x
[Seite 455] and denied by others,y I may remark that I have never
yet discovered a true muscular fibre in any human uterus
which I have dissected, whether impregnated or unim-
pregnated, recent or prepared; but it must be allowed by
those who maintain the muscularity of the uterus, that the
fibres, which they call muscular, have qualities very different
from those of all others in the system, especially since they
themselves entertain doubts of the existence of nerves in the
substance of the uterus, without which, one cannot imagine a
true muscle. (302) I am daily more convinced that the
uterus has no true irratibility, (301) but, if any part of the
body has, a vita propria, (42) perfectly correspondent with the
peculiar motions and functions of the uterus, which are not
referable to any properties common to the similar parts,
(39-41) and which appeared to the ancient physicians and
philosophers so peculiar, that the uterus was by them deno-
minated an animal within an animal.z (D)

548. From the angles of the roof or fundus of the uterus
arise on each side the Fallopian tubesa – narrow and tortuous
canals, running in the upper part of the duplicature of the
broad ligaments, similar in texture to the vagina, except that
they are internally destitute of rugae, and lined by a very soft
and delicate spongy substance.

549. The extremity which opens into the abdomen is not
only larger than that which opens into the uterus, but is sur-
rounded by laciniated and, as it were, digitated fimbriae, pe-
culiar and elegant in structure, that are probably of great
importance in conception, since they appear to become turgid,
as well as the tubes themselves, during the venereal oestrum,
and to embrace the ovaria over which they lie.

[Seite 456]

550. The ovaria, or, as they were termed previously to the
time of Stenonis,b the female testes, are composed of a tough
and almost tendinous covering, and a dense and closely com-
pacted cellular substance, which contains in each ovarium
about fifteen ovula, called Graafian, viz. vesicles, or rather
drops of albuminous yellowish serum, which coagulates like
fine white of egg, if the recent ovarium is plunged into boiling
water.

551. Such an albuminous drop appears to be the chief
fluid that the female contributes in the business of conception,
and it is probable, that, during the adult state, these drops
become mature in succession, so that they one by one force
their way and finally burst the covering of the ovarium and
are received by the abdominal extremity of the Fallopian
tube.

552. Besides the albuminous drop which escapes from the
ovarium, another fluid, improperly styled female semen by the
ancients, is poured forth during the venereal oestrum. Its
nature, source, and quantity, are enveloped in no less mystery
than its office.c


NOTES.

(A) This custom is mentioned even by Strabo. (p. 284.)
Burckhardt states, that ‘“the daughters of the Arabs, Ababde and
Djaafere, who are of Arabian origin, and inhabit the western
bank of the Nile, from Thebes, as high as the cataracts, and
generally those of all the people to the south of Kenne and Esne,
as far as Sennaar, undergo circumcision, or rather excision of the
[Seite 457] clitoris, at the age of from three to six years.”’ The healing of
the wound is contrived to close the genitals, excepting at one
point for the passage of the urine, and as the adhesions are not
broken through till the day before marriage, and then in the
presence and with the assistance of the intended bridegroom
himself, no doubts of the fair’s virginity can harass his breast.d

The same traveller, as well as Browne and Frank, relates that
many slave girls have their genitals sewn up, and, like eunuchs,
become more valuable on account of their unfitness for sexual con-
nection. ‘“Mihi contigit,”’ says he, ‘“nigram quandam puellam,
quae hanc operationem subierat, inspicere. Labia pudendi acu
et filo consuta mihi plane detecta fuere, foramine angusto in
meatum urinae relicto.”’ He adds, ‘“Apud Esne, Siout, et Cairo,
tonsores sunt, qui obstructionem novacula amovent, sed vulnus
haud raro lethale evenit.”’

(B) Blumenbach states it to be a prolongation of the labia on
the authority of Le Vaillant, but we are now certain that W.
ten. Rhyne was correct, and that it is a prolongation of the
nymphae,e which often hang five inches below the labia. The
[Seite 458] same tribe of Hottentot women have another connate singularity
in the same quarter, common also to a variety of their sheep, and
the source of all the charms of the Hottentot Venus – a brilliant
example of denomination on the principle of lucus a non lucendo.
Her immense and tremulous buttocks displayed on dissection an
enormous accumulation of fat between the skin and muscles.f

(C) Cuvier declares he has found the hymen in very many
mammalia,g overthrowing the doctrine, so strenuously maintained
by Haller, of its existence for moral purposes. And, were it
confined to the human female, the various size of its aperture and
the various firmness of the organs, must ever leave those in uncer-
tainty who can on their marriage indulge in sensual doubts. We
read in Hume that Henry the Eighth, who certainly had his
share of experience, boasted his discrimination;h but in the east
the difficulty was in ancient times proverbial.i The lover of
Italian literature knows how exquisitely natural is every description
of Boccacio’s, and will recollect his story of the daughter of the
Sultan of Babylon: – ‘“Essa, che con otto uomini forse diecemilia
volte giaciuta era, allato a lui (al Re del Garbo) si coricò per
pulcella, e fecegliele credere, che così fosse: e Reina con lui
lietamente poi più tempo visse: e perciò si disse: Bocca basciata
non perde ventura, anzi rinnuova, come fa la luna.”’k

(D) The muscularity of the uterus is allowed by Malpighi,
Morgagni, Mery, Littre, Astruc, Ruysch, Monro, Vieussens,
Haller, &c.

Mr. C. Bell gives the following description of the muscular
structure of this organ.

‘“The muscularity of the uterus is proved by direct ocular
demonstation of the fibres in dissection, by the thickness of the
fibres corresponding with their degree of contraction, by the
visible action of the human uterus during life, by the resemblance
of the laws of its contraction, (as felt and as perceived in its
consequences) to those which govern the contraction of other
hollow viscera, and lastly, by the vermicular and intestinal
motions of the uterus, as seen in experiments upon brutes.”’

[Seite 459]

‘“The most curious and obviously useful part of the muscular
substance of the uterus has been overlooked; I mean the mus-
cular layer of fibres which covers the upper segment of the
gravid uterus. The fibres arise from the round ligaments, and
regularly diverging, spread over the fundus until they unite and
form the outermost stratum of the muscular substance of the
uterus.”’

‘“The substance of the gravid uterus is powerfully and dis-
tinctly muscular; but the course of the fibres is here less easily
described than might be imagined. Towards the fundus the
circular fibres prevail; towards the orifice the longitudinal fibres
are most apparent; and, on the whole, the most general course
of the fibres is from the fundus towards the orifice. This pre-
valence of longitudinal fibres is undoubtedly a provision for dimi-
nishing the length of the uterus, and for drawing the fundus
towards the orifice. At the same time these longitudinal fibres
must dilate the orifice, and draw the lower part of the womb
over the head of the child.’

‘“In making sections of the uterus while it retained its natural
muscular contraction, I have been much struck in observing how
entirely the blood-vessels were closed and invisible, and how
open and distinct the mouths of the cut blood-vessels became
when the same portions of the substance of the uterus were dis-
tended and relaxed.”’ ‘“A very principal effect of the muscular
action of the womb is the constringing of the numerous vessels
which supply the placenta, and which must be ruptured when the
placenta is separated from the womb.”’

‘“Upon inverting the uterus and brushing off the decidua, the
muscular structure is very distinctly seen. The inner surface of
the fundus consists of two sets of fibres, running in concentric
circles round the orifices of the Fallopian tubes. These circles at
their circumference unite and mingle, making an intricate tissue.
Ruysch, I am inclined to believe, saw the circular fibres of one
side only,l and not adverting to the circumstance of the Fallo-
pian tube opening in the centre of these fibres, which would
have proved their lateral position, he described the muscle as
seated in the centre of the fundus uteri. This structure of the
inner surface of the fundus of the uterus is still adapted to the
explanation of Ruysch, which was, that this produced contraction
[Seite 460] and corrugation of the surface of the uterus, which the placenta
not partaking of, the cohesion of the surface was necessarily
broken.’

‘“Further, I have observed a set of fibres of the inner surface
of the uterus which are not described. They commence at the
centre of the last described muscle, and having a course at first
in some degree vorticose, they descend in a broad irregular band
towards the orifice of the uterus. These fibres co-operating with
the external muscle of the uterus, and with the general mass of
fibres in the substance of it, must tend to draw down the fundus
and lower segment of the uterus over the child’s head.’

‘“I have not succeeded in discovering circular fibres in the os
tincae corresponding in place and office with the sphincter of
other hollow viscera, and I am therefore inclined to believe, that,
in the relaxing and opening of the orifice of the uterus, the
change does not result from a relaxation of muscular fibres sur-
rounding the orifice. Indeed, it is not reasonable to conceive
that the contents of the uterus are to be retained during the
nine months of gestation by the action of a sphincter muscle.
The loosening of the orifice, and that softening and relaxation
which precede labour, are quite unlike the yielding of a mus-
cular ring.”’m

SECT. XXXVIII.
OF THE MENSTRUA.

[Seite 461]

553. An important, and indeed the most frequent, function
of the uterus, is to afford a menstrual fluid during about
thirty years,a – a law imposed upon no other species of
animal:b – Woman, in the words of Pliny, is the only men-
struating animal. The females of no nation, hitherto ex-
plored, are exempt from this law,c since it is among the
requisites in the female sex for the propagation of the
species.

554. The commencement of this function usually occurs
about the fifteenth year, preceded by symptoms of plethora,
by a sense of heaviness in the chest, and of tension in the
loins, by lassitude of the limbs, &c. At first a reddish fluid
[Seite 462] generally flows from the genitals, becoming by degrees of a
more bloody colour, and at length completely so. This has
a peculiar odour, coagulates but imperfectly, and differs also in
other respects from blood. It continues to flow slowly for
some days, and the unpleasant symptoms above described
cease in the mean time.

555. This red discharge returns afterwards about every
four weeks, and continues about six days, during which time
a healthy woman is supposed to lose, perhaps, from five ounces
to half a pound of blood.

556. This action is usually suspended during pregnancy or
suckling.

It entirely ceases after existing about thirty years; and,
consequently, in our climate, about the forty-fifth year of
age.d

557. By some, the vagina, by others, and with more pro-
bability, the uterus, is considered the source of this discharge.
Instances of women menstruating although pregnant, or having
the uterus imperforate, or inverted and prolapsed, do not
favour the former opinion, but prove only the extraordinary
compensating powers of nature, who successfully employs new
ways, when the usual one is obstructed. On the other hand,
the dissection of many women who have died during men-
struation, has discovered the cavity of the uterus bedewed
with the catamenia.e We say nothing of the a priori argu-
ment – that the purpose of menstruation is probably to
render the womb fit for pregnancy and for nourishing the
foetus.f On the same account, the arteries rather than the
veins appear to be the source of the discharge.g

558. The investigation of the causes of the periodical return
[Seite 463] of this hemorrhage is so difficult, that we can obtain nothing
beyond probability, and must not dare to offer any thing
merely conjectural.h

The proximate cause is supposed to be a locali plethoric
congestion, – an opinion with which the symptoms preceding
menstruation, and the abundance and nature of the uterine
vessels, agree very well.

Among the remote causes may be enumerated the erect
posture peculiar to the human race, the peculiar parenchyma
of the uterus, and its vita propria.

It will be better to confess our ignorance of the cause of its
periodical return, than to indulge in vain hypotheses: for all
the periodical phenomena of health and disease, that continue
more than twenty-four hours,
have hitherto appeared among
the mysteries of animal nature.


NOTE.

I have known some women bear children before they had ever
menstruated, and others after menstruation had entirely ceased.
Many authors relate instances of women being mothers without
ever menstruating. Dr. Foderé attended a woman who had men-
struated but once, and that in her seventeenth year, although
thirty-five years of age, very healthy, and the mother of five
[Seite 464] children.k Morgagni mentions a mother and daughter who both
were mothers before menstruation. De la Motte saw cases of
this kind.l Sir Everard Home mentions a young woman who did
not menstruate till after her pregnancy.m Dr. Merriman has
lately mentioned that he attended a lady who had not menstru-
ated for a year and a half previous to her delivery.n

Neither is the pleasure of coition requisite to impregnation; for
the mother of one of Napoleon’s generals, as well as of other
children, told a friend of mine, ‘“Qu’elle n’avoit eu que le douleur
d’enfanter,”’ and the late Dr. Heberden has the following pas-
sage: – ‘“Duo mariti mihi narrarunt uxores suas in venerem
fuisse frigidas, omni ejus cupiditate et voluptate carentes; saepe
tamen gravidas factas esse, et recte peperisse.”’o Gall has known
similar cases.p There can therefore be no reason why a woman
should not be impregnated while asleep, if it is possible for her
not to be roused. In a preternaturally sound sleep this appears
to have been accomplished.q

Many women menstruate during the first five months of preg-
nancy. Heberden mentions one who always menstruated the
whole nine. She had lain in four times.

Women sometimes menstruate during suckling; but when this
happens, it is not generally till two or three months have elapsed
after delivery.

The reason that menstrual blood does not coagulate is its want
of fibrin: it is, therefore, really not blood. ‘“It has the proper-
ties,”’ says Mr. Brande, ‘“of a very concentrated solution of the
colouring matter of the blood in a diluted serum.”’r When the
catamenia are suppressed, a bloody fluid is sometimes periodically
discharged from the aerial or alimentary canal, or even from ulcers,
or some sound part of the skin.

To regard women during menstruation as unclean, is certainly
very useful, though the custom among the American women of
leaving their husbands’ tents at this period for separate hovels, is
[Seite 465] said by Hearne to give a pretence for quitting the good men
whenever they are sulky, – even twice or thrice in a month.r
Moses set a woman apart for seven days, and enacted, that any one
who touched her, or even any thing she had sat upon, should wash
his clothes and be unclean till evening; and if he lay with her,
should be unclean for seven days.s But menstruating women
have been regarded as mysteriously deleterious. The Americans
forbid them to walk near where there is fishing or hunting, or to
cross the path where deer, &c. have been carried, lest success
should be averted. In Pliny,t a menstruating woman is declared
the most pernicious thing in the world, – blighting fruit, destroy-
ing grafts, and hives of bees, drying up fields of corn, causing
iron and copper to rust and smell, driving dogs mad, and disgust-
ing even ants with their food, &c. &c. In this country it is firmly
believed by many that meat will not take salt if the process is
conducted by a menstruating woman.

Gall says that, when he practised at Vienna, ‘“he soon noticed
that during a certain time no women menstruated, and at another
a great many menstruated at once. As this frequently occurred,
it excited his attention, and made him fancy that perhaps men-
struation followed some law. He therefore kept a journal, in
which he marked the periods of a considerable number of women
for many years. It resulted that women are divided into two
great classes; each class having a different period. The women of
the same class all menstruate within eight days; after this time,
an interval of ten or twelve days follows, in which very few women
menstruate. At the end of these eight days begins the period of
the second great class, all the individuals of which also menstruate
within eight days. Suppose a woman of this class begins to
menstruate on the first of the month, she will have finished on the
eighth, if her catamenia continue eight days. Another, whose
catamenia last but three days, will finish on the third; or, in case
she did not begin till the fifth, she equally will finish on the
eighth, and so the rest; all who are regular, having an interval of
twenty-one, twenty-five, or twenty-six days. The following are
the two periods of women, each belonging to a different class,
such as they really occurred. In 1818: January 19, 3; Febru-
[Seite 466] ary 16, 1, 29; March 14, 28; April 10, 25; May 8, 23; June 5,
30, 19; July 26, 17; August 21, 13; September 18, 9; October
16, 8; November 14, 5; December 12, 2. It appears that each
woman menstruated thirteen times in the year; and that she who
began on the 3d of January, menstruates for the fourteenth
time on the last of December.’

‘“There are always women who, through some accidental cause,
have menstruated out of these two great periods; but after one or
two months they usually return to the class to which they belong.
Women out of health, young persons who have not yet fully com-
pleted their growth, and women who are near the final cessation
of the catamenia, are the most subject to these irregularities.’

‘“During my travels I continued my journal; and what struck
me the most was, that the two periods coincided in all countries,
at least in Europe. At the same time that women menstruated
in Vienna, Berlin, Hamburgh, and Amsterdam, they menstruated
also at Bern, Copenhagen, Paris,”’ &c.u

SECT. XXXIX.
OF CONCEPTION AND PREGNANCY.

[Seite 467]

559. We now come to the functions for which the genital
organs are given us, – to conception and the propagation of
the species, in treating of which, we shall first merely de-
scribe the phenomena that are observed in that admirable
and truly divine process, and afterwards investigate the
powers by which they are produced.a

560. In the first place, it is worthy of remark that the
human race, unlike most animals, does not copulate at certain
periods of the year,b but that with it every season is equally
favourable to the flame of love.

561. When a woman receives a manc and both burn
with that animal instinct which is superior to all others
in universality and violence, the uterus, swelling I imagine
with a kind of inflammatory orgasm,d and animated by its
vita propria (547), draws in, as it were, the semen ejacu-
lated by the male,e and appears to pour forth a fluid of its
[Seite 468] own against it (552); the tubes become rigid, and their
fimbriae embrace the ovaria, in one of which a ripe Graafian
vesicle bursts like an abscess, and its albuminous drop of fluid,
being absorbed by the abdominal opening of the tube, is
conveyed to the womb.

562. After the escape of this drop from the ovarium, the
lips of the wound are closed by an external cicatrix, and the
vascular membrane which contained the drop is converted into
a corpus luteum.f This is at first hollow, and full, as appears
to me, of a plastic lymph,g which in progress of time becomes
a fleshy nucleus,h surrounded by a thick, remarkably vas-
cular, cortex.i (A)

563. After the impregnation of the womb, the canal which
runs along the cervix of the uterus is thoroughly closed, espe-
cially towards its superior or internal orifice (544), so that
superfoetation, properly so called,k cannot naturally take
place. There are scarcely any constant and infallible signs
[Seite 469] by which the woman herself can be very certain of the
changes that occur within during conception.l

564. The internal surface of the uterus becomes lined
with plastic, and, as it were, inflammatory, lymph (15), which
forms the tunica caduca or decidua of Hunter.m This is said
to consist of two laminae, – the crassan investing the uterus,
except at the orifices of the tubes and of the canal of the
cervix,o – and the caduca reflexa,p so denominated from
being, after the ovum begins to be formed and to take root
in the decidua, continued over the other parts of the ovum,
just as the peritonaeum is continued over the abdominal
viscera.

565. The ovum is produced before the embryo which it is
intended to contain, but scarcelyq begins to be formed earlier
than the second week from conception. (C)

566. This ovum consists,r besides the external accessary
[Seite 470] covering afforded by the caduca of Hunter, of two proper
velamenta or membranes.

Of an exterior – the chorions of the moderns, the external
surface of which is, from the first, nearly covered with in-
expressibly beautiful knotty flocculi; whence it has been
called the flocculent, leafy, or mossy, chorion. By means of
these flocculi, which are the rudiments of the foetal portion of
the future placenta, the ovum takes root, as it were, in the
uterine decidua. (564)

Of an interior, – styled amnion,t possessing no blood-
vessels (5), delicate, but remarkably tough.

567. These two proper membranes of the ovum differ
very much from each other in size the first week after the
formation of the ovum; the chorion appears a large bladder,
to the interior of which the amnion, like a much smaller
bladder, adheres in that part only which nearly corresponds
with the centre of the external flocculent surface of the
chorion.

The remaining space between the chorion and amnion
is filled by a clear water, which may be called the liquor
chorii,
of doubtful origin and short duration.

For, since the amnion increases more rapidly than the
chorion, and approximates to the latter even during the
first months after conception,u in proportion to its ap-
proximation must this fluid necessarily be absorbed.

568. The internal membrane of the ovum is filled, from its
first formation (565) to the last moment of pregnancy, with
the liquor amnii,x an aqueous fluid, of a yellowish colour,
nearly inodorous, of a bland and scarcely saltish taste, and
[Seite 471] compared to albumen, from which, however, more accurate
investigation proves it to differ considerably.y

Its source is doubtful and cannot be referred to the foetus
or umbilical chord, because it exists in abortive ova containing
neither.

Its quantity is inversely as the size of the foetus.

Hence we may conjecture that its use is rather to defend
the foetus while nearly gelatinous and most liable to suffer
from external injuries, than to afford nourishment, which
latter opinion is, indeed, refuted by the numerous instances of
full-grown and well-fleshed foetuses destitute of a head.z

569. The embryoa, which swims in this fluid, suspended
by the umbilical chord, like fruit by its stalk, begins to be
formed about the third week after conception:b at first it
appears of rather a globular shape, resembling a little bean or
kidney, from which the rudiments of the extremities grow,
and on which the face is at length formed, &c.c

[Seite 472]

570. By nature woman is uniparous, conceiving but one
foetus. Frequently, however, she produces twins, the pro-
portion of which to single births, Süssmilch estimates as 1 to
70.d In these cases, each child has usually its own amnion,
whereas there is a common chorion.e

571. The medium of connection between the mother and
child are the umbilical chord and the placenta into which
it is distributed.

572. The umbilical chord, which appears coeval with the
embryo, varies exceedingly in length and thickness, in the
place of its insertion into the placenta, in its varicose knots,
&c. It always consists of three blood-vessels twisted spirally
together, viz. a vein running to the liver of the foetus, and
two arteries arising from its internal iliacs or hypogastrics.
They are separated from each other by cellular septa of
various directions,f and are throughout narrowed internally
by nodules or the quasi-valves of Hoboken.g

They are collected into a chord by means of a cellular
membrane, which is full of a peculiar, very limpid fluid,
called Whartonian, resembling gelatin in appearance, and
is surrounded externally by a continuation of the amnion.

573. At the part of the chord which is united to the foetus,
there enters the urachush between the two umbilical arteries
[Seite 473] (486), and it arises from the fundus of the urinary bladder.
In the human subject, it is pervious but for a very short
distance, and, indeed, soon disappears altogether. In many
other species of mammalia it leads to the allantoid,i which
the human foetus does not possess. For I think that the
problematical vesicula umbilicalis, found in human ova be-
tween the chorion and amnion,k is not analogous to the
allantoidl but to the tunica erythroides which is seen in the
ova of some mammalia, and to the vitellary sac of the incu-
bated egg. It is found in healthy human ova, the second or
third month after conception, too frequently and of too
constant an appearance to be regarded as accidental, morbid,
or monstrous.m

574. The blood-vessels of the chord pass to the placenta,
of whose origin from the leafy surface of the chorion that is
united to the decidua crassa, we formerly spoke. Hence
we discover how the substance of the placenta is double, –
[Seite 474] the uterine portion derived from the decidua and forming a
spongy parenchyma, the foetal arising from the umbilical
vessels distributed on the chorion.

The increase of the ovum is irregular, the smooth part of
the chorion growing more rapidly than the mossy; conse-
quently, the size of the placenta bears a greater proportion to
that of the ovum, the shorter the time that has elapsed
since conception, and a smaller, as the period of labour ap-
proaches.

As pregnancy advances, its texture becomes gradually
more compact; furrowed and lobular on its external surface,
which lies towards the uterus, and smooth on the inner
surface, which is covered by the amnion and lies next the
foetus. It varies greatly in size, thickness, figure, and situa-
tion, or place of attachment to the uterus; generally it
adheres to the fundus; it is equally destitute of sensibility
and true irritability.

575. Although all agree that the placenta is the chief
instrument in the nourishment of the foetus, the true mode of
its operation, and its mutual relation to the uterus and foetus,
have given rise to great controversies in modern times.
After all, the truth appears to be this, – that no anastomosis
exists between the blood-vessels of the uterus and of the
chord, but that the oxygenised blood which proceeds from
the uterus to the portion of the placenta that was originally
the decidua crassa, is absorbed by the extreme radicles of
the umbilical vein distributed upon the mossy chorion, and
carried to the great venous trunk of the chord; while the
carbonised blood returning from the foetus, through the
umbilical arteries, being poured in the same manner into the
substance of the placenta, is absorbed by the venous radicles
of the uterine portion of the placenta, and returned to the
uterus.

This account is supported by very careful but fruitless
attempts to inject the umbilical by means of the uterine
vessels, and the uterine by means of the umbilical; or to
tinge the bones of the foetus with red, by giving madder to
[Seite 475] the mother during pregnancy. It is also confirmed by the
difference observable between the blood of the mother and
foetus. (E)

576. During the progress of pregnancy, while the foetus
and secundines are increasing, the uterus of course under-
goes important changes,n not only in size, but in situation,
figure, and especially in its texture, which is considerably
changed both with respect to its blood-vessels and the inter-
vening parenchyma, from the constant and great congestion
of fluids that occurs in it.

In proportion as the uterus increases, the blood-vessels
from being tortuous and narrow become more straighto and
capacious, and the veins, near the termination of pregnancy,
acquire so great a bulkp as to have been taken for sinuses by
some anatomists.

The parenchyma becomes gradually more thin and lax,q
especially in the part nearest the ovum, so that although the
gravid uterus is very thick, particularly at its fundus, and in
a living and healthy woman is turgid with blood and replete
with vital energy, nevertheless it is soft, and its general
nature, (especially after death, when, as Arantius long since
remarked, it almost appears lamellated if pregnancy was
advanced,r) extremely different from the firm and compact
substance of the unimpregnated uterus.

577. The remaining important changess of the gravid
uterus, as well as those still more remarkable ones which
occur to the ovum and foetus, we will briefly relate in the
[Seite 476] order of the ten lunar months according to which pregnancy
is at present very conveniently calculated.

578. As the uterus immediately after impregnation always
becomes turgid, (561) so, increasing from that period in bulk
and weight, it descends rather lower into the upper part of
the vagina, still retaining its former figure during the first
three months, except that its fundus becomes a little more
convex and its anterior portion somewhat recedes from the
posterior, and that its cavity, before extremely small and
nearly triangular, becoming expanded by the fluids of the
ovum, accommodates itself to the subglobular form of the
latter.

The ovum itself, which about the termination of the first
month is of the size of a pigeon’s egg, and possesses both
deciduae separate from each other, and the minute amnion
separate from the larger chorion, commonly attains, near the
end of the third month, the size of a goose’s egg; the decidua
reflexa then very closely approaches to the crassa, and the
amnion to the chorion; the former is filled with the large
quantity of fluid which bears its name and defends from the
pressure of the womb the tender embryo that is now very
small in proportion to it, scarcely indeed equal in size to a
young mouse, and hanging headlong and rather unsteadily.t

579. From the fourth month, the uterus becomes more
oval or subglobular, and, its neck gradually softening, short-
ening, and almost disappearing or rather extending laterally,
it again tends upwards and begins to rise to the superior part
of the pelvis. At the same time the tubes ascend with the
convex fundus of the uterus, and are extended and elongated,
but adhere to the sides of this organ so firmly, that half of
their length only is separate from it, and, at first sight, they
appear to arise from the middle of it, – a circumstance which
gave occasion to an erroneous opinion of the enormous in-
crease of its fundus.

After this period, the foetus acquires a size more propor-
tional to the capacity of the ovum, and becoming, at the same
[Seite 477] time, conglobated together, acquires a more fixed situation,
which it preserves to the end of pregnancy; the head is in-
clined to the chest, and the back bent and generally placed
rather towards one side of the mother.

580. In the middle of pregnancy, – at the end of the fifth
month, so much has the uterus increased, that its fundus is
nearly between the navel and pubes, and pregnancy becomes
externally evident.

From this period, the foetus by its motion is generally more
distinctly perceptible to the mother: this circumstance, how-
ever, occurs at no definite time.

581. The uterus and foetus continuing to increase during
the remaining five lunar months, the fundus of the former
reaches the umbilicus about the sixth month; after the eighth,
having risen higher, it approaches the scrobiculus cordis. In
the mean time, the cervix is gradually obliterated, flattened,
and attenuated.

582. In the tenth month, the uterus, overwhelmed, as it
were, with its own bulk, – being eleven inches in length and
nine or more in breadth, begins again to sink.

Each decidua, but especially the reflexa adhering to the
chorion, having for many months been growing thinner, now
almost appears a net-work of short white fibres.u

The larger diameter of the placenta is now nine inches;
its thickness one inch; its weight one pound or upwards.

The length of the umbilical chord is generally eighteen
inches or more, – which is considerable if compared with
that of other mammalia.

The weight of a common full grown foetus is usually about
seven pounds; its length about twenty inches.x

[Seite 478]

The quantity of the liquor amnii is too variable to be de-
fined; but, when the foetus is strong, it seldom exceeds a
pound.


NOTES.

(A) The important contents of this and the preceding paragraph
demand farther attention.

Several questions occur. 1. What is the state of the female
organs during the vehemence of desire? 2. How far does the
semen masculinum penetrate? 3. Do the Graafian vesicles burst
from the influence of the semen masculinum, or from mere excite-
ment, the semen impregnating only the contents of the vesicles
after their escape from the ovaria? 4. At what period do the
Graafian vesicles burst?

1. Mr. Cruikshank, on inspecting the genitals of a female rabbit
during heat, observed appearances nearly similar to those de-
scribed by Harvey, Graaf, Ruysch, Diembroeck, &c.y He found
them all prodigiously turgid with blood; the vagina was absolutely
of a dark mulberry colour, and on the ovaria were prominent
spots which injection proved to be vascular and which were swollen
Graafian vesicles; the contents of the vesicles, however, remained
transparent: the Fallopian tubes were also nearly black, writhing
in an extraordinary manner, having a strong peristaltic motion,
and embracing the ovaria with their fimbriated extremity so
closely as to lacerate on an attempt to disengage them.z These
observations were all confirmed by Mr. Saumarez.a During co-
pulation, this state of the organs must be carried to the highest
pitch of intensity.

2. Harvey could never detect semen in the uterus after copu-
lation.b Nor De Graaf in the vagina.c Verheyen found a large
quantity in the uterus of a cow, six hours after copulation.d
[Seite 479] Galen always discovered it in the uterus of brutes after copu-
lation.e Leeuwenhoeck, in the case of rabbits. Ruysch found
it not only in the uterus, but in the Fallopian tubes of two women
killed soon after connection.f Postellus, Riolan, Carpus, and
Cheselden also believed they found it in the uterus.g Haller
once found it in the uterus of a sheep, forty-five minutes after
coition.h Fallopius frequently found it in the tubes.i Haller
very justly remarks that some of those who believed they saw
semen in the uterus, probably saw mucus only. He inclines,
however, with almost all physiologists, to the opinion that the
semen does enter the uterus. The length of the penis, the force
of emission, the peristaltic action of the vagina during the heat of
some brutes,k the existence of a bifid glans with two orifices in
the penis of the males of some species the females of which have
two ora uteri,l are circumstances of no little weight in favour of
the opinion that the semen does penetrate at least into the uterus.
Mr. Hunter, however, actually saw it projected into the uterus
of a bitch which he killed by dividing the spinal marrow while
she was united with the male.m

[Seite 480]

Dr. Haighton, with the view of ascertaining whether it is ne-
cessary to impregnation that the semen pass along the Fallopian
tubes, made a number of experiments on the effects of tying and
dividing them in rabbits at different periods relative to coition.n
The peristaltic action of the tubes, and their adhesion to the
ovaria during the venereal ardour, argue strongly in favour of the
semen being conveyed along them, because we can hardly suppose
these circumstances to begin to occur at this period for the pur-
pose of conveying the contents of the Graafian vesicle, as this
does not burst till a considerable time after copulation. Dr.
Haighton, indeed, says that these changes in the tubes did not
take place in his experiments (all made, however, after copulation),
till long (forty-eight hours) after copulation, – till the ovaria were
about to discharge into them their vesicular fluids. In this he
agrees with Bartholin, De Graaf, Schurig, Deswig, and Lang, who
maintained, like him, that the semen, at least as far as examination
went, does not enter the tubes.o But Mr. Cruikshank and Mr.
Saumarez, two of the latest experimenters, assert the contrary in
the detail of their experiments, and, as Haller remarks of the old
partisans, the negative experiments of the former cannot overturn
the positive testimony of the latter, – ‘“Eorum experimenta
negativa non possunt affirmantium fidem evertere:”’ Sbaragli,
Verheyen, Hartman, and Duverney, could find no change in the
state of the tubes at any time, although their negative observ-
ations are completely overthrown by the positive observations of
all others who have enquired experimentally into the subject.
Besides, the great abundance of blood in the genital organs,
during the sexual ardour, must cause the tubes to enlarge and
apply themselves to the ovaria: this, as Haller mentions upon the
[Seite 481] authority of Hartsoeker, occurs even in the dead body by means
of injection.

Dr. Haighton, however, to prevent the semen from passing
along the tubes, divided one of them in virgin rabbits, and, after
the wound was healed, admitted the animal to the male. The
ovarium on this side contained corpora lutea equally with the
other, proving that the Graafian vesicles had burst, although the
semen could not possibly have reached the ovarium.p No foetus,
notwithstanding, was discoverable in any instance: on the other
side (for in the rabbit the uterus is double) foetuses were found
equal in number to the corpora lutea. Dr. Haighton concludes
that impregnation may take place without the advance of semen
along the tubes. And his conclusion is perfectly just, according
to his test of impregnation, – the escape of the contents of a
Graafian vesicle. But I apprehend this to be no more deserving
the title of a test of impregnation than the emission of the semen
masculinum. Impregnation is that change wrought by means of
the male semen in the contents of a Graafian vesicle, which enables
them to become a foetus. Now this was never effected when the
tube was divided: – although the presence of corpora lutea
proved vesicles to have burst, yet a foetus was in no one instance
discovered: in other words, the contents of the Graafian vesicles
were in no one instance impregnated. Hence I conclude, with the
old physiologists before the time of Harvey, that the conveyance
of semen beyond the vagina, – where it may come in contact
with the contents of an ovarian vesicle, is absolutely requisite to
impregnation; and perhaps the state of the tubes during the heat
of some brutes (page 478), and the occasional growth of foetuses
in the tubes, abdomen, and in the ovaria themselves,q render it
[Seite 482] likely that the semen passes even into the tubes. But Dr.Haigh-
ton’s experiments were unnecessary for this conclusion, because
pathological observation proves sterility to be an invariable con-
sequence of complete obstruction in any point between the os ex-
ternum and ovaria, – in the Fallopian tubes, in the uterus, or in
the vagina.r

When the obstruction in such cases is so far within as to allow
the deposition of the semen, the sterility disproves the notion of
Bartholin and Stenonis, – that this fluid operates by absorption.

3. Dr. Haighton imagines that the bursting of the vesicle is the
sympathetic effect of the semen in the vagina or uterus.s Now
[Seite 483] although on the side where the tube was divided the ovarium did
discharge the contents of some vesicles, it is not proved to have
done this through the operation of the semen. The venereal
ardour alone was shown in the observations of Mr. Saumarez as
well as in those of Mr. Cruikshank (and the same has been re-
marked in the human female)t to produce, among the other great
changes of the sexual organs, the enlargement of the vesicles.
Nay we are certain that it will occasion the rupture of the vesicle
without any commerce with the male. The hens of poultry lay
eggs (incapable indeed of being hatched), although separated
from the cock, – a circumstance proving that in them the oestrum
is sufficient to enlarge and burst a vesicle, apply the tube to the
ovarium, and occasion it to convey away an ovum. Aristotle and
Harvey relate that many birds lay eggs from mere titillation; the
latter proved it experimentally in the thrush, in the sparrow, and
in a favourite parrot belonging to his wife. Blumenbach is satisfied
with the accuracy of the accounts which he has read of corpora
lutea in virgins, and since he wroteu we have been furnished with
abundant instances of their appearance in virgins not only of our
own kind but of quadrupeds. Sir Everard Homex asserts that
the corpus luteum is not a formation that fills up the cavity of a
ruptured vesicle, but a substance in which the ovum is produced,
and consequently no proof of conception. However this may be,
the case remains the same; for he has repeatedly seen ovaria of
both human and quadruped virgins that had discharged ova. In-
deed he revives the old opinion of Kerckring,y – that ova grow
[Seite 484] to maturity in succession and are discharged without copulation.
On this point I find it difficult in the present state of our know-
ledge to make up my mind; but I think it pretty evident that,
although the semen has no share in bursting the ovarium, the
high excitement of copulation contributes very considerably to
it, since the inferior degree of excitement which occurs during
the heat of brutes and in the lascivious states of the human
virgin is sufficient frequently to effect the discharge of ova. It is
perhaps impossible otherwise to explain the fact that ova are so
commonly expelled from the ovaria, and impregnated whenever a
connection is arbitrarily or casually brought about. Hen pigeons,
if kept with males, lay not only at an earlier age, but all the year
round, instead of merely in the spring.

How the semen operates upon the ovarian secretion in fecund-
ating and in transmitting the paternal peculiarities, is a mystery
impenetrably concealed from human curiosity.

4. The rupture of the ovarium has been said not to occur till
some time subsequent to coition.

Dr. Haighton saw the ovaria of rabbits bursting at the end
of forty-eight hours, but never found any thing of regular form
before the sixth day. Mr. Cruikshank says that he saw no ova
in their tubes earlier than about the beginning of the third day.

(B) An instance of superfoetation of the description granted by
Blumenbach occurred to the late Mr. Blackaller of Weybridge.
A white woman of very loose character left her husband, and
some time afterwards returned pregnant to her parish, and was de-
livered in the workhouse of twins, ‘“one of which,”’ says Mr.
Blackaller, in an account which he sent me, ‘“was born of a darker
colour than I have usually observed the infants of negroes in the
West Indies; the hair quite black, with the woolly appearance
usual to them, with nose flat and lips thick:”’ the second child had
all the common appearances of white children. Another is re-
corded by Dr. Dewees.z The mother was a servant in Mont-
gomery County, and, on the report that she was pregnant, a black
and a white man both ran away from the estate. Her mistress
was present at the birth of the black and the white twins, and they
were afterwards often seen by Dr. Dewees. One occurred at
Rouen in 1806, in which there was a white and mulatto child, and
[Seite 485] the woman, the chère amie of a white, confessed, on close examin-
ation, that she had twice yielded to the embraces of a negro when
she supposed herself four or five months advanced in pregnancy.a
The case of a married negress, who one morning admitted a white to
her arms as soon as her black husband had risen, and produced a
black and a mulatto, is recorded by Dr. Moseley as having oc-
curred within his own time at Jamaica.b The most recent was
recorded in 1821, by M. de Bouillon, a negress brought forth a
negro and a mulatto child, and confessed having received the em-
braces of a white and a negro the same evening.c

We may, therefore, agree with Pliny,d who asserts that ‘“Ubi
paululum temporis inter duos conceptus intercessit, utrumque
perficitur:”’ and believe his account of a girl in Proconnesus who
produced twins, one resembling her master, the other the bailiff,
having favoured both on the same day; no less than the other
case of the same kind to which he alludes, and that there was
some foundation for the story of Hercules and Iphicles.

The uterus has been sometimes wanting,e sometimes destitute
of anterior opening,f and sometimes double,g in which last case
some imagine superfoetation possible at any period after the first
conception, provided each uterus have a distinct orifice. It has
been removed after inversion, and when diseased, and lives have
of late been saved by this operation.h

A dissection is described by Dr. Granvilleiof a woman who had
borne eleven children, male and female, and who died soon after
being delivered of twins of both sexes. The right half only of
the uterus was found developed, the left extending scarcely half
an inch from the centre and shaped to a perfectly straight line:
[Seite 486] the left tube and ovary did not exist. This proves, if the proof
were required, that one ovary is, like one testis, sufficient, not
only for procreation, but for the procreation of offspring of both
sexes. The writer thinks the case useful in proving also both
that twins and twins of different sexes may come from the same
ovary, contrary to the opinion of all physiologists, he says, except
Sir Everard Home. The not very uncommon fact, however, of
three or more children being produced at a birth, has always
proved the former circumstance, and the opinion, not held by Sir
Everard Home, was relinquished a century ago.k

As each foetus, where there are more than one, may possess a
separate placenta and chorion, and may come into the world soli-
tarily, at some months distance perhaps from the other delivery,
we see how easily practitioners may fancy a superfoetation, when
there is simply an expulsion of twins, triplets, &c. at different
periods. Still, I think, there can be no doubt of many cases of
the simultaneous birth of children apparently of different periods,
and of the birth of children apparently of the same period at in-
tervals of a few months.l

(C) Mr. Bauer says he has detected the human ovum on the
eighth day from coition: that it consisted of two membranes: –
the external open throughout its length, but with its edges turned
inwards, like shells of the genus voluta; the internal pointed at
one end and obtuse at the other, slightly contracted in the middle,
and containing, besides a slimy fluid, two globules that might be
moved by pressure, but quickly resumed their situations, and were
probably the rudiments of the heart and brain.m

(D) During fifty-seven years, above 78,000 women were deli-
vered at the Dublin Lying-in-Hospital, and the proportion of
women producing twins or more was about 1 in 57.

The proportion of males to females, about 10 to 9.n

[Seite 487]

According to Dr. Hufeland the numbers in Germany are as 21
to 20, born from 1811 to 1820 inclusively. The number of males
exceeded that of females every year, and in the whole was
1,664,557, that of the females 1,590,510.o

According to the registers of the lying-in-hospital of Paris,
during twenty years, 37,441 deliveries occurred; in 36,922 of which
was only one child; in 444, two; and in 5 three. No greater
number occurred, nor even for forty years before, in the whole of
which sixty years were 108,000 deliveries. Of 54 twin deliveries,
taken at random from the list, 15 were of a boy and girl; 13 were
of girls; and 26 were of boys, – nearly half of the whole number.p

Four children are sometimes produced, and even five; but this
is the highest number known, except in the case of the wax
matron, who, for a judgment, once lay in of as many as there are
days in the year.

There is a notion among the vulgar that if twins are of different
sexes they cannot breed. This I know to be erroneous.

Some women produce more than one child at a birth repeatedly,
and Gottlob mentions one who blessed her husband with eleven
children at three births.

(E) Fourcroy is almost the only author who has examined the
blood of the foetus,q and his observations, Berzelius remarks,
‘“seem to have been made by chance, and not to be deduced from
any experiment;”’ ‘“credible authors have asserted that the eye
cannot distinguish between the arterial and venous blood of the
foetus.”’r Bichat could observe no difference in the arterial and
venous blood of the umbilical chords of several guinea-pigs ex-
amined while the mother’s respiration was still continuing, after an
opening had been made into the abdomen, ‘“ – les deux sangs
offroient une noirceur egale.”’s So too in regard to dogs.t

Yet Dr. Jeffrey,u Dr. Chapman,x and Dr. Bostocky have seen the
arterial and venous blood differing in colour, and the latter declares
[Seite 488] the difference to be so obvious that he ‘“feels surprised”’ at the
opinions of Bichat and Berzelius.

The changes in the blood can, however, be dispensed with
by the foetus much longer than by the adult. For respiration may
be deferred a considerable time after birth (as formerly men-
tioned, p. 129.), circulation continuing even although the placenta
has been expelled, especially if the temperature is maintained by
a warm-bath. When respiration has commenced, its continuance
is less dispensable, but for some time more so than subsequently.

In regard to the vascular connection between the mother and
child, Prevost and Dumas ascertained that the blood of the foetal
and adult goat totally differ in regard to the red particles, – that
these are much larger (as large again) in the foetus, just as Hewson
observed to be the case in the viper and chicken; see supra p. 20.

So fine is the connection between the mother and foetus, that
madder, while it dyes the former, does not appear in the latter.z
But prussiate of potass given to the mother is said to be detected
in the foetus.a

The chick, nevertheless, in the egg, cut off from all intercourse
with the mother, requires its blood to be purified by the external
air: for if the shell is varnished, the chick dies; and if, during the
latter half of incubation, the shell is carefully opened, the chorion,
to use the language of Blumenbach, presents one of the most
splendid spectacles in the organic creation; the arteries are seen
carrying blood of a bright scarlet, and the veins of a livid red.b
The foetus of the kangaroo has no vascular connection with the
mother, being surrounded by a kind of jelly, and is supplied with
external air by tubes opening into the uterus from without for
this express purpose.

In the wonderful world of insects, generation depends much, in
some instances, upon national circumstances. In a hive of bees,
for example, but one female has her sexual organs developed and
breeds; the others of her sex labour only, unless she die, when
the hive feed up another with a richer sort of honey which
brings out the organs, and she becomes the new queen and breeds.
A smaller number of the hive are males, and do no work, but are
[Seite 489] destined solely to impregnate the queen, and her successors in
case of her death. And this, indeed, is a serious business. The
queen, a few days after her birth, takes an airing, in which she is
sure to meet with one of her swains, and he generally leaves his
organs in her and dies of his laceration in half an hour. Happily,
however, this single embrace impregnates all the eggs for two
years (though she lays about 1500 a month all the year round)
or perhaps for life.

SECT. XL.
OF THE NISUS FORMATIVUS.

[Seite 490]

583. Having simply described the phenomena of con-
ception, and the changes which constant observation proves to
occur both in the human ovum and the contained foetus during
pregnancy, we now proceed to those powers by which it
appears that the stupendous process of generation is effected.

584. Even in our memory some physiologists of reputation
have contented themselves with roundly asserting that true
generation never occurs, but that the whole human race pre-
existed in the genitals of our first parents, in the shape of
previously-formed germs which become evolved in succession.

Some of these imagined the germs to be the spermatic
animalcules of the male;a others imagined them to exist in
the ovaries of the mother.b

585. This hypothesis of the successive evolution of germs
[Seite 491] pre-formed from the creation, must, if carefully examined, be
rejected.c

Not only is the superfluous and useless creation, which is
supposed, of innumerable germs never arriving at evolution,
repugnant to reason, but so many preternatural conditionsd
and such a multiplication of natural powerse are assumed, that
it is perfectly irreconcileable with sound physiology.

Add to this, that, of the phenomena adduced in its favour,
no one is sufficiently consonant with truth to establish the hy-
pothesis.f

On the other hand, we have indubitable observations which
refute it directly and completely.

586. The less this hypothesis of evolution, as it is com-
monly termed, is found consonant with fact and the rules of
philosophising, the more strongly does the opposite opinion
recommend itself to our notice by its simplicity and cor-
respondence with nature, supposing as it does, not an evol-
ution of fictitious germina by conception, but a true generation
and gradual formation of a new conception from the hitherto
formless genital matter.

587. This true generation by successive formation has
been variously described by physiologists, but the following
we consider as the true account.

1. The matter of which organised bodies, and therefore the
human frame, are composed, differs from all other matter in
this, – that it only is subject to the influence of the vital
powers.g

2. Among the orders of vital powers, one is eminently re-
markable and the least disputable of all, which, while it acts
[Seite 492] upon that matter, hitherto shapeless but mature, imparts to it
a form regular and definite, although varying according to the
particular nature of the matter.

To distinguish this vital power from the rest, permit us to
designate it – nisus formativus.

3. The nisus formativus occurs to the genital matter, when
this is mature and committed to the uterus in a proper con-
dition and under proper circumstances, produces in it the
rudiments of conception, and gradually forms organs fitted for
particular purposes; preserves this structure during life, by
nourishing (455, sq.) the body; and reproduces, (459) as far
as it can, any part accidentally mutilated.h

588. We therefore think it very probable that those
fluids which, during a successful coition, are thrown into the
cavity of the uterus (527, 533, 551), require a certain period
for becoming intimately mixed, acted upon, and matured;
that, after this preparatory stage, the nisus formativus is
excited in them, vivifying and shaping the hitherto shape-
less spermatic matter partly into the beautiful containing
ovum (565) and partly into the contained embryo; (569)
and that this is the reason of our inability, notwithstanding
the present perfection of optical instruments, to discover,
during the first days after conception, any thing more than
shapeless fluids in the womb, without the faintest trace of
[Seite 493] the form of an embryo, which, however, about the second or
third week, suddenly as it were, become observable.

589. We should exceed the limits of these institutions,
were we to adduce many of the arguments which may be
drawn from facts, to illustrate, as in our opinion they most
clearly do, the influence of the nisus formativus in generation.
We will, however, venture to mention, as briefly as possible,
a few, whose weight will, on a little close reflection, be suffi-
ciently evident.

590. Such, in the history of hybrid animals, is the sin-
gular experiment of impregnating those which are prolific,
for many generations, with male semen of the same species,
by means of which the form of the young hybrids becomes so
progressively different from the original maternal con-
figuration, as to approach more and more to that of the father,
till, by a kind of arbitrary metamorphosis, it is absolutely
converted into it.i

591. Such, in our knowledge of monsters (which, according
to the hypothesis of evolution, are nearly all maintained to
have pre-existed in the germs from the first creation), is the
well-known fact – that among certain domestic species of
animals, and especially among sows, monstrosities are very
common, whereas in the original wild variety they are ex-
tremely uncommon.

592. While the phenomena of reproduction are all much
more explicable by the nisus formativus than by the pre-
existence of germs for every part, some particular instances
(v. c. that of the nails, which, after the loss of the first phalanx
of the fingers, have been known to be reproduced on the
neighbouring middle phalanx,k) admit evidently of no other
solution. (A)

[Seite 494]

593. From an impartial view of each side of the question,
it will clearly appear, that the defenders of the germs must
allow to the male semen, not only an exciting power, as they
do, but likewise great formative powers, and thus their
doctrine stands in need of the assistance of the nisus for-
mativus; while our explanation, on the contrary, is sufficient,
without the aid of pre-existing germs, to explain the pheno-
mena of generation. There can, consequently, be no reason
for multiplying the entia, as they are called, unneces-
sarily. (B)


NOTES.

(A) See other examples in Note (B) Sect. XXXI.

The cut part of half a potatoe has been seen covered with little
tubercles, similar to those on the convex surface, and from which
fresh potatoes originate. See Keratry, Inductions Physiolog. et
Morales.

(B) As in speaking of peculiar properties of any organ, Blumen-
bach designates them vitae propriae, without any explanation, in-
tending merely the expression of the fact; so, in designating the
power of the united genital male and female living fluids to
change to an organised system, nisus formativus, he simply ex-
presses the fact of the existence of this power.

Although in man, and all animals which have two sexes, two
fluids co-operate, it would appear from the facts mentioned,
p. 479, that the proportion of the female fluid is much the greater;
and, indeed, there is no certainty that the male fluid combines
with the female into a mass, – does more than influence it; as eggs
are laid by birds without sexual intercourse, differing in no visible
particular from those which are prolific; and the germ of many
animals, also, particularly of the frog, is visible in the ovum before
fecundation. The influence of the male, however, is much more
[Seite 495] than to excite development, as the offspring more or less resem-
bles the male, and often in the most minute points. The
not uncommon occurrence of hair, teeth, and fat in the ovaria
of virgins, would be an argument for the existence of the pri-
mordia in the female, were they not found also sometimes in other
parts and in the testes of the male.

The supposition of the frame, if one may so speak, of the
future animal being furnished by the female, does not imply its
microscopic existence in her before the evolution of the ovaria,
nor of all mankind in Eve. The embryo has the power of grow-
ing and of developing organs; the genital fluids, of changing
to an embryo: but the power of developing organs does not imply
their previous microscopic existence in the embryo, nor the power
of changing to an embryo, the existence of an embryo. The
fancy of the existence of all the human race, inclosed like pill-
boxes – embôitement, in our hapless general mother, is as un-
founded in fact as it is preposterous.

Domestication has a great influence upon fecundity. The
sow, cat, and pigeon are by no means so prolific in the wild
state. The wild sow farrows but once a year, and has a litter
never of more than ten: the domestic sow commonly twice a
year, and perhaps each litter amounts to twenty-one.l How could
this difference occur, Blumenbach asks, if the young were merely
evolved from germs existing from the creation?

Indeed, in this strange hypothesis there must have been an
uncommon store of germs prepared at the beginning, for the
ovaria of a single sturgeon have contained 1,467,500 ova.m

The nisus formativus produces a being generally resembling
the parents, but occasionally different. This subject will be fully
treated of in the note on the varieties of mankind.

It is not probable that the ardour of the procreants affects the
energy of the offspring. But from the days of Aristotle it
has been remarked that bastards are frequently endowed with
great genius and valour, and both ancient and modern history
certainly affords many such examples; and the circumstance has
been commonly ascribed to the impetuosity of the parents during
[Seite 496] their embraces. Shakspeare, in King Lear, introduces Edmund
bursting into this indignant soliloquy: –

‘“Why bastard? wherefore base?’
‘When my dimensions are as well compact,’
‘My mind as generous, and my shape as true,’
‘As honest madam’s issue? Why brand they us’
‘With base? with baseness? bastardy? base? base?’
‘Who in the lusty stealth of nature take’
‘More composition and fierce quality’
‘Than doth, within a dull, stale, tired bed’
‘Go to the creating a whole tribe of fops’
‘Got ’tween sleep and wake?”’

‘“Hercules, Romulus, Alexander (by Olympia’s confession),
Themistocles, Jugurtha, King Arthur, William the Conqueror,
Homer, Demosthenes, P. Lumbard, P. Comestor, Bartholus,
Adrian the fourth Pope, &c. were bastards; and in almost every
kingdom the most ancient families have been at first princes’
bastards; the worthiest captains, best wits, greatest scholars,
bravest spirits in all our annals, have been base. Cardan, in his
subtleties, gives a reason, &c. – Corpore sunt et animo fortiores
spurii, plerumque ob amoris vehementiam, &c.”’n

Were this explanation satisfactory, the first fruits of wedded love
would still generally be on an equality with illegitimate offspring.
If a greater proportion of illegitimate than of legitimate persons
have really rendered themselves illustrious, their superior energy
may be attributed to the strength of their parents’ constitutions,
it not being likely that the weak and delicate so frequently
become the prey of unlawful passions as the vigorous, and to the
necessity in which such individuals usually find themselves to rely
upon their own exertions. Their native excellence was at least
not acknowledged by Moses. ‘“A bastard shall not enter into
the congregation of the Lord; even to his tenth generation shall
he not enter into the congregation of the Lord.”’o

[Seite 497]

The vulgar are satisfied that mental impressions made upon the
mother may affect the offspring. Credulous, as I may seem, I do
confess that so many extraordinary coincidences, both in the human
and the brute subject, have come to my knowledge, that I dare not
affirm the common belief to be unfounded. That neither all nor most
malformations can be thus explained, that pregnant women are
frequently alarmed without such consequences, even when most
dreaded, and that highly ridiculous resemblances are fancied to
preceding longings and alarms which were forgotten or may be
well suspected to have never existed, is incontestable. But, in
other matters, when a circumstance may proceed from many
causes, we do not universally reject any one because it is fre-
quently alleged without reason. How those who believe the
Divine authority of every part of their Bible can reconcile the
success of Jacob’s stratagemp (so anciently was the opinion com-
mon) with their contempt for the vulgar belief, they best can
tell.q

A curious fact is recorded by the present Earl of Morton.
His lordship bred from a male quagga and a mare of seven-
eighths Arabian blood, a female hybrid, displaying in form and
colour her mixed origin. The mare was given to Sir Gore Ouseley,
who bred from her first a filly and then a colt, by a fine black
Arabian horse; but both these in their colour and in the hair of
their manes strongly resembled the quagga. The resemblance
appears to have been rather less in the colt than in the filly. Dr.
Wollaston soon afterwards learnt a similar fact in the case of a
sow, which, after littering by a boar of the wild breed, was put,
[Seite 498] long after the death of this, to a boar of a different breed, and
produced pigs, some of which were marked like the first boar; and
even in a second litter by a third boar, some slightly resembled
the first.r

M. Girou Buzareingues mentions that a violent blow was given
to a bitch while being lined; that she was paraplegic for some
days, and when she produced her eight pups, all, excepting one,
had the hind legs wanting, malformed, or weak.s

SECT. XLI.
OF LABOUR AND ITS SEQUELAE.

[Seite 499]

594. The foetus, formed by the powers already described,
and being now perfect and at the period of maturity, has to
come into the world by means of labour.a

595. This critical period occurs naturally (and physiology
treats solely of natural occurrences) at the end of the tenth
lunar month from conception, i. e. about the 39th or 40th
week. (A)

596. At that time, the pregnant woman is impelled to bring
forth by an absolute necessity, less under the influence of the
will than any other voluntary function (287).

597. Physiologists have differed in their explanations of
the causes of so determinate and sudden an event. After all,
the exciting cause of labour must be ascribed to an established
law of nature, hitherto equally inexplicable with so many other
periodical phenomena; v. c. the metamorphosis of insects, the
stages of exanthematic fevers, crises, &c. &c., nor has the
mature ovum been inaptly compared, caeteris paribus, to fruit,
which, when ripe, falls almost spontaneously to the ground,
from the constriction of those vessels which previously con-
veyed its nourishment. And in fact it has been remarked
that the human placenta, at the approach of labour, is con-
tracted, and, as it were, prepared for its separation from the
uterus.

What is usually urged respecting the utmost expansion of
the uterus, and other similar excitements to labour, is refuted
by many circumstances, and, among the rest, by the numerous
examples of extra-uterine, whether tubal or ovarian, concep-
[Seite 500] tions, in which, at the expiration of ten months from impreg-
nation, the uterus, notwithstanding its vacuity, is seized with
the customary, though indeed fruitless, pains.b

598. Besides this exciting cause, other very powerful effi-
cient
causes are requisite, as must be manifest from the relation
of the ovum to the uterus.

We are persuaded that the proximate and primary cause, is
solely the vita propria of the uterus. (42. 547)c

Among the remote, the most important appears to be the
respiratory effort excited principally by the great connectiond
of the intercostal nerve with the rest of the nervous system.

599. We formerly noticed (582) that, in the latter periods
of pregnancy, the uterus somewhat subsided, by which cir-
cumstance the form of the abdomen is a little changed and
the inconveniences induced during advanced pregnancy in
the function of respiration are relieved. At the same time,
the vaginal mucus (543) is secreted more abundantly, the
vagina itself is relaxed, the columns of rugae are almost
obliterated, and the labia pudendi swell; finally, near the
approach of labour, the os uteri gradually dilates into a circu-
lar opening.

600. The phenomena of labour generally observe a regular
order of commencement and progress,e whence accoucheurs
have divided them into stages, of which the moderns enumerate
four or five, although they define them variously.

601. In the first, the true pains occur, peculiar in their
nature, proceeding from the loins in the direction of the
lower parts of the uterus (recurring, at intervals, indeed,
during the whole of labour, with various degrees of violence
and frequency), mild in the beginning, at which time they are
called warning and the os uteri begins evidently to dilate.
The abdomen now falls still more, the urine is urgent, and
abundance of mucus flows from the soft and tumid genitals.

[Seite 501]

602. In the second, the pains, increasing, are called prepar-
ing,
and, by the compressing effect of the respiratory organs,
a strong inspiration, &c., a segment of the lower part of the
membranes of the ovum is protruded through the uterine
orifice into the vagina.

603. In the third, the pains, becoming more excruciating,
are called labour pains, and act with still more violence upon
the uterus, which is driven downwards and compressed
against the foetus, so that the protruded segment of mem-
branes becomes extremely tense, is burst asunder, and the
greater part of the liquor amnii escapes.

604. Finally, in the fourth and last stage, the pains, becom-
ing dreadfully violent and agitating,f are accompanied by great
exertions of the woman herself; almost always too by shiver-
ing, shrieking, tremor of the knees, &c. The head of the
child, now on the verge of birth, penetrates, and the face first
appears, the vertex usually remaining under the arch of the
pubes and the rest of the head in the mean time being farther
propelled, and revolving around the impacted vertex as
around an axis. Thus the child comes into the world, in the
midst of a red discharge, consisting of a second portion of the
liquor amnii mixed with blood.

605. Soon after the expulsion of the child, the delivery of
the secundines
in the fifth stage commences, attended by a
painful though much less violent exertion, and followed by
another hemorrhage from that part of the cavity of the
wombg to which the placenta had adhered by means of the
decidua crassa.h

[Seite 502]

606. Immediately that both burthens are expelled, the
uterus begins gradually to contract, until it acquires its ori-
ginal form and very nearly its original dimensions.

607. For about a week after labour, the lochia are dis-
charged, for the most part very similar to the catamenia, but
rather more copious, especially if the mother does not suckle
her offspring. About the sixth day their red colour becomes
fainter, and afterwards changes to white.

At the same time the uterus is liberated from the remain-
ing shreds of the decidua, and, having thus completed the
function of pregnancy, is again ready for menstruation or
conception.


NOTE.

(A) It was formerly believed that pregnancy might be extended
to twelve months and even two years. With all deductions for
error and temptation, I think a few satisfactory modern cases are
recorded of its protraction to one, two, and even eight weeks be-
yond the fortieth.i

SECT. XLII.
OF THE MILK.

[Seite 503]

608. The breasts, most sacred fountains, and, as Gellius
Favorinus the philosopher elegantly calls them, the rearers
(educatores) of the human race, are intimately connected with
the uterus in various ways. The functions of neither can
properly be said to exist during infancy; at puberty, both
begin to flourish, – when the catamenia appear, the breasts
assume some degree of plumpness; from that period they
undergo either simultaneous changes, – the breasts beginning
to swell and secrete milk during the pregnancy of the womb;
or alternate changes, – the catamenia ceasing while the child
is suckled, or the lochia becoming copious if the child is not
suckled, and s. p. Finally, when age creeps on, the function
of each absolutely ceases, – when the catamenia disappear,
both the uterus and the breasts become equally inert. I omit
pathological phenomena; v. c. those which occur in irregular
menstruation, leucorrhoea, after extirpation of the ovaria, and
in other morbid affections.

609. If this intimate connection is kept in view, we shall
not be astonished that nearly every description of sympathy
formerly mentioned (56) exists between these organs of the
female thorax and abdomen.a

610. The influence of the anastomotic sympathy between
the internal mammary and epigastric artery,b although for-
merly overrated,c is evinced by the change which the latter
[Seite 504] experiences in its diameter during pregnancy and suck-
ling. (A)

611. Both the uterus and mammae appear to have a kind
of affinity for the chyle, observable in many diseases, and
nearly always in new-born children.

612. The breast of women,d belonging to the most charac-
teristic marks of the human female both by its form during
the flower of age and by the longer continuance of this form
after the period of suckling than occurs in any other female
animal, is composed of a placentiform series of conglomerate
glands, divided by numerous furrows into larger lobes, and,
as it were, buried in a mass of fat; the anterior part swells
out particularly with a firmer description of fat over which the
skin is exceedingly thin.

613. Each of these lobes is composed of still smaller lobes,
and these of acini, as they are termed, to which the extreme
radiclese of the lactiferous ducts adhere, deriving a chylous
fluid from the ultimate twigs of the internal mammary ar-
teries.

614. These radicles, gradually uniting,f form large trunks,
corresponding in number with the lobes, – fifteen or more
in each breast. These are every where dilated into large
sinuses, but have no true anastomosis with each other.g

615. These trunks terminate in very delicate excretory
canals, that are collected, towards the centre, by means of
cellular substance, into the nipple,h which, supplied with ex-
tremely fine blood-vessels and nerves, is capable of a peculiar
erection on the approach of certain external stimuli.

616. The nipple is surrounded by the areola,i which, as
[Seite 505] well as the nipple, is remarkable for the colourk of the reti-
culum under the cuticle,l and contains sebaceous follicles.m

617. The secretion of the breast is the milk, well known in
colour, watery, somewhat fatty, rather sweet, bland, resem-
bling in all respects the milk of domestic animals, but subject
to infinitely greater varieties in the proportion of its con-
stituent parts, far more difficult of coagulation from the great
quantity of essential salt, to be spoken of presently, which it
contains, and affording no trace of volatile alkali.n

618. When coagulated by means of alcohol, it presents
the same elements as the milk of other animals. Besides the
aqueous halitus which it gives off when fresh and warm, the
serum, separating from the caseous part, contains sugar of
milko and acetic acid mixed with phosphate of lime and of
magnesia, and with oil and mucus. The butyraceous cream
is said to consist of globules of various and inconstant size,
their diameter ranging between 1/200 and 1/600 of a line.p (B)

619. The analogy between chyle and blood, and between
both these fluids and milk,q renders it probable that the milk
is a kind of chyle reproduced, or rather again separated from
the blood before its complete assimilation. This idea is
[Seite 506] strengthened by the frequent existence in the milk of the par-
ticular qualities of food previously taken,r and by the chylous
appearance of the watery milk secreted during pregnancy and
immediately after labour.s

620. The reason why this bland nourishment of the foetus
becomes more thick and rich by continued suckling, is pro-
bably the abundance of lymphatics in the breasts. Those
vessels continually absorb more of the serous part of the milk,
in proportion as its secretion is more copious and of longer
standing, and, by again pouring this part into the mass of
blood, promote the secretion (477): after weaning they take
up the remaining milk and mix it with the blood.

621. The milk is secreted in greatest quantity immediately
after delivery; and, if the infant sucks, amounts to one or two
pounds every twenty-four hours, until the menses, which
usually cease during suckling, (556) return.

Occasionally virgins, and new-born infants of either sex,
nay even men,t as well as the adult males of other mam-
malia,u have been known to furnish milk.

622. The abundance of milk excites its excretion, and even
causes it to flow spontaneously: but pressure, or the suction
of the child, completes its discharge. (D)

[Seite 507]

NOTES.

Women, it is said, have had three, four, and even five
breasts: in triangular arrangement; one under another on one
side, or on both sides; all in a line; the supernumerary ones on the
back; or, in the case where there were five, one under another
on each side, and the fifth below all, and in the centre, five inches
above the navel.x

A woman lives at present at Marseilles, with a third perfect
breast, four inches below the great trochanter of the left thigh.
This gave milk like the other two, and though she never had but
one child she continued a wet-nurse for six years. Her own child
sucked this femoral breast for three and thirty months, putting his
little head under his mother’s petticoats and standing or kneel-
ing during the business. This woman’s mother had also a third
breast, but it was placed on the left side of the chest, and was
sucked in common with the others by seven children.y

I am not acquainted with the dissection of any such cases, but
if it is not probable that in the latter, a direct anastomosis exists
between the uterine vessels and those of this breast, the influence
of the arterial communication in ordinary cases may appear still
further improbable.

The case reminds me of a monstrosity in the same situation as
this, – the thigh of a boy, aged fourteen; seen by Zacchias’s friend,
Balthassar Bonannus, ‘“vir humanitate et doctrina insignis.”’z But
instead of a breast, there was a female pudendum, labia, hair, and
rima: on separating the labia, no opening appeared.

(B) The lower portion of cows’ milk which had stood some days
was found by Berzeliusa to have a specific gravity of 1.033, and
to contain

Water 928.75
Cheese with a trace of butter 28.00
Sugar of milk 35.00
Muriate of potash 1.70
Phosphate of potash 0.25
Lactic acid, acetate of potash, with a trace
of lactate of iron

} 6.00
Earthy phosphates 0.30
–––––––
1000.00
–––––––

The supernatant cream contained:

Butter 4.5
Cheese 3.5
Whey 92.0
–––––
100.0
–––––

We have seen the analogy between vegetables and animals
in structure and function, as well as in elementary and proxi-
mate principles. The secretions of both may be innocuous
or deleterious. The most remarkable analogy in secretion re-
spects milk. In South America, Humboldt saw a tree that,
if wounded, yields abundance of rich milk, which the negroes
drink and grow fat upon, and which affords a caseous coagulum.
The tree grows on the barren rock; has coriaceous dry leaves;
for several months is not moistened by a shower, and its branches
appear dry and dead: yet, if an incision is made in its trunk, the
milk pours forth. This ‘“sweet vegetable fountain”’ is most copious
at sun-rise, and the blacks and natives are then seen hastening
from all quarters with bowls to the cow-tree.

(C) Mr. Wentzel met with an old Chipewyan, who, on losing
his wife in child-birth, had put the infant to his breast and
earnestly prayed that milk might flow, and had actually been happy
enough to see sufficient produced to enable him to rear the child.
The Indian was now old, but the left breast still retained the un-
usual size acquired by nursing.b

A parallel instance is recorded by a Bishop of Cork. His lord-
ship had given half-a-crown to a poor Frenchman above seventy
years of age, who made the best return he could by showing his
lordship what he knew must be a curiosity, – two very large breasts,
with nipples larger than the bishop had ever seen in a woman;
and related that, his wife dying when his child was two months
old, he endeavoured to pacify it at night by putting it to his
[Seite 509] breast, and at length milk actually came, so that he suckled and
brought it up.c

A lamb, belonging to Sir William Lowther, having lost its
mother, sucked a wether ‘“and brought him to milk and was
maintained by him all the summer: he had two considerable teats
on his udder, each side whereof was about the bigness of a hen’s
egg,”’ and the milk was made to spurt to a distance of two yards
a month after the lamb was weaned.d

Blumenbach has described a he-goat which it was necessary to
milk every other day for a year;e so that, to say with Virgil,
mulgeat hircos, is not tantamount to calling a man a fool.

A bull which had been put to cows successfully, but had also
female organs, though the vagina was apparently too small to have
ever admitted the male organ, gave milk, according to satisfactory
testimony.f

I myself saw two married women with milk in their breasts,
one of whom had never been pregnant, but always menstruated
regularly, and said this had been the case for nine months; the
other had not been pregnant for upwards of six years, had weaned
her child, and at the end of seven months miscarried, and said
she had immediately afterwards observed the milk, which had been
secreted for six months, and was increasing at the time I saw her.

I also attended a young single lady, whom I believe never to
have been pregnant, but who was subject to amenorrhoea, and had
then not menstruated for five months, and laboured, apparently,
under ovarian disease: milk oozed very copiously from her
breasts, and the medical attendant informed me that the left
had secreted it for many months.g

(D) It may be worth while here to take a general view of the
subject of generation.h

[Seite 510]

Life never occurs spontaneously in matter, but is always pro-
pagated from an organised system already endowed with it. Such
at least, appears to be the inevitable conclusion from the facts
within our observation. No instance has been known of a plant
or animal of any species, whose mode of multiplication may be
always easily examined, springing up spontaneously; and although
in many other cases the origin often cannot be discovered, yet
surely our inability to discover the mode of propagation does not
justify us in denying the existence of it; but, the general analogy,
the discovery of the modes in which many species propagate
which were formerly adduced as instances of spontaneous gene-
ration; the generation of oviparous or viviparous animals, actually
observable in some species, whose existence in this particular
residence is inexplicable (as certain entzoa found in the cellular
texture),i and the occasionally manifest source of the difficulties
which obstruct our enquiries, lead necessarily to the belief, not
of the unreality of the fact, but of our deficient penetration. I
will recur to this subject in the last note to Sect. XLIV.

The simplest mode of increase is by the detachment and inde-
pendent existence of a portion of a system. In this way trees,k
polypes, some worms, and many animalcules,l multiply.

[Seite 511]

Next comes the formation of the rudiments of a perfectly new
being by the system of another. Thus we have the seed of ve-
getables, the ova and foetus of animals. This occurs by means
of two matters, which in some examples are furnished by the
same, and in others, by different, systems. The vegetable king-
dom affords innumerable instances of the former, the acephalous
mollusca and the echinus are examples in the animal kingdom.m
Both the vegetable and animal kingdoms abound in instances of
the latter. Here again there are three varieties. The fluid of
the male may be applied to the ova of the female after they are
discharged from her body, as in some fish of the bony kind and
in cephalopodous mollusca; while being discharged, as in the frog
and toad; or it may be conveyed to the female system, and this,
either without the contact of the male, as in those vegetables not
hermaphrodite, where the wind, insects, &c. convey it, or by
means of copulation, as in the mammalia,n birds, most reptiles,
and some fish, hermaphrodite gasteropodous mollusca, crustacea,
[Seite 512] and insects. In the mammalia, one copulation is sufficient for
only one conception; among poultry its effects are so extensive,
that a hen will lay a long succession of fruitful eggs after one
intercourse with the cock; in the aphis and some monoculi, it is
sufficient for the impregnation of eight, twelve, or fifteen gener-
ations.

The ovum after its fecundation may be nourished by a fluid en-
closed within the same case, and is then hatched out of the body
by the common temperature, as in insects, or by that of the parent,
as in birds, or hatched within the body of the mother, as in ser-
pents; or it may be nourished by a substance shed around it in
the womb, as in the kangaroo, or by means of an attachment of
some of its vessels to the maternal system, as in the mammalia in
general: – some animals being thus oviparous, others ovovivipa-
rous, and others viviparous.

The mode of nourishment after birth is various. Some are
able, without any peculiar arrangement, immediately to support
themselves; for the wisdom of the Creator ordains the delivery
of each species of animals at that season of the year when every
thing is in the most favourable state for administering to the
necessities of the offspring. Some, many insects for example, are
born in the midst of food, the parent having instinctively deposited
the egg in nutrient matter either found in mass or carefully col-
lected by her.o Others have food collected daily by the parents.
Some, as all the dove kind, are fed by a substance secreted from
the crops of both parents;p others by a fluid secreted by peculiar
[Seite 513] glands belonging to the female only.q The instinct which leads
the parent carefully to tend the offspring, ceases at the period when
the system of the offspring is sufficiently advanced to supply its
own exigencies, and the parent does not breed again till this is
the case.

SECT. XLIII.
OF THE DIFFERENCES IN THE SYSTEM BEFORE AND AFTER
BIRTH.a

[Seite 514]

623. From what has been said relatively to the functions
of the foetus still contained within its mother, and immersed as
it were in a warm bath, there must evidently be a considerable
difference between its functions and those of the child that is
born and capable of exerting its will. The chief points of
difference we will distinctly enumerate.

624. To begin with the blood and its motion, this fluid is
remarkable both for being of a darker red, incapable of be-
coming florid on the contact of atmospheric air, and for co-
agulating less readily and perfectly than after birth.b Its
course, too, is very different in the foetus whose circulation is
connected with the placenta and who has never breathed,
from its course after the cessation of this connection with the
mother and after respiration has taken place.c

[Seite 515]

625. First, the umbilical vein, coming from the placenta
and penetrating the ring called umbilical, runs to the liver,
and pours its blood into the sinus of the vena portae, the
branches of which remarkable vein distribute one portion
through the liver, while the ductus venosus Arantiid conveys
the rest directly to the inferior vena cava.

Both canals, – the end of the umbilical vein contained
in the abdomen of the foetus and the venous duct, become
closed after the division of the chord, and the former is
converted into the round ligament of the liver.

626. The blood arriving at the right side of the heart
from the inferior cava, is in a great measure prevented from
passing through the lungs, and is derived into the left or
posterior auricle of the heart, by means of the Eustachian
valve, and the foramen ovale.

627. For, in the foetus, over the opening of the inferior
cava, there is extended a remarkable lunated valve,e termed,
from its discoverer,f Eustachian, which usually disappears
as adolescence proceeds, but, in the foetus, appears to directg
the stream of blood coming from the abdomen towards an
opening, immediately to be mentioned, existing in the septum
of the auricles.

628. This opening is denominated the foramen ovale,h
and is the cause that certainly the greatest part of the blood
which streams from the inferior cava is poured into the left
[Seite 516] auriclei during the diastole of the auricles. A falciform
valve, placed over the foramen, prevents its return, and
appears likewise to preclude its course into the right auricle
during the systole of the auricles. By means of this valve,
the foramen generally becomes closed in the first years of in-
fancy, in proportion as the corresponding Eustachian valve
decreases, and more or less completely disappears.k

629. The blood which enters the right auricle and ventricle
principally proceeds from the superior cava, and flows but in a
very small quantity into the lungs, while, from the right ven-
tricle, which, in the foetus, is particularly thick and strong
for this purpose, it pursues its course directly to the arch of
the aorta, by means of the ductus arteriosus,l which is in a
manner the chief branch of the pulmonary artery. A few
weeks after birth, this duct becomes obstructed and converted
into a kind of dense ligament.

630. The blood of the aorta, being destined to return,
in a great measure, to the mother, enters the umbilical
arteries
(572), which pass out on each side of the urachus at
the umbilical opening, and after birth, likewise become
imperforate chords.m

631. As the function of the lungs scarcely exists in the
foetus, their appearance is extremely different from what it is
after the commencement of respiration. They are propor-
tionally much smaller, their colour is darker, their substance
denser, consequently their specific gravity is greater, so that
while recent and sound they sink in water, whereas, after
birth, they, caeteris paribus, swim upon its surface.n The
[Seite 517] right lung has the peculiarity of dilating during the first
inspiration rather sooner than the left.o (A) The other
circumstances attending the commencement of respiration
were mentioned in the section upon that function.

632. From our remarks upon the nutrition of the foetus,
it is clear that its alimentary tube and chylo-poietic system
must be peculiar. Thus, v. c. in an embryo a few months
old, the large intestines very nearly resemble the small; but,
during the latter half of pregnancy, being turgid with me-
conium, they really deserve the epithet by which they are
commonly distinguished.

633. The meconium is a saburra, of a brownish-green
colour, formed evidently from the secreted fluids of the
foetus, and chiefly from its bile, because it is first observed
at the period corresponding to the first secretion of the bile,
and, in monstrous cases, where the liver has been absent,
no meconium, but merely a small quantity of colourless
mucous, has been found in the intestines.

631. The caecum is extremely different in the new-born
child from its future form, and continued straight from the
appendix vermiformis, &c.p

635. Other similar differences we have already spoken
of, and shall now pass over.

Such are the urachus, (573)

The membrana pupillaris, (262)

And the descent of the testes in the male. (510 sq.)

Some will be treated of more properly in the next section.
Others, of little moment, we shall entirely omit.

[Seite 518]

636. This is a favourable opportunity for briefly noticing
some remarkable parts which are out of all proportion larger
in the foetus, and appear to serve important purposes in its
economy, although their true and principal design deserves
still further investigation.

They are usually styled glands, but their parenchyma is
very different from true glandular structure, nor has any
vestige of an excretory duct been hitherto discovered in them.
They are the thyreoid, the thymus, and the supra-renal
glands.q

637. The thyreoid glandr is fixed upon the cartilage of the
same name belonging to the larynx, has two lobes, is, as it
were, lunated,s and full not only of blood, in which it abounds
in the foetus, but of lymphatic fluid, and becomes, as age ad-
vances, gradually less juicy.t

638. The thymus is a white and very delicate structure,
likewise bilobular, sometimes completely divided into two
parts, occasionally containing a remarkable cavity,u placed
under the superior part of the middle of the sternum, always
ascending as far as the neck on each side,x of extremely great
proportionate size in the foetus, abounding in a milky fluid,
[Seite 519] becoming gradually absorbed in youth, and frequently disap-
pearing altogether in old age.y

639. The supra-renal glands, called also renes succenturiati
and capsulae atrabiliariae, lie under the diaphragm on the
upper margin of the kidneys,z from which, in the adult, they
are rather more distant, being proportionally smaller. They
are full of a dark fluid of a more reddish hue in the foetus
than in the adult. (B)


NOTES.

(A) Now that the importance of auscultation in examining dis-
eases of the chest is generally allowed, this point has been inves-
tigated by the ear; and we are informed that the respiratory
murmur immediately after birth is heard equally in both lungs.a

(B) Blumenbach has omitted to notice in this section one
of the most striking peculiarities of the foetus, – the very great
proportionate bulk of its liver. The prodigious size of this organ
arises from the distribution of four-fifths of the blood of the um-
bilical vein through it, and probably, in a certain degree, as some
think, from the great quantity of meconium in its biliary ducts.
After birth, no blood is conveyed by the umbilical vein, and the
expansion of the thorax readily expresses the abundance of me-
conium; hence the liver must diminish.

This peculiarity, as well as the great size of the thyreoid,
thymus, and supra-renal glands, probably serves some purpose
hitherto undiscovered, unless the liver have the same excre-
mentory office as the lungs, and therefore at this period does the
work of both; but an evident good effect results from it in relation
to the organs of the thorax. In the foetus the lungs are com-
pletely devoid of air, and consequently there cannot be much, if
any, circulation of blood through the pulmonary artery and veins,
[Seite 520] and the liver by its magnitude, protruding the diaphragm up-
wards, renders the capacity of the chest correspondently small,
and at the same time it contains an immense proportion of blood.
After birth, the diminished size of the liver allows a great in-
crease to the capacity of the chest; not only is full inspiration
allowed, and consequently a free passage to the blood of the pul-
monary vessels during inspiration, as Haller remarks,b but a cer-
tain degree of permanent dilatation of the lungs is allowed (for
much air remains in the lungs after every expiration), and since the
liver contains, immediately after birth, so much smaller a portion
of the blood of the system than before, the greatly increased
supply required by the lungs is thus afforded.c See Note D.
Sect. VIII.

SECT. XLIV.
OF THE GROWTH, STATIONARY CONDITION, AND DECREASE
OF THE HUMAN SYSTEM.

[Seite 521]

640. Nothing more remains than to survey at one view
the natural course of the life of man, whose animal functions
we have hitherto arranged in classes and examined indivi-
dually, and to accompany him through his principal epochs
from his birth to his grave.a

641. The commencement of formation appears to take place
about the third week from conception (569), and genuine
blood is first observable about the fourth, the life of the foetus
at this period being extremely faint (82) and little more than
that of a vegetable; the motion of the heart (98) has, under
fortunate circumstances, been observable at this time in the
human embryo,b and even commonly been denominated the
punctum saliens, from the days of Aristotle, who observed it
in the incubated egg.c

The original form of the embryo is simple, and, as it were,
disguised, wonderfully different from the perfect conformation
of the human frame, which deserves to be regarded as the
grandest effect of the nisus formativus, and at which it arrives
by gradual changes, or, if we may so speak, metamorphoses,
from a more simple to a more perfect form.d (A)

[Seite 522]

642. The formation of human bonee begins, if I am not
deceived, after the seventh or eighth week. First of all, the
osseous fluid forms its nuclei in the clavicles, ribs, vertebrae,
the large cylindrical bones of the extremities, the lower jaw,
and some other bones of the face, in the delicate reticulum of
some flat bones of the skull, – of the frontal and occipital, but
less early in the parietal.f

In general, the growth of the embryo, and indeed of the
human being universally both before and after birth, is more
rapid as the age is less, and vice versa.

643. About the middle of pregnancy, certain fluids begin
to be secreted, as the fat (486) and bile. In the course of the
seventh month, all the organs of the vital, natural, and ani-
mal functions have made such progress, that, if the child
[Seite 523] happens to be born at this period, it is called, in a common
acceptation of the word, vital, and regarded as a member of
society.

644. In the foetus, near its full growth, not only is the
skin covered by a caseous matter, but delicate hair appears
upon the head,
and little nails become visible; the membrana pu-
pillaris
splits (262); the cartilaginous external ear becomes
more firm and elastic; and in the male the testes descend.
(510 sq.) (B)

645. About the end of the tenth lunar month, the child,
being born (595), undergoes, besides those important changes
of nearly its whole economy that were formerly described at
large, other alterations in its external appearance; v. c. the
down which covered its face at birth gradually disappears, the
wrinkles are obliterated, the anus becomes concealed between
the swelling nates, &c. (C)

646. By degrees the infant learns to employ its mental
faculties
of perception, attention, reminiscence, inclination, &c.
whence, even in the early months, it dreams, and s. p.g

617. The organs of the external senses are gradually evolved
and perfected, as the external ear, the internal nares, the
covering of the eyes, viz. the supra-orbital arches, the eye-
brows, &c.

648. The bones of the skull unite more firmly; the fonticuli
are by degrees filled up; and, about eight months after birth,
dentition commences.

649. At this period the child is ready to be weaned, its
teeth being intended to masticate solid food and not to injure
the mother’s breast.

650. About the end of the first year, it learns to rest upon
its feet and stand erect, – the highest characteristic of the
human body.h

651. The child, now weaned from its mother’s breast and
[Seite 524] capable of using its feet, improves and acquires more vo-
luntary power daily: another grand privilege of the human
race is bestowed upon it – the use of speech, – the mind be-
ginning to pronounce, by means of the tongue, the ideas with
which it is familiar.

652. The twenty milk teeth by degrees drop out about the
seventh year, and a second dentition produces, in the course
of years, thirty-two permanent teeth.

653. During infancy, memory is more vigorous than the
other faculties of the mind, and much more powerful than at
any other period in tenaciously receiving the impressions of
objects: after the fifteenth year, the fire of imagination burns
more strongly.

654. This more lively state of the imagination occurs very
opportunely at puberty, when the body, undergoing various
remarkable changes, is gradually prepared for the exercise of
the sexual functions.

655. Immediately after the period when the breasts of the
adolescent girl have begun to swell, the chin of the boy is
covered with down, and other phenomena of approaching pu-
berty manifest themselves in either sex. The girl begins to
menstruate (554), – an important change in the female eco-
nomy, accompanied, among other circumstances, nearly always,
by an increased brightness of the eyes and redness of the lips,
and by more evident sensible qualities of the perspiration.
The boy begins to secrete genuine semen (527), and, at the
same time, the beardi grows more abundantly, and the voice
becomes extremely grave.

By the spontaneous internal voice of nature, as it were, the
sexual instinct (71) is now for the first time excited, and
man, being in the flower of his age, is capable of sexual con-
nection.

[Seite 525]

656. The period of puberty cannot be exactly defined: it
varies with climate and temperament,k but is generally more
early in the female; so that, in our climate, girls arrive at pu-
berty about the fifteenth year, and young men, on the con-
trary, about the twentieth. (D)

657. Soon after this, growth terminates; at various periods
in different climates, to say nothing of varieties in individuals
and families.l(E)

658. The epiphyses of the bones, hitherto distinct from their
diaphyses, now become intimately united, and, in a manner,
confounded with them.

659. At manhood – the longer and more excellent period
of human existence, life is, with respect to the corporeal
functions, at the highest pitch (82), or, in other words, these
functions are performed with the greatest vigour and con-
stancy;
in regard to the mental functions, the grand prero-
gative of mature judgment is now afforded.

660. The approach of old agem is announced in women by
the cessation of the catamenia (556), and not unfrequently by
an appearance of beard upon the chin;n in men, by less
[Seite 526] alacrity to copulate: in both, by a senileo dryness and a gra-
dually manifested decrease of vital energy.

661. Lastly, the frigid condition of old age is accompanied
by an increasing dulness of both the external and internal
senses, a necessity for longer sleep, and a torpor of all the
functions of the system. The hairs grow white and partly
fall off. The teeth gradually drop out. The neck is no
longer able to give due support to the head, nor the legs to
the body. Even the bones themselves – the props of the
machine, in a manner waste away, &c.p

662. Thus we are conducted to the boundary of physiology,
to death without disease,q – to the senile εὐθανασία, which
it is the first and last object of medicine to procure, and the
causes of which must be self-evident from our preceding
account of the animal economy.r

663. The phenomena of a moribund persons are coldness of
the extremities, loss of brilliancy in the eyes, smallness and
slowness of the pulse, which more and more frequently inter-
mits, and infrequency of respiration, which at length terminates
for ever by a deep expiration.

In the dissection of other moribund mammalia the struggle
of the heart may be perceived, and the right auricle and ven-
tricle are found to live rather longer than the left. (117)

664. Death is manifested by the coldness and rigidity of
the body, the flaccidity of the cornea, the open state of the
anus, the lividness of the back, the depression and flatness of
[Seite 527] the loins (59 note), and, above all, by an odour truly cada-
verous.t If these collective marks are present, there can
scarcely be room for the complaint of Pliny, – that we ought
not to feel assured of the fate of a man though we see him lie
dead.u (G)

665. It is scarcely possible to define the natural period of
life, or as it may be termed, the more frequent and regular
limit of advanced old age.x But, by an accurate examination
of numerous bills of mortality, I have ascertained a remarkable
fact – that a pretty large proportion of Europeans reach their
eighty-fourth year, while, on the contrary, few exceed it. (H)

666. But, on the whole, notwithstanding the weakness of
children, the intemperance of adults, the violence of diseases,
the fatality of accidents, and many other circumstances, pre-
vent more than about perhaps seventy-eight persons out of a
thousand from dying of old age, without disease; nevertheless,
if human longevityy be compared, caeteris paribus, with the
duration of the life of any other known animal among the
mammalia, we shall find that, of all the unreasonable com-
plaints about the misery of human life, no one is more
unfounded than that which we commonly hear respecting the
shortness of its duration. (I)

NOTES.

[Seite 528]

(A) Some animals undergo extraordinary metamorphoses after
birth. An insect is, on first leaving its egg-shell, a maggot (larva);
then it becomes a grub (nymphae or pupae, &c.); and lastly a fly (imago).
The frog is at first a tadpole, has no extremities, but, like a fish,
tails and gills. Dr. Edwards has proved that, by excluding tad-
poles from the light, they will grow to double or triple the size
that tadpoles usually attain, but are not metamorphosed to frogs.
He thinks that the proteus anguinus, which, like tadpoles, has lungs
and gills, is but the first stage of an animal which is prevented from
becoming perfect by inhabiting the subterraneous waters of Carni-
ola. He concludes, therefore, that light has a great influence
upon the human body; and ascribes the observation of Humboldt,
that among millions of Caribs, Mexicans, Peruvians, &c, not one
instance of deformity appeared, to the exposure of their bodies to
light, and much of the sickliness of imprisoned persons and scro-
fulous children living in close streets, to the want of light.z

The influence of food upon the changes of animals is great.
Aphidivorous flies are larvae for eight or ten days, pupae for
about a fortnight, and perfect insects about nearly as long; in
the whole not living more than six weeks. But a pupa deprived
of food underwent no change, and lived a pupa for twelve months.a

(B) Dr. Edwards discovered that brutes which are born with
their eyes closed, or cannot at first walk about and procure food,
or have not integuments sufficiently copious to preserve their tem-
perature, are little warmer than the surrounding medium if re-
moved from their nest or bed: but that they acquire about the
fifteenth day, if quadrupeds, and about the end of the third or
fourth week, if birds, the calorific power of adults. In all these
the ductus arteriosus is generally large and open, and closes as
the calorific powers increase. Upon its state, and not upon the
circumstances first mentioned, does the temperature depend.
As the calorific powers change rather suddenly, we must sup-
pose the completion of the closure to be rapid.b

The human foetus resembles these brutes in having the eye
closed by the membrana pupillaris for many months, and children
born before time long continue to require much artificial warmth.
But although the temperature of the very young is so easily low-
ered, the ill effects of cold are better recovered from than by adults.

[Seite 529]

Life also continues longer without respiration, or with a limited
quantity of air, than in adults.b

These circumstances connect the cold and warm-blooded, and
the hybernating and non-hybernating, animals.

(C) At full time,c boys, according to some,d weigh rather less
than girls.

Chaussier states that at full time the navel is exactly central:
that at eight months the centre is higher; at seven still higher;
and at six, precisely at the lower part of the sternum.

Children born at the end of the sixth and even fifth month
have lived.e

(D) Instances continually occur in both sexes of early puberty,
sometimes joined with very rapid growth. The intellect however
does not usually keep pace with the body, (or rather the parts of
the brain destined for intellect, with the rest of the body)f nor are
such individuals commonly long lived. Some males are reported
to have been adult before the completion of their first year, an
instance of which will presently be given in note E. One of the
earliest examples of female puberty is related in the Medico-
Chirurgical Transactions:
g the girl began to menstruate when not
[Seite 530] three years of age, and soon after acquired large breasts, broad
hips, &c. Schurig quotes numerous, and for the most part pro-
bably fabulous, instances of fecundity in either sex between the
seventh and twelfth year, and one of a little couple, he nine and
she eight, who managed to beget a child.h

The activity of the grand organs of generation, – the testes in
the male and the ovaria in the female, is so connected with the great
changes which occur in the rest of the generative organs and in the
system at large at the period of puberty, that these changes are
prevented if those organs are previously removed, and are in gene-
ral proportional to their evolution and activity,i and when they
have experienced no change at the age of puberty, some of the
marks of the other sex, as large breasts in the male, may even occur;
and, if their removal is practised after puberty is established, the
system more or less relapses into its former condition or acquires
more or less the characteristics of the opposite sex. This is well
known in regard to brutes and the males of our species. Burck-
hardt, one of the latest travellers in Egypt, says that the face of
those unfortunate creatures who are emasculated when boys ap-
pears ‘“almost destitute of flesh, the eyes hollow, the cheek-bones
prominent, and the whole physiognomy has a skeleton-like ap-
pearance:”’ and that the operation is usually performed between the
eighth and twelfth year. Windhus, however, in his journey to Mes-
quinez met a troop of eunuchs belonging to the king, and says they
were the fattest persons he ever saw. We have one instance of the
castration of a woman: her ovaria protruded at the groins, and
were so troublesome as to induce her to submit to their removal
in St. Bartholomew’s Hospital; she afterwards grew thinner and
more muscular, her breasts shrunk away, and she ceased to men-
struate.k When the ovaria have been found deficient, the signs of
[Seite 531] puberty had not appeared.l The absence of the uterus only is not
attended by any deficiency in the general changes,m nor does its
removal destroy desire or give a woman the characters of the male.
Nay, where it only is absent there are monthly pains, and frequently
most severe ones, in the pelvis, with all the attendant circum-
stances of menstruation, as if the discharge were taking place.n

As puberty sometimes occurs extraordinarily soon, so does
it sometimes, though more rarely, extraordinarily late. Pro-
fessor Wilson knew a young man whose penis and testes at twenty-
six were no larger than in boys of eight; at this time, however,
they began to evolve, he had erections and emissions, fell in love,
and in two years, viz., when twenty-eight, they were as large as
in other men, and he married and became a father.o Dr. Gall
remarks that precocity or tardiness may in the same way be the
lot of any faculty and its organ. Gessner, one of the best and
most amiable poets of Switzerland, was declared by his preceptors
incapable of any attainment when ten years of age. One of the
most celebrated physicians of Berlin could neither combine his
ideas nor speak at thirteen.p

John Hunter made an experiment respecting the removal of
one ovarium only. He took two young sows in all respects
similar to each other, and, after removing an ovarium from one,
admitted a boar of the same farrow to each, and allowed them
to breed. The perfect sow bred till she was about eight years
old, – a period of almost six years, in which time she had thir-
teen farrows, and in all one hundred and sixty-two pigs; the
other bred till she was six years old, – during a space of more
than four years, and in that time she had eight farrows and in all
seventy-six pigs. Thus it would appear that each ovarium is destined
to afford a certain number only of foetuses, and that the removal of
one, although it does not influence the number of foetuses pro-
duced by the other, causes them to be produced in a shorter time.q

[Seite 532]

The sexual organs are usually regarded as the cause of sexual
desire. That this is not the case, may be shown by many cir-
cumstances. Desire is by no means commensurate with the size
of the genitals: even when the genitals are precociously developed
desire is sometimes not felt.r Desire is often felt after the re-
moval of the testes, and in old age when the genitals are power-
less. It must, therefore, depend upon some other part. This
part appears to be the cerebellum. Desire is, caeteris paribus,
naturally strong or weak in the adult, in proportion to the large
or small size of the cerebellum, whether of the lobes or the funda-
mental portion called the vermiform process, which alone exists
in birds, amphibia, fish, and insects;s whenever I have accurately
known the strength of the sexual propensities in either sex, the
size of the occiput has without a single exception corresponded.
Before puberty the cerebellum is small; its proportion in size
to the cerebrum is at birth from one-ninth to one-twentieth, or
even less: in the adult it is as one-fifth, or at the least as one-
seventh, and acquires its full development between the eighteenth
and twenty-sixth years; and the breadth and prominence of the
occiput are proportional. In old age, the cerebellum shrinks, and
the internal table of the occipital bone following, bony matter is
deposited between the two tables, and the bone at the fossae
occipitales becomes much less transparent. Gall possesses old
crania in which the cerebellum had returned to the dimen-
sions of infancy, and the occipital fossae had become shallow.
When the cerebellum is precociously developed, desire is felt by
the child, even though the genitals are not above the ordinary
size.t Inflammation and irritation of the cerebellum are found by
[Seite 533] a multitude of dissections to have existed when great excitement
of the genitals occurred before death, and injuries of the cerebel-
lum, at the back of the head, have as frequently occasioned impo-
tence. Desire is much stronger in the males of all species than in
the females; and, in general, the cerebellum of the male is larger
than of the female, – the distance between the mastoid processes
is wider; the back of the neck and head, fuller; indeed the whole
is much thicker; and if the brains of the two sexes are placed
in water, the larger cerebellum of the male is very conspicuous.

The sympathy of the cerebellum with the genitals, is the reason
of the latter being regarded as the seat of desire. If they are
removed, desire is generally extinguished; for the cerebellum is
not afterwards developed at puberty, and the back of the head
and neck remains small, perhaps smaller than in the female. If
one testicle only is removed, Gall has invariably observed, in
experiments on rabbits, and some cases in the human subject,
that the opposite half of the cerebellum is not developedu or
shrinks. Removal of both or one testicle after puberty produces
sometimes exactly similar effects. On the other hand, morbid irri-
tation of the genitals will sometimes excite intense desire; and,
judging from all the other facts, we should say from exciting the
cerebellum. In violent sexual excitement, the back of the neck
is flushed, and hotter. Some animals feel the sexual desire at
certain periods of the year only; and at this time the testes, and
[Seite 534] in some instances the vesiculae seminales and prostate gland,
enlarge very considerably, as in the male sparrow and frog.
Gall found the cerebellum of birds collected at this season,
broader and more turgid, and the corresponding prominences of
the cranium manifestly greater than in those collected at the
beginning of winter.

The facts adduced by Gall, on these points, in the third volume
of his octavo work, are curious and very numerous; and similar
ones, without end, may be found in works upon disease, military
surgery, and physiology, from ancient times down to Magendie’s
Journal for January last year. It occasionally happens, that apo-
plexy or other disease of the cerebellum, is not attended by
affections of the genitals; and I am inclined to believe, that when
no excitement of those organs accompanies the disease of the cere-
bellum, the disease does not include the vermiform process, which
is considered by Gall the fundamental part of the cerebellum,
from its being the only part always existing in animals where
there is a cerebellum.

(E) Not only do instances of early puberty and full growth
frequently occur, but likewise of deficient and exuberant
growth.

Dwarfs are generally born of the same size as other children,
but after a few years suddenly cease to grow. They are said to
be commonly ill-shaped, to have large heads, and to be stupid
or malicious,x and old age comes upon them very early. The
three foreign dwarfs exhibited not many years since in London,
two men and one woman, had certainly large heads and flat noses,
but in other respects were well made. The tallest of the three
seemed a sulky creature, but the woman was very ingenious and
obliging, and Simon Paap – the least of the three, appeared very
amiable. He was twenty-eight inches high, and twenty-six years
old. They were not related to each other, and the relations of all
were of the common size. Their countenances were those of
persons more advanced. The smallest dwarf on record was only
sixteen inches high, when thirty-seven years of age.y I saw
[Seite 535] a female dwarf, named Crachami, said to be ten years old,
who was well-formed, but had the features of a baby, was only
nineteen and a half inches in height, and five pounds in weight.z
Her voice was that of an infant. To hear her speak, and see her
walk, sit, and behave like a child several years old, was one of the
most striking things I ever witnessed.

The tallest person authentically recorded has never exceeded
nine feet, according to Haller. A young man from Hunting-
donshire, also exhibited in London a few years back, was of
remarkable height. Although only seventeen years of age, he
was nearly eight feet. He had a sister of great height, and many
of his family were very tall. He was, as is usual, born of the
ordinary size, but soon began to grow rapidly. He appeared
amiable, and as acute as most youths of his age and rank.

Giants and dwarfs happily seldom reach their fortieth year, and
have not very active organs of generation* As the period of growth
is so short in dwarfs, and the period of childhood so short in
those who reach puberty early, it is to be expected that their old
age will be premature, – that their stationary period and decline
will be likewise short.a Giants do not, like dwarfs, I believe, die
from premature old age, but from mere exhaustion.

[Seite 536]

The Laplanders are one of the shortest races. Buffon says
that their height is but four feet, and that their tallest men do
not exceed four feet and a half.

(F) This change sometimes arises from ovarian disease.b

Sir Everard Home mentions a duck, which, when eight years
old, not only ceased laying, and acquired the male plumage, but
repelled all drakes, and did its best to tread ducks.c

(G) The heavenly serenity of the countenance of most fresh
corpses is a very remarkable, and to me, I confess, a very affect-
ing and consolatory, circumstance. I cannot deny myself the
pleasure of forcibly drawing the attention of my readers to it by
quoting some lines of the mighty Byron.

‘“He who hath bent him o’er the dead’
‘Ere the first day of death is fled,’
‘Before decay’s effacing fingers’
‘Have swept those lines where beauty lingers,’
‘And mark’d the mild angelic air,’
‘The rapture of repose that’s there,’
‘The fix’d yet tender traits that streak’
‘The languor of the placid cheek,’
‘And, but for that sad shrouded eye’
‘That fires not – wins not – weeps not now,’
‘And but for that chill changeless brow,’
‘Where cold obstruction’s apathy’
‘Appals the gazing mourner’s heart,’
‘As if to him it could impart’
‘The doom he dreads yet dwells upon, –’
‘Yes, but for these and these alone,’
‘Some moments, aye, one treacherous hour,’
‘He still might doubt the tyrant’s power:’
‘So fair, so calm, so softly seal’d,’
‘The fair last look by death reveal’d.”’d

Sometimes the features are much changed for a short time
after death, and subsequently resume their usual appearance.

[Seite 537]

(H) Our countryman Parr married when a hundred and twenty
years of age, retained his vigour till a hundred and forty, and
died at a hundred and fifty-two from plethora, induced by a
change in his diet.e Harvey, who dissected him, found no decay
of any organ,f and, had not Parr become an inmate of the Earl
of Arundel’s family in London, he probably would have lived
many years longer. Our other countryman Jenkins, who lived
a hundred and sixty-nine years, is, perhaps, the greatest authentic
instance of longevity.

Longevity frequently runs in families, and is much disposed to
by early rising and matrimony.g

The duration of life varies in different countries. Dr. James
Johnson says the average of all ranks in the peninsula of India
falls 1/8 below what it is in Europe.h In another work we read that
the sixtieth year is there seldom attained.i On the other hand,
Buffon writes that in the American Indians the hair never becomes
grey nor the skin wrinkled, and that many Mexicans, especially
females, frequently reach their hundredth year, and preserve their
muscular force till death. The Laplanders and the people of
[Seite 538] the northern coasts of Tartary he also remarks, though living
under ground during winter, and in the midst of smoke during
summer, for the purpose of keeping off the gnats, are seldom sick,
and live to an extreme old age, the old being scarcely distinguish-
able from the young.

Life is often protracted very long after the teeth have fallen
out and the hair has turned gray.

Dr. Rush gives a striking illustration of the weakness of impres-
sions made in advanced life, while those of earlier date are
well remembered, in the instance of a German woman who had
learned the language of the Americans when forty years old, and,
though still living in America, had forgotten every word of it at
eighty, but talked German as fluently as ever. Bishop Watson’s
father married and had a family very late, and when extremely
aged would twenty times a day ask the name of the lad at
college, though he would ‘“repeat, without a blunder, hundreds
of lines out of classic authors.”’k

It is a most remarkable circumstance that the system frequently
makes an effort at renovation in extreme old age. I myself have
known several old persons cut new teeth, and the Philosophical
Transactions,
the German Ephemerides, Van Swieten’s Commen-
taries,
and other works, record many similar facts, – even that
of a complete third set.l Dr. Rush mentions an old man in
Pennsylvania who at sixty-eight lost his sight and remained per-
fectly blind for years, though otherwise in complete health; at
eighty he regained his sight spontaneously without any visible
change in the eyes, and could see as well as ever in his life at
eighty-four, when the account was written. Dr. Mason Good
saw a lady who at an advanced age cut several new teeth, and
threw away her spectacles after using them for twenty years,
and read the smallest print of newspapers; and another, who with
her new teeth, completely recovered her hearing, although she
had for many years been so deaf as to be obliged to feel the
tongue of her hand-bell for the purpose of ascertaining whether
the bell rang or not. In the Philosophical Transactions a physi-
cian mentions that his father cut two new teeth, which afterwards
dropped out together with the rest, when in two years fresh ones
[Seite 539] appeared, and he at length had an entire new set, and his grey
head of hair turned dark. The grey hairs of several old people
have become brown or black.m

I need scarcely observe that the height and the age of men at
present are the same as they were in ancient times. It is a com-
mon custom to magnify the past. Homer, who flourished almost
three thousand years ago, makes his heroes hurl stones in battle
which

––––– οὐ δύο γ’ἄνδρε φέροιεν
Οἷοι νῦν βροτοί εἰσι.n

Yet the giant who was the terror of the Israelites did not pro-
bably exceed nine feet in height, and it was to David who slew
him and flourished but a little more than a century later than
Homer’s heroes that Barzillai thus excused himself for not visit-
ing the royal palace at Jerusalem: – ‘“I am this day fourscore
years old; and can I discern between good and evil? can thy
servant taste what I eat or what I drink? can I hear any more
the voice of singing men and singing women? wherefore then
should thy servant be yet a burden unto my lord the king?”’o
Moses lived five hundred years earlier than David, and writes, –
‘“The days of our years are threescore and ten: and if by reason
of strength they be fourscore years, yet is their strength labour
and sorrow: for it is soon cut off, and we fly away.”’p



(I) The functions of the human machine having now been
fully described, it may be useful to consider it in its relation to
other animated systems, and to review the chief varieties in which
it appears.

Numerous authors have remarked that a gradation exists among
all the objects of the universe, from the Almighty Creator,
through arch-angels and angels, men, brutes, vegetables, and
inanimate matter, down to nothing.

[Seite 540]
‘“Vast chain of being which from God began,’
‘Natures ethereal, human, angel, man,’
‘Beast, bird, fish, insect, what no eye can see,’
‘No glass can reach, from infinite to thee,’
‘From thee to nothing.”’q

Yet this gradation, striking as it is, deserves not the epithet
regular or insensible. ‘“The highest being not infinite must be,
as has been often observed, at an infinite distance below infinity.”’
‘“And in this distance between finite and infinite there will be
room for ever for an infinite series of indefinable existence. Be-
tween the lowest positive existence and nothing, wherever we
suppose existence to cease, is another chasm infinitely deep;
where there is room again for endless orders of subordinate
beings, continued for ever and ever, and yet infinitely superior to
non-existence.”’ ‘“Nor is this all. In the scale, wherever it begins
or ends, are infinite vacuities. At whatever distance we suppose
the next order of beings to be above man, there is room for an
intermediate order of beings between them, and if for one order
then for infinite orders; since every thing that admits of more
or less, and, consequently, all the parts of that which admits
them, may be infinitely divided. So that, as far as we can judge,
there may be room in the vacuity between any two steps of the
scale, or between any two points of the cone, for infinite exertion
of infinite power.”’r

In fact, at how vast a distance do we see the innate mental
properties of man standing above those of the most sagacious
brute! How immensely does the volition of the lowest animal
raise it above the whole vegetable kingdom! And how deep the
chasm between the vital organisation of the meanest vegetable
and a mass of inanimate matter! Gradation must be admitted,
but it is far from regular or insensible. Neither does it at all
regard perfection of system, nor very much the degree, but
chiefly the excellence, and, within the limits of the visible world,
the combination, of properties. Man, placed at the summit of
terrestrial objects by the excellence of his mind and the combi-
nation of the common properties of matter, of those of vege-
tables, and of those of brutes, with those peculiar to himself, is
surpassed by the dog in acuteness of smell and by the oak in
[Seite 541] magnitude, nor can he boast of more perfection than the gnat or
the thistle in their kinds.

Substances consist of Particles endowed with certain properties
without which their existence cannot be conceived, viz. extension
and impenetrability; with others which proceed, indeed, from
their existence, but are capable of being subdued by opposing
energies, viz. mobility, inertness; and with others apparently
neither necessary to their existence nor flowing from it, but
merely superadded; for example, various attractions and repul-
sions, and various powers of affecting animated systems.

Inanimate substances may be gaseous, liquid, or solid. If
solid, the inanimate body has no properties which are not analogous
to these or even dependent upon them. It is for the most part
homogeneous in its composition, and disposed to be flat and
angular, increases by external accretion, has an indeterminate
volume, and contains within itself no causes of decay. The rest
of the bodies in nature are animated, and are vegetables and
animals.

Vegetables, in addition to the properties of inanimate matter,
possess those of Life, viz. sensibility (without consciousness or per-
ception) – I would say excitability, for sensibility without the power
of sensation is nonsense, – and contractility, or rather express
both by the term excitability.s Their structure is beautifully or-
ganised, their volume is determinate, and their surfaces disposed
to be curved; they grow by interstitial deposition, changing sub-
stances to their own nature, and are destined in their very nature
for a limited existence, – a period of increase and decay.

Animals, in addition to the properties of vegetables, enjoy
Mind, the indispensable attributes of which are the powers of
consciousness and perception, and of volition: the two former, –
which are in truth but one, termed consciousness when it takes
cognizance of internal impressions, and perception when of exter-
nal, – without the latter, would be, like vegetable or organic sensi-
bility without contractility, were this possible, useless; and the
[Seite 542] latter could not exist without the former,t any more than ve-
getable or organic contraction could occur without excitability:
nor can the existence of mind be conceived without the faculties
of consciousness, perception, and volition, any more than the
existence of matter without extension and impenetrability. The
possession of mind by animals necessarily implies the presence of
a brain for its exertion, and of a nerve or nerves for the purpose
of conveying impressions to this brain, and at least volitions from
it to one or more voluntary muscles. A system which is not
thus gifted certainly deserves not the name of animal.u

Notwithstanding the vast interval which of necessity exists
between the animal and vegetable kingdoms, the lowest brutes
approach as nearly as possible in organisation, and consequently
in function, to vegetable simplicity. They possess merely con-
sciousness and perception, and volition, with the appetite for
food, or are even nourished by imbibition, and multiply by shoots,
fixed like vegetables to the spot which they inhabit. The five
senses, sexual appetite, instincts, memory, judgment,x and loco-
[Seite 543] motive power, with the necessary organs, are variously super-
added, and endless varieties of organisation constructed, so that
air and water, the crust and the surface of the earth, are all re-
plenished with animals completely calculated for their respective
habitations.y

[Seite 544]

Man, besides the common properties of animals, has others
which raise him to an immense superiority. His mind is endowed
with powers of the highest order that brutes have not, and his
body being, like the bodies of all animals, constituted in harmony
with the mind that the powers of the latter may have effect,
differs necessarily in many points of construction from the body
of every brute. Well might Shakspeare exclaim, ‘“What a piece
of work is man! How noble in reason! how infinite in faculties!
in form and moving how express and admirable! in action how
like an angel! in apprehension how like a god! the beauty of the
world! the paragon of animals!”’z

The orang-outangs approach the nearest of all brutes to the
human subject. Possessing expression of countenance, elevation
of forehead, and less projection of the lower part of the face than
other brutes, anterior extremities that are really arms and hands,
and teeth of the same number and pretty much of the same
figure as our own; curious, imitative, covetous, social; said by
some to place sentinels and dispose themselves in a train for the
propagation of alarm; to seem now and then to laugh and weep,a
to walk a little occasionally erect, to defend themselves with
sticks and stones, to copulate face to face, to carry their young
either in their arms or on their backs, and to be very lascivious
in regard to our species; the orang-outangs at first sight afford,
if any of the genus can afford, a little probability to the opinion
of a close connection between apes and the human race. Un-
civilised men, too, make a slight approach in many corporeal
[Seite 545] particulars, as we shall hereafter find, to the structure of other
animals, and since, also, the circumstances of their existence call
into action few of the peculiar mental powers of our nature, they
have been adduced in corroboration of this opinion. But the
least examination
displays differences of the greatest magnitude
between the human and the brute creation.b These we shall
review under two divisions, the first embracing the mental, and
the second the corporeal, characteristics of mankind.

In judging of the mental faculties of mankind,c not merely
those should be considered which an unfortunately situated indi-
vidual may display, but those which all the race would display
under favourable circumstances. A seed and a pebble may not
on a shelf appear very dissimilar, but, if both are placed in the
earth, the innate characteristic energies of the seed soon become
[Seite 546] conspicuous. A savage may in the same manner seem little
superior to an orang-outang, but, if instruction is afforded to
both, the former will gradually develope the powers of our nature
in all their noble superiority, while the latter will still remain an
orang-outang. The excellence of man’s mind demonstrates itself
chiefly by his voice and hands. Witness the infinite variety and the
depth of thought expressed by means of words: witness his great
reasoning powers, his ingenuity, his taste, his upright, religious,
and benevolent, feelings, in his manufactories, his galleries of the
fine arts, his halls of justice, his temples, and his charitable esta-
blishments. Besides the qualities common to all animals, each of
which he, like every animal, possesses in a degree peculiar to
himself, and some indeed in a degree very far surpassing that in
which any brute possesses them, for instance, benevolence, me-
chanical contrivance, the sense for music and language, and the
general power of observation and inference respecting present
circumstances, he appears exclusively gifted with at least feelings
of religion and justice, with taste, with wit, and with decided re-
flecting
faculties of comparing and reasoning into causes.

The corporeal characteristics of mankind are not less striking
and noble.d Among the beings beheld by Satan in Milton’s
Paradise,

‘“Two of far nobler shape, erect and tall,’
‘Godlike erect, with native honour clad,’
‘In naked majesty seem’d lords of all.”’e

The erect posture is natural and peculiar to man.f All nations
[Seite 547] walk erect, and, among those individuals who have been disco-
vered in a wild and solitary state, there is no well authenticated
instance of one whose progression was on all-fours. If we at-
tempt this mode of progression, we move either on the knees
or the points of the toes, throwing the legs obliquely back to a
considerable distance; we find ourselves insecure and uneasy;
our eyes instead of looking forwards are directed to the ground;
and the openings of the nostrils are no longer at the lower part
of the nose, – in a situation to receive ascending odorous particles,
but lie behind it. Our inferior extremities, being of much greater
length, in proportion to the others and to the trunk, than the
posterior of brutes with four extremities, even in children in
whom the proportion is less, are evidently not intended to coin-
cide with them in movement; they are much stronger than the
arms, obviously for the purpose of great support: the presence of
calves, which are found in man alone, shows that the legs are to
support and move the whole machine; the thigh bones are in
the same line with the trunk, in quadrupeds they form an angle,
frequently an acute one; the bones of the tarsus become hard
and perfect sooner than those of the carpus, because strength of
leg is required for standing and walking sooner than strength of
arm and hand for labour; the great toe is of the highest import-
ance to the erect posture, and bestowed exclusively on mankind;
the os calcis is very large, particularly at its posterior projection,
for the insertion of the strong muscles of the calf, and lies at
right angles with the leg; we alone can rest fully upon it, and
in fact upon the whole of the tarsus, metatarsus, and toes. The
superior extremities do not lie under the trunk as they would if
destined for its support, but on its sides, capable of motion
in every direction towards objects; the fore-arm extends itself
outwards, not forwards, as in quadrupeds, where it is an organ
[Seite 548] of progression; the hand is fixed not at right angles with the
arm, as an instrument of support, but in the same line, and cannot
be extended to a right angle without painfully stretching the
flexor tendons; the superior extremity is calculated in the erect
posture for seizing and handling objects, by the freedom of its
motions, by the great length of the fingers above that of the toes,
and by the existence of the thumb, which, standing at a distance
from the fingers and bending towards them, acts as an opponent,
while the great toe is, like the rest, too short for apprehension,
stands in the same line with them, and moves in the same direc-
tion: were our hands employed in the horizontal posture, they
would be lost to us as grand instruments in the exercise of our
mental superiority. Quadrupeds have a strong ligament at the
back of the neck to sustain the head; in us there is no such thing,
and our extensor muscles at the back of the neck are compa-
ratively very weak.g They have the thorax deep and narrow,
that the anterior extremities may lie near together and give more
support; the sternum too is longer, and the ribs extend con-
siderably towards the pelvis to maintain the incumbent viscera;
our thorax is broad from side to side, that the arms being thrown
to a distance may have greater extent of motion, and shallow
from the sternum to the spine; and the abdominal viscera, press-
ing towards the pelvis rather than towards the surface of the
abdomen in the erect attitude, do not here require an osseous
support. The pelvis is beautifully adapted in us for supporting
the bowels in the erect posture; it is extremely expanded, and
the sacrum and os coccygis bend forwards below: in brutes it
does not merit the name of pelvis; for, not having to support
the abdominal contents, it is narrow, and the sacrum inclines but
little to the pubes. The nates, besides extending the pelvis upon
the thigh bones in the erect state of standing or walking, allow
us to rest while awake in the sitting posture, in which, the head
and trunk being still erect, our organs of sense have their proper
direction equally as in walking or standing: were we compelled
to lie down like quadrupeds, when resting during the waking
[Seite 549] state, the different organs of the face must change their present
situation to retain their present utility, no less than if we were
compelled to adopt the horizontal progression; and, conversely,
were their situation so changed, the provision for the sitting pos-
ture would be comparatively useless.

While some, perversely desirous of degrading their race, have
attempted to remove a splendid distinction by asserting that we
are constructed for all fours, others with equal perverseness and
ignorance have asserted that monkeys are destined for the upright
posture. The monkey tribe, it is true, maintain the erect posture
less awkwardly than other brutes with four extremities, but they
cannot maintain it long, and, while in it, they bend their knees
and body; they are insecure and tottering, and glad to rest upon
a stick; their feet, too, instead of being spread for support, are
coiled up as if to grasp something. In fact their structure proves
them to be neither biped nor quadruped, but four-handed, ani-
mals. They live naturally in trees, and are furnished with four
hands for grasping the branches and gathering their food. Of
their four hands the posterior are even the more perfect, and are
in no instance destitute of a thumb, although, like the thumbs of
all the quadramana, so insignificant as to have been termed by
Eustachius, ‘“omnino ridiculus;”’ whereas the anterior hands of
one variety (simia paniscus) have not this organ. The whole
length of the orang-outang, it may be mentioned, falls very much
short of ours.

It was anciently supposed that man, because gifted with the
highest mental endowments, possessed the largest of all brains.
But as elephants and whales surpass him in this respect, and the
sagacious monkey and dog have smaller brains than the com-
paratively stupid ass, ox, and hog, the opinion was relinquished
by the moderns, and man was said only to have the largest brain
in proportion to the size of his body. But as more extensive
observation proved canary and other birds, and some varieties of
the monkey tribe, to have larger brains than man in proportion
to the body, and several mammalia to equal him in this particular,
and as rats and mice too surpass the dog, the horse, and the
elephant, in the comparative bulk of their brains, this opinion
also gave way, in its turn, to that of Söemmerring, – that man
possesses the largest brain in comparison with the nerves arising
from it. This has not yet been contradicted, although the com-
parative size of the brain to the nerves originating from it (grant-
[Seite 550] ing that they originate from it) is not an accurate measure of the
faculties, because the seal has in proportion to its nerves a larger
brain than the house-dog, and the porpoise than the orang-outang.h

As the human brain is of such great comparative magnitude,
the cranium is necessarily very large and bears a greater pro-
portion to the face than in any other animal. In an European the
vertical section of the cranium is almost four times larger than that
of the face (not including the lower jaw); in the monkey it is
little more than double; in most ferae, nearly equal; in the glires,
solipedes, pecora, and belluae, less. The faculties, however, do
not depend upon this proportion, because men of great genius, as
Leo, Montaigne, Leibnitz, Haller, and Mirabeau, had very large
faces, and the sloth and seal have faces larger than the stag,
horse, and ox, in proportion to the brain, and the proportion is
acknowledged by Cuvier to be not at all applicable to birds. We
are assisted in discovering the proportion between the cranium
and face by the facial angle of Camper. He draws two straight
lines, the one, horizontal, passing through the external meatus
auditorius and the bottom of the nostrils; the other, more per-
pendicular, running from the convexity of the forehead to the
most prominent part of the upper jaw. The angle which the
latter, – the proper facial line, makes with the former, is greatest
in the human subject, from the comparative smallness of the brain
and the great development of the mouth and nose in brutes. In
the human adult this angle is about from 65° to 85°; in the orang-
outang about from 55° to 65°; in some quadrupeds 20°; and in
the lower classes of vertebral animals it entirely disappears.

Neither is it to be regarded as an exact measure of the under-
standing, for persons of great intellect may have a prominent
mouth; it shows merely the projection of the forehead, while the
cranium and brain may vary greatly in size in other parts; three-
fourths of quadrupeds, whose crania differ extremely in other re-
spects, have the same facial angle; great amplitude of the frontal
sinuses, as in the owl and hog, without any increase of brain, may
increase it, and for this reason Cuvier draws the facial line from
the internal table of the frontal bone.

In proportion as the face is elongated, the occipital foramen
lies more posteriorly; in man consequently it is most forward.
While in man it is nearly in the centre of the base of the cra-
nium, and horizontal, and has even sometimes its anterior margin
[Seite 551] elevated; in most quadrupeds it is situated at the extremity of
the cranium obliquely, with its posterior parts turned upwards,
and is in some completely vertical. On this difference of situation,
Daubenton founded his occipital angle.i He drew one line from
the posterior edge of the foramen to the lower edge of the orbit,
and another, in the direction of the foramen, passing between the
condyles and intersecting the former. According to the angle
formed, he established the similarity and diversity of crania.
The information derived from it in this respect is very imperfect,
because it shows the differences of the occiput merely. Blumen-
bach remarks that its variations are included between 80° and 90°
in most quadrupeds which differ very essentially in other points.

The want of the ossa intermaxillaria has been thought peculiar
to mankind. Quadrupeds, and nearly all the ape tribe, have two
bones between the superior maxillary, containing the dentes
incisores when these are present, and termed ossa intermaxillaria,
incisoria, or labialia. But these do not exist universally in them.k
Man only has a prominent chin: his lower jaw is the shortest,
compared with the cranium, and its condyles differ in form,
direction, and articulation, from those of any brute (Sect. XXI.
Note H.): in no brute are the teeth arranged in such a close and
uniform series; the lower incisores, like the jaw in which they
are fixed, are perpendicular, – a distinct characteristic of man,
for in brutes they slope backwards with the jaw bone; the canine
are not longer than the rest, nor insulated as in monkeys; the
molares differ from those of the orang-outang and of all the genus
simia by their singularly obtuse projections.

The slight hairiness of the human skin in general, although
certain parts, as the pubes and axillae, are more copiously fur-
nished with hair than in brutes; the omnivorous structure of the
alimentary canal (Sect. XXI. Note G.); the curve of the vagina
corresponding with the curve of the sacrum formerly mentioned
(page 548.), preventing woman from being, as brute females are,
retromingent; the peculiar structure of the human uterus and
[Seite 552] placenta; the length of the umbilical chord and the existence of
the vesicula umbilicalis until the fourth month; together with the
extreme delicacy of the cellular membrane; are likewise structural
peculiarities of the human race. The situation of the heart lying
not upon the sternum, as in quadrupeds, but upon the diaphragm,
on account of our erect position, – the basis turned not, as in
them, to the spine, but to the head, and the apex to the left
nipple; the absence of the allantois, of the panniculus carnosus,
of the rete mirabile arteriosum, of the suspensorius oculi; and the
smallness of the foramen incisivum, which is not only very large
in brutes, but generally double, though not peculiarities, are
striking circumstances.

Man only can live in every climate;l he is the slowest in
arriving at maturity, and, in proportion to his size, he lives the
longest of all mammalia; he only procreates at every season,
and, while in celibacy, experiences nocturnal emissions. None
but the human female menstruates.

Man, thus distinguished from all other terrestrial beings, evi-
dently constitutes a separate species: – Fact harmonises with the
Mosaic account of his distinct creation. For ‘“a species com-
prehends all the individuals which descend from each other, as
from a common parent, and those which resemble them as much
as they do each other;”’ and no brute bears such a resemblance
to man.m

He is subject, however, to great variety, so great indeed that
some writers have contended that several races of men must have
been originally created. We shall now examine the principal of
these varieties.

The most generally approved division of mankind is that
of Blumenbach.n He makes five varieties; the Caucasian,
Mongolian, Ethiopian, American, and Malay. The following
are the characteristics of each.

1. The Caucasian. The skin white; the cheeks red, – almost
a peculiarity of this variety; the hair of a nut-brown, running on
[Seite 553] the one hand into yellow, and on the other into black, soft, long,
and undulating.

The head extremely symmetrical, rather globular; the fore-
head moderately expanded; the cheek-bones narrow, not pro-
minent, directed downwards from the malar process of the supe-
rior maxillary bone; the alveolar edge round; the front teeth of
each jaw placed perpendicularly.

The face oval and pretty straight; its parts moderately distinct,
the nose narrow and slightly aquiline, or at least its dorsum
rather prominent; the mouth small; the lips, especially the
lower, gently turned out; the chin full and round: – in short,
the countenance of that style which we consider the most
beautiful.

This comprehends all Europeans except the Laplanders and
the rest of the Finnish race; the western Asiatics as far as the
Obi, the Caspian, and the Ganges; and the people of the North
of Africa.

2. The Mongolian. The skin of an olive colour; the hair
black, stiff, straight, and sparing.

The head almost square; the cheek bones prominent outwards;
the space between the eyebrows, together with the bones of the
nose, placed nearly in the same horizontal plane with the malar
bones; the superciliary arches scarcely perceptible; the osseous
nostrils narrow; the fossa maxillaris shallow; the alveolar edge
arched obtusely forwards; the chin somewhat projecting.

The face broad and flattened, and its parts consequently less
distinct; the space between the eyebrows very broad as well as
flat; the cheeks not only projecting outward, but nearly glo-
bular; the aperture of the eye-lids narrow, – linear; the nose
small and flat.

This comprehends the remaining Asiatics, except the Malays
of the extremity of the Transgangetic peninsula; the Finnish
races of the North of Europe, – Laplanders, &c.; and the
Esquimaux diffused over the most northern parts of America,
from Behring’s Strait to the farthest habitable spot of Green-
land.

3. Ethiopian. The skin black; the hair black and crisp.

The head narrow, compressed laterally; the forehead arched;
the malar bones projecting forwards; the osseous nares large;
the malar fossa behind the infra-orbitar foramen deep; the jaws
lengthened forwards; the alveolar edge narrow, elongated,
[Seite 554] more elliptical; the upper front teeth obliquely prominent; the
lower jaw large and strong; the cranium usually thick and
heavy.

The face narrow and projecting at its lower part; the eyes
prominent; the nose thick and confused with the projecting
cheeks; the lips, especially the upper, thick; the chin somewhat
receding.

The legs in many instances bowed.

This comprehends the inhabitants of Africa; with the excep-
tion of those in the northern parts, already included in the
Caucasian variety.

4. The American. The skin of a copper colour; the hair
black, stiff, straight, and sparing.

The forehead short; the cheek bones broad, but more arched
and rounded than in the Mongolian variety, not, as in it, angular
and projecting outwards; the orbits generally deep; the fore-
head and vertex frequently deformed by art; the cranium usually
light.

The face broad, with prominent cheeks, not flattened, but
with every part distinctly marked if viewed in profile; the eyes
deep; the nose rather flat, but still prominent.

This comprehends all the Americans excepting the Esquimaux,

5. The Malay. The skin tawny; the hair black, soft, curled,
thick, and abundant.

The head rather narrow; the forehead slightly arched; the
parietal bones prominent; the cheek-bones not prominent; the
upper jaw rather projecting.

The face prominent at its lower part; not so narrow as in
the Ethiopian variety, but the features, viewed in profile, more
distinct; the nose full, broad, bottled at its point; the mouth
large.

This comprehends the inhabitants of the Pacific Ocean, of the
Marian, Philippine, Molucca, and Sunda isles, and of the penin-
sula of Malacca.

General Remarks. The colour of the hair thus appears some-
what connected with that of the skin, and the colour of the iris
is closely connected with that of the hair. Light hair is common
with a white and thin skin only, and a dark thick skin is usually
accompanied by black hair; if the skin happens to be variegated,
the hair also is variegated; with the cream-white skin of the
[Seite 555] albino,o we find hair of a peculiar yellowish white tint; and,
where the skin is marked by reddish freckles, the hair is red.
When the hair is light, the iris is usually blue; when dark, it is
of a brownish black; if the hair loses the light shade of infancy,
the iris likewise grows darker, and when the hair turns grey in
advanced life, the iris loses much of its former colour; the
albino has no more colouring matter in his choroid or iris than
in his skin, and they therefore allow the redness of their blood
to appear, the latter being of a pale rose-colour and semi-pel-
lucid, the former, from its greater vascularity, causing the pupil
to be intensely red; those animals only whose skin is subject to
varieties, vary in the colour of the iris; and if the hair and skin
happen to be variegated, the iris is observed likewise variegated.p

The Caucasian variety of head, nearly round, is the mean of
[Seite 556] the rest, while the Mongolian, almost square, forms one extreme,
having the American intermediate, and Ethiopian the other
extreme, having the Malay intermediate, between it and the
Caucasian.

The Caucasian variety of face is also the mean, while the Mon-
golian and American, extended laterally, form one extreme, and
the Ethiopian and Malay, extended inferiorily, constitute the
other. In the first of each extreme, viz. the Mongolian and
Ethiopian, the features are distinct, while in the second, viz. the
American and Malay, they are somewhat blended.

Although this division of mankind is well founded and ex-
tremely useful, it is liable, like every artificial division of natural
objects, to many exceptions. Individuals belonging to one
variety are not unfrequently observed with some of the charac-
teristics of another;q the characteristics of two varieties are
[Seite 557] often intimately blended in the same individual (indeed all the
four varieties run into each other by insensible degrees);r and
instances continually occur of deviation in one or more particulars
from the appearances characteristic of any variety;s so that the
assemblage rather than individual marks must frequently be
employed to determine the variety.

Particular Remarks. The Caucasian variety is pre-eminent
in all those mental and corporeal particulars which distinguish
man from brutes. It is to the two sexes of this variety that
Milton’s lines apply, –

‘“For contemplation he and valour formed;’
‘For softness she and sweet attractive grace.”’t

The cranium is very capacious, the area of the face bears to
its area but a proportion of one to four, and projects little or not
[Seite 558] at all at the lower parts: the intellectual faculties of its indi-
viduals are susceptible of the highest cultivation, while the senses
of smelling, hearing, and seeing, are much less acute than in dark
nations. Philosophy and the fine arts flourish in it as in their
proper soil.

The Ethiopian variety when instructed by the Caucasian has
produced instances of mental advancement great indeed, but
inferior to what the latter is capable of attaining. ‘“There
scarcely ever,”’ says Hume, ‘“was a civilized nation of that com-
plexion, nor even an individual, eminent either in action or spe-
culation. No ingenious manufactures amongst them, no arts,
no sciences. On the other hand, the most rude and barbarous of
the whites, such as the ancient Germans, the present Tartars,
have still something eminent about them, in their valour, form
of government, or some other particulars.”’u Blumenbach, how-
ever, possesses English, Dutch, and Latin poetry written by
different negroes, and informs us that, among other examples of
distinguished negroes, a native of Guinea, eminent for his inte-
grity, talents, and learning, took the degree of doctor in philo-
sophy at the University of Wittemberg, and that Lislet of the isle
of France was chosen a corresponding member of the French
Academy of Sciences. ‘“Provinces of Europe,”’ says he, ‘“might
be named, in which it would be no easy matter to discover such
good writers, poets, philosophers, and correspondents of the
French Academy; and, on the other hand, there is no savage
people which have distinguished themselves by such examples of
perfectibility, and even capacity for scientific cultivation, and
consequently, that none can approach more nearly than the negro
to the polished nations of the globe.”’x This mental inferiority
is attended of course by a corresponding inferiority of the brain.
The circumference, diameters, and vertical arch of the cranium
being smaller than in the European,y and the forehead particu-
larly being narrower and falling back in a more arched form,
the brain in general, and particularly those parts which are the
organs of intellect properly so called, must be of inferior size.
The orbits, on the contrary, and the olfactory and gustatory, or,
rather, masticatory, organs being more amply evolved, the area
[Seite 559] of the face bears a greater proportion to the area of the skull, –
as 1. 2. to 4.; the proportion is greater in the orang-outang, and
in the carnivora nearly equal.z The senses here situated, as well
as that of hearing, are astonishingly acute, though not only in
this, but also in the three following varieties, and the correspond-
ing nerves, at least the first, fifth, and facial, of great size.a

The ossa nasi lie so flatly as to form scarcely any ridge; the
face, as we have formerly seen, projects considerably at its lower
part;b the lower jaw is not only long but extremely strong; the
[Seite 560] chin not only not prominent but even receding, and the space
between it and the lower teeth is small, while that between the
upper teeth and the nose is large; the meatus auditorius is nearer
the occiput, – more remote from the front teeth than in the Eu-
ropean; the foramen magnum occipitale lying farther back, the
occiput is nearly in a line with the spine; the body is slender,
especially in the loins and pelvis, whose cavity likewise is small;
the length of the fore-arms and fingers bears a large proportion
to that of the os humeri; the os femoris and tibia are more con-
vex, and the edge of the latter, according to a remark of the late
Mr. Fyfe of Edinburgh, very sharp; the calves are placed high; the
os calcis instead of forming an arch is on a line with the other
bones of the foot, which is of great breadth; the toes are long;
the penis large and frequently destitute of fraenum. Mr. White,
from whom many of these remarks are derived, describes the
testes and scrotum as small. Mr. Billmann of Cassell has ob-
served that the stomach is shorter, more globular at its cardiac
extremity; and the observation is confirmed by Soemmerring, who
finds that of the ape still shorter;c the skin is thicker,d and,
finally, the term of life generally shorter, than in Europeans.

Nearly all these facts demonstrate rather a less distance of the
Negro than of the European from the brute creation. But with
an inferiority to the Caucasians so slight if compared with his
immense superiority over the most intelligent brutes, so insensibly
running into the Caucasian and all the other varieties, so liable to
innumerable diversities of conformation as well as bearing some
resemblance to brutes, and so certainly bearing no more resem-
blance to them in some points nor so much in others as many
tribes of other varieties, the poor negro might justly class those
of us who philosophically view him as merely a better sort of
monkey, or who desire to traffic in his blood, not only below him-
self but below apes in intellect, and below tigers in feeling and
propensity.

‘“Indica tigris agit rabida cum tigride pacem’
‘Perpetuam. Saevis inter se convenit ursis.”’e
[Seite 561]

‘“The unconscious admiration which that traveller detected
himself in bestowing upon the native beauties, affords,”’ says the
writer of a critique of Major Denham’s Travels in Africa,d
‘“one more example of this truth, that, however much Europeans
may have doubted whether negroes were men, there has never
been a difference of opinion as to whether negresses were
women.”’

The skin of the negro has a peculiar velvet-like softness, and is
lubricated by an oily secretion.

The Malays have but little hair upon the chin, and possess a
great development of the parts of the head above the ears.

The Mongolians are remarkably square and robust; their
shoulders high; their extremities short and thick.

The Americans have small hands and feet, and are nearly des-
titute of beard. Shorter in the forehead than the Mongolians,
they have not so great intellectual distinction.

Not only have the five varieties their distinctive characteristics,
but the different nations comprehended in each variety have each
their peculiarities, both mental and corporeal: among the Cau-
casians for example, the Germans, French, Spaniards, and Eng-
lish are extremely different from each other. Nay, the provinces
of the same country differ, and the families of the same pro-
vince, and, in fact, every individual has his own peculiar coun-
tenance, figure, constitution, form of body, and mental cha-
racter.

A question here presents itself. – Are the differences among
mankind to be ascribed to the influence of various causes upon
the descendants of two, – or of more, but all similar, primary
parents; – or to original differences in more than two primary
parents?

This being a physical subject, is now always physically inves-
tigated, without reference to the Bible, except as an historical
work, in conformity both with the opinion of Locke, that only
matters above human reason are the proper subjects of revelation;
and of Bacon, that religious and philosophical enquiry should be
kept separate, and not pompously united.e A true revelation
cannot suffer by the progress of philosophy; but philosophy
[Seite 562] has seriously suffered by ignorant appeals to Scripture. Besides,
many will not listen to arguments from Scripture in matters of phi-
losophy, alleging the want of proof of inspiration. Dr. Bostock,
one of the most careful and amiable of enquirers, does not hesi-
tate to say, that ‘“we do not find that the writer of the Book of
Genesis lays claim to any supernatural source of information
with respect to natural phenomena, while the whole tenor of
his work seems to show, that on such topics he adopted the
opinions which were current among his contemporaries.”’f

In favour of the opinion that we all are brothers, it may be
urged, – 1. The universal simplicity of nature’s causes would in-
duce us to imagine that, as, if the varieties among us are accidental,
two individuals were evidently sufficient for the production of the
rest of mankind, no more than two were originally created. Nor
should I deduce a contrary presumptive argument from the length
of time during which immense portions of the earth must have thus
remained unpeopled. One of nature’s objects seems the exist-
ence of as much successive life as possible, whether animal or
vegetable, throughout the globe. For this purpose, every
species of animal and vegetable possesses an unlimited power of
propagation, capable of filling the whole world, were opportunity
afforded it. The opportunities of exertion are indeed very scanty,
compared with the power: climate, soil, situation, may be un-
favourable; one vegetable, one animal, stands in the way of
another; even the impediments to the increase of some, act
through them as impediments to others. The incessant ten-
dency of the power of multiplication to exert itself, seizes every
opportunity the moment it is presented, and thus, though every
living object has a fixed term of existence, and may be carried off
much earlier by innumerable circumstances, all nature constantly
teems with life.s The slow increase of mankind could not inter-
[Seite 563] fere with this apparent object of nature; the deficiency of our
race must have invariably been fully compensated by the oppor-
tunities which it afforded for the multiplication of other existences:
for that man alone was not designed to enjoy the earth, is shown
by the vast tracts of land still but thinly peopled. The infinitely
rare opportunities afforded for the maturity of the intellectual and
moral powers born with every human being, may afford still
greater surprise than the extent of country unoccupied by man.

2. Analogical and direct facts lead to the conclusion that none
of the differences among mankind are so great as to require the
belief of their originality.

Animated beings have a general tendency to produce offspring
resembling themselves. in both mental and corporeal qualities.

‘“Fortes creantur fortibus et bonis;’
‘Est in juvencis, est in equis patrum’
‘Virtus: nec imbellem feroces’
‘Progenerant aquilae columbam.”’h

An exception occasionally occurs, much more frequently, we
are told, in the domestic than the wild state, – the offspring differs
in some particular from the parents; and by the force of the
general tendency transmits to its offspring its own peculiarity.
By selecting such examples, a breed peculiar in colour, figure,
the form of some one part, or in some mental quality, may be
produced. Thus, by killing all the black individuals which ap-
pear among our sheep and breeding from the white only, our
flocks are white; while, by an opposite practice pursued in some
countries, they are black: thus a ram accidentally produced on
a farm in Connecticut, with elbow-shaped fore-legs and a great
[Seite 564] shortness and weakness of joint indeed in all four extremities,
was selected for propagation, and the ἁγϰὼν b reed, unable to
climb over fences, is now established:i thus some breeds of
hares have horns like the roebuck: the Dorking fowl has two
hind claws; and fowls in short are bred in every conceivable
variety.k Individuals, distinguished from others by no greater
differences than those which thus spring up accidentally, cannot
be supposed to belong to a separate species. Upon the compa-
[Seite 565] rison of these differences depends the analogical argument first
employed by Blumenbach. Finding the ferret (mustela furo) to
differ from the pole-cat (m. putorius) by the redness of its eyes,
he concludes it is merely a variety of the same species, because
instances of this deviation are known to occur accidentally in
other animals; but he concludes the African elephant is of a
species distinct from the Asiatic, because the invariable difference
of their molar teeth is of a description which naturalists have
never found accidental. Now there exist among mankind no
differences greater than what happen occasionally in separate
species of brutes.

The colours of the animals around us, horses, cows, dogs, cats,
rabbits, fowls, are extremely various, – black, white, brown, grey,
variegated.

The hair of the wild Siberian sheep is close in summer, but
rough and curled in winter;l sheep in Thibet are covered with
the finest wool, in Ethiopia with coarse stiff hair;m the bristles of
the hog in Normandy are too soft for the manufacture of brushes;n
goats, rabbits, and cats of Angouri, in Anatolia, have very long
hair, white as snow and soft as silk.o

The head of the domestic pig differs as much from that of the
wild animal, as the Negro from the European in this respect;p so
the head of the Neapolitan horse, denominated ram’s head on ac-
count of its shape, from that of the Hungarian animal, remarkable
for its shortness and the extent of its lower jaw;q the cranium of
fowls at Padua is dilated like a shell, and perforated by an im-
mense number of small holes;r cattle and sheep in some parts of
our own country have horns, in others not; in Sicily sheep have
enormous horns;s and in some instances this animal has so many,
as to have acquired the epithet polyceratous.

The form of other parts is no less various. In Normandy, pigs
have hind-legs much longer than the fore,t at the Cape of Good
Hope, cows have much shorter legs than in England;u the differ-
ence between the Arabian, Syrian, and German, horses is suffi-
[Seite 566] ciently known; the hoofs of the pig may be undivided, bisulcous,
or trisulcous.

These are regarded by naturalists as but accidental varieties,
yet they equal or surpass the varieties existing among mankind.
We are consequently led by analogy to conclude, that the dif-
ferences of nations are not original but acquired, and impose no
necessity for believing that more than one stock was at first
created.

3. Direct facts harmonise with this conclusion. All races
run insensibly one into another, and therefore innumerable
intermediate examples occur where the distinction between
two varieties is lost. Again, no peculiarity exists in any variety
which does not show itself occasionally in another. Many in-
stances of these facts have been already related (page 556, note o).
The difficulty of regarding the negro as of the same stock
with ourselves vanishes on viewing these circumstances, and on
reflecting that he and ourselves are two extremes, one of which
may have sprung from the other by means of several intermediate
deviations, although experience may not justify us in supposing
any single deviation of sufficient magnitude.x Lastly, both the
[Seite 567] males and females of all the varieties breed together readily and
in perpetuity,y – an assertion which cannot be made in regard to
any different species of brutes.

The cause of the differences of our species has been more or
less sought for in climate, alone or in conjunction with other ex-
ternal circumstances, by Aristotle, Hippocrates, Cicero, Pliny,
Plutarch, Galen, nearly all the Greek and Roman historians and
poets, Montaigne, Montesquieu, Buffon, Zimmerman, Blumenbach,
Dr. Smith of America, &c. Lord Kaimes denied the power of
these circumstances to produce the diversities of either mind or
body; and Hume expressly wrote an essay to prove the insuf-
ficiency of climate with respect to the varieties of national charac-
ter. Now the intensity of light unquestionably affects the colour
of the surface, although not to the degree of Ethiopian blackness;
heat the texture and growth of the hair; and quantity of nourish-
ment the size. But the effects of these circumstances are gene-
rally considered superficial, even on animals necessarily less pro-
tected against their influence than man. The skulls of foxes
belonging to northern regions are not different from those of
France or Egypt: the tusks of the elephant, and the horns of the
stag and rein-deer, may acquire a larger size when the food is
[Seite 568] more favourable to the production of ivory or horn, but the
number and articulations of the bones, and the structure of the
teeth, remain unaltered.z Nor are these changes, any more than
those induced by mechanical means, as pressure, division, &c.
transmitted to the offspring: the child of the most sunburnt rustic
is born equally fair with other children; even all the children
among the Moors are born white and acquire the brown cast of
their fathers only if exposed to the sun;a although the Jews have
most religiously practised the rite of circumcision from the days
of Abraham, their foreskin still remains to be circumcised.b Were
it therefore true that all dark nations are the inhabitants of hot
climates, as the confined knowledge of the ancients led them to
believe, it would still be untrue that the change effected, for in-
stance, in the colour of the parent’s skin, had descended to the
offspring. But modern discovery has made us acquainted with
light nations inhabiting the warmest regions, with dark nations in-
habiting the coldest, and with others of various shades of colour
although in the same climate.c Many protected parts are as
[Seite 569] black as those which are exposed. Nor are the varieties of man-
kind more dependent upon the varieties of food.

But with civilisation and barbarism they appear certainty con-
nected. We should beforehand be inclined to imagine that
the most excellent development of every animated species would
be effected where all its wants were best supplied, its powers all
duly called forth, and all injurious or unpleasant circumstances
least prevalent: and vice versa. Every one knows the effect of
cultivation in the vegetable kingdom. But experience teaches us
that changes brought about in an animal after birth are not in gene-
ral transmitted to the offspring: the causes of change in a species
must therefore operate, not by altering the parents, but by dis-
posing them to produce an offspring more or less different from
[Seite 570] themselves. Such is John Hunter’s view of the question,d and
it is certainly confirmed by every fact.e Uncivilized nations ex-
posed to the inclemency of the weather, supported by precarious
and frequently unwholesome food, and having none of the dis-
tinguished energies of their nature called forth, are generally
dark coloured and less distant from brutes in conformation;
while those who enjoy the blessings of civilisation, i. e. good food
and covering, with mental cultivation and enjoyment, generally
acquire in the same proportion the Caucasian characteristics.
The different effects of different degrees of cultivation, says Dr.
Smith, ‘“are most conspicuous in those countries in which the
laws have made the most complete and permanent division of
ranks. What an immense difference exists in Scotland between
the chiefs and the commonalty of the highland clans. If they
had been separately found in different countries, the philosophy
of some writers would have ranged them in different species.
A similar distinction takes place between the nobility and
peasantry of France, Spain, of Italy, of Germany. It is even
more conspicuous in eastern nations, where a wider difference
exists between the highest and the lowest classes in society.
The naires or nobles of Calicut, in the East Indies, have with
the usual ignorance and precipitancy of travellers been pro-
nounced a different race from the populace; because the former,
elevated by their rank, and devoted only to martial studies and
achievements, are distinguished by that manly beauty, and ele-
vated stature so frequently found with the profession of arms:
especially when united with nobility of descent; the latter poor
and laborious, and exposed to hardships without the spirit or
[Seite 571] the hope to better their condition, are much more deformed and
diminutive in their persons, and in their complexion much more
black. In France, says Buffon, you may distinguish by their
aspect not only the nobility from the peasantry, but the superior
orders of nobility from the inferior, these from citizens, and
citizens from peasants.”’ – ‘“The field slaves in America,”’ con-
tinues Dr. Smith, ‘“are badly clothed, fed, and lodged, and live
in small huts on the plantations, remote from the example and
society of their superiors. Living by themselves, they retain
many of the customs and manners of their ancestors. The
domestic servants, on the other hand, who are kept near the
persons, or employed in the family of their masters, are treated
with great lenity, their service is light, they are fed and clothed
like their superiors, they see their manners, adopt their habits,
and insensibly receive the same ideas of elegance and beauty.
The field slaves are in consequence slow in changing the aspect
and figure of Africa. The domestic servants have advanced far
before them in acquiring the agreeable and regular features, and
the expressive countenance of civilised society. The former are
frequently ill-shaped, they preserve, in a great degree, the African
lips, and nose and hair. Their genius is dull, and their counte-
nance sleepy and stupid. The latter are straight and well pro-
portioned, their hair extended to three or four, sometimes even
to six or eight inches: the size and shape of their mouth hand-
some, their features regular, their capacity good, and their look
animated.”’f

Dr. Prichard has ‘“been assured by persons who have resided
in the West Indies, that a similar change is very visible among
the Negro slaves of the third and fourth generation in those
islands, and that the first generation differs considerably from the
natives of Africa.”’g

The South Sea Islanders, who appear to be all of one family,
vary according to their degree of cultivation. The New Zea-
landers, for example, are savages and chiefly black; the New
Hollanders, half civilised and chiefly tawny; the Friendly Is-
landers are more advanced and not quite so dark, several are
lighter than olive colour, and hundreds of European faces are
found among them.

[Seite 572]

The people of Otaheite and the Society isles are the most
civilised and the most beautiful: the higher orders among them
have a light complexion and hair flowing in ringlets; the lower
orders, less cultivated, are less pleasing.

‘“The same superiority,”’ says Captain King,h ‘“which is ob-
servable in the Erees (nobles) throughout the other islands, is
found also here (Owyhee). Those whom we saw were, without
exception, perfectly well formed; whereas the lower sort, besides
their general inferiority, are subject to all the variety of make and
figure that is seen in the populace of other countries.”’i

Climate, however, has not been shown to have no effect: but
its power, being in itself not generally very considerable, cannot be
strongly manifested when opposed. In fact, a diminution of the
sun’s influence does dispose to the production of light varieties: the
inhabitants of hilly situations are, caeteris paribus, fairer than the
people below, and persons of the same tribe and degree of
civilisation lighter in the northern parts of Europe and Asia than
those in the more southern; whiteness, too, is very common in
the north among animals which nearer the equator are variously
coloured; a pair of brown mice kept in a dark place are said to
generate a white offspring. Blumenbach mentions that small birds
fed on hemp-seed in a chamber, become black.k Some statements
have been lately made respecting New South Wales, that show
the influence of the climate of that country to be considerable.

‘“It appears, indeed, that the change which takes place in the
physical constitution of all kinds of animals on transplantation to
New South Wales, is something quite astonishing. It was long
since remarked, that prostitutes who had never borne children
in Europe, became prolific mothers in the Australian colonies, and
that married women who had long left off child-bearing, recom-
menced, in some cases even at the advanced period of fifty years,
after a short residence in these regions; and the observation
appears to be confirmed, that not only the human race, but most
of the quadrupeds produced from animals imported, improve their
breed and increase considerably in size. Mr. Dawson, the intel-
ligent manager of the Australian Agricultural Company, thus
[Seite 573] writes in a private journal with which we have been favoured.
‘‘Both the climate and the soil appear by nature intended to
produce fine wool and fine animals too, even from the worst
beginnings. The latter seems a paradox. The extensive range
that can be afforded to every animal keeps it in good condition,
and, perhaps, the native grasses may have more of good in them
than their appearance indicates. However this may be, the
climate clearly has a wonderful effect on the size of all animals,
even upon man, who is almost universally tall here, although born
of diminutive parents. From this I am led to believe that the
climate governs chiefly, and thus every breeding animal intro-
duced here will attain a size not known in Europe. From what
I know of the origin of the breed of horses introduced here, and
the size of the stock that has almost promiscuously been pro-
duced from them, I have strong grounds for inferring that the
produce of such horses as we have imported will be something
extraordinary.’’”’l

The late inestimable Bishop Heber, in speaking of India,
says, ‘“It is remarkable, to observe how surely all these
classes of men (whites, – Persian, Greeks, Tartars, Turks, and
Arabians), in a few generations, even without any intermar-
riage with the Hindoos, assume the deep olive tint, little less
dark than a negro, which seems natural to the climate. The Por-
tuguese have, during three hundred years’ residence in India, be-
come as black as Caffres. Surely this goes far to disprove the
assertion which is sometimes made, that climate alone is insuf-
ficient to account for the difference between the negro and
the European. It is true that in the negro are other peculiarities
which the Indian has not, and to which the Portuguese colonist
shows no symptom of approximation, and which undoubtedly do
not appear to follow as naturally from the climate as that swarthi-
ness of complexion which is the sole difference between the
Hindoo and the European. But if heat produces one change,
other peculiarities of climate may produce other and additional
changes, and where such peculiarities have three or four thousand
years to operate in, it is not easy to fix any limit to their power.
I am inclined, after all, to suspect that our European vanity leads
us astray in supposing that our own is the primitive complexion,
[Seite 574] which I would rather suppose was that of the Indian, half way
between the two extremes, perhaps the most agreeable to the eye
and instinct of the majority of the human race. Colder climate
and a constant use of clothes, may have bleached the skin as ef-
fectually as a burning sun and nakedness may have tanned it: and
I am encouraged in this hypothesis by observing that of animals
the natural colours are generally dusky and uniform, while white-
ness and a variety of tint almost invariably follow domestication,
shelter from the elements, and a mixed and unnatural diet. Thus,
while hardships, additional exposure, a greater degree of heat,
and other circumstances with which we are unacquainted, may
have deteriorated the Hindoo into a negro, opposite causes may
have changed him into the progressively lighter tints of the
Chinese, the Persian, the Turk, the Russian, and the Englishman.”’m

Volney gives us a singular instance of the power of climate
upon different races; not, indeed, in producing variety, but in
mysteriously affecting generation.

‘“During five hundred and fifty years that there have been
Mamlouks in Egypt, not one of them has left subsisting issue;
there does not exist one single family of them in the second
generation; all their children perish in the first or second
descent. Almost the same thing happens to the Turks; and it is
observed that they can only secure the continuance of their
families, by marrying women who are natives, which the Mam-
louks have always disdained. Let the naturalist explain why
men, well formed, and married to healthy women, are unable to
naturalize on the banks of the Nile, a race born at the foot of
Mount Caucasus! and let it be remembered, at the same time,
that the plants of Europe in that country are equally unable to
continue their species! Some may refuse to believe this extra-
ordinary fact, but it is not on that account less certain; nor does
it appear to be new. The ancients have made observations of the
same nature: thus, when Hippocrates asserts, that among the
Scythians and Egyptians, all the individuals resemble each other,
though they are like no other nations; when he adds, that in the
countries inhabited by these two races of men, the climate, seasons,
elements, and soil possess an uniformity no where else to be found,
[Seite 575] does he not recognize that kind of exclusion of which I speak?
When such countries impress so peculiar a character on every thing
native, is it not a reason why they should reject whatever is foreign?
It seems, then, that the only means of naturalizing animals and
plants would be to contract an affinity with the climate, by alli-
ance with the native species; and this, as I have before said,
the Mamlouks have constantly refused. The means, therefore,
by which they are perpetuated and multiplied, are the same by
which they were first established; that is to say, when they die,
they are replaced by slaves brought from their original country.”’n

Being curious on this point, and having a most intelligent and
valued friend who lately travelled in Turkey, Syria, and Egypt,
and even spent seven months in the Desert of Arabia, I applied to
him for information, and received the following note: –

‘“Dear Elliotson,’

Limmer’s Hotel, March 3.

‘“I have just received your note, and have great pleasure in
giving you what information I am able on the subject of the Eu-
ropeans in Egypt. You asked me yesterday if I had not told you
Volney was incorrect in the statement he has made in p. 108.
concerning the Mamlouks? I do not remember having told you
any thing to that effect: the subject which he seems to have been
misinformed upon is the climate of Syria, which does not interest
you.’

‘“From the various enquiries I made in Egypt I consider Volney
to be perfectly correct. The persons whom I asked had never
read his work, and till I asked them had never given their attention
to the subject; yet still they could not bring one instance to their
recollection of the children (of two whites) born in the country
ever coming to maturity. I was also told that children begotten
by Europeans out of natives (a circumstance which, however,
rarely happens, owing to the Copts and Arabs being very par-
ticular on that subject) entirely lose their appearance of European
origin in the third generation. The physiognomy of the Copts is
very striking; I never remember seeing the least European mixture,
which would be visible if they had made alliances with the Turks
who are as different in the form of face as can well be imagined, –
[Seite 576] the Turks have Roman noses; the Georgians Grecian; the Mam-
louks both; but the Copts are snubs.

‘“I was told at Damietta, the port on the eastern branch of the
Nile, that an Italian family had flourished amazingly; afterwards
I heard the mother was a Maltese, which, if true, more strongly
corroborates the fact, as the Maltese are supposed to be of
Arabian origin: they speak a kind of jargon so like Arabic as
to make themselves understood by the natives on their arrival in
Egypt.’

‘“What Volney also says about the vegetables is equally true.
When I left Cairo, a gardener hearing that I was going to Jaffa
and Damascus, and likely to return, begged me to bring him melon
and cauliflower seed, as, though those plants thrive exceedingly
well in Egypt, unless the seed be renovated constantly, it dege-
nerates so as quite to become another plant. This is also the
case, I understand, with the Brussels sprouts, so celebrated in
the Netherlands. Plants raised from seed from Brussels thrive
well in this country; but seed saved here, though it ripens
thoroughly, greatly degenerates in the second generation.’

‘“The race of Mamlouks has been entirely destroyed by the
present Pacha, Mahommed Ali. Only a few escaped the general
massacre in the citadel, and fled to Dongola. These few have
been gradually dying off. When I was in Cairo I heard from a
person lately arrived from Abyssinia that only a very few were
left. One old man, the only one in Cairo, I used to see daily in
a public garden. I had some conversation with him several
times, but he was quite superannuated, and could give no infor-
mation. In fact, had he been capable, his life would not have
been spared.’

‘“Ever your’s most truly,’

‘“J. S. Crompton.”

The hereditary transmission of habits is well described by a
recent author.

‘“Every one conversant with beasts knows that not only their
natural, but many of their acquired qualities are transmitted by
their parents to their offspring. Perhaps the most curious exam-
ple of the latter may be found in the pointer.’

‘“This animal is endowed with the natural instinct of winding
game, and stealing upon his prey, which he surprises, having first
made a short pause, in order to launch himself upon it with more
[Seite 577] security of success. This sort of semicolon in his proceedings
man converts into a full stop, and teaches him to be as much
pleased at seeing the bird or beast drop by the shooter’s gun as
at taking it himself. The staunchest dog of this kind, and the
original pointer, is of Spanish origin, and our own is derived from
this race, crossed with that of the fox-hound or other breed of
dogs, for the sake of improving his speed. This mixed and fac-
titious race of course naturally partakes less of the true pointer
character; that is to say, is less disposed to stop, or, at least, he
makes a shorter stop at game. The factitious pointer is, however,
disciplined in this country into staunchness; and what is most
singular, this quality is in a great degree inherited by his puppy,
who may be seen earnestly standing at pigeons or swallows in a
farm-yard. For intuition, though it leads the offspring to exer-
cise his parent’s faculties, does not instruct him how to direct
them. The preference of his master afterwards guides him in his
selection, and teaches him what game is better worth pursuit.
On the other hand, the pointer of pure Spanish race, unless he
happens to be well broke himself, which, in the south of Europe
seldom happens, produces a race which are all but unteachable,
according to our notions of a pointer’s business. They will make
a stop at their game as natural instinct prompts them, but seem
incapable of being drilled into the habits of the animal which
education has formed in this country, and has rendered, as I have
said, in some degree, capable of transmitting his acquirements to
his descendants.’

‘“Acquired habits are hereditary in other animals besides dogs.
English sheep, probably from the greater richness of our pastures,
feed very much together; while the Scotch sheep are obliged to
extend and scatter themselves over their hills for the better dis-
covery of food. Yet the English sheep, on being transferred to
Scotland, keep their old habit of feeding in a mass, though so
little adapted to their new country: so do their descendants; and
the English sheep is not thoroughly naturalized into the neces-
sities of his place till the third generation. The same thing may
be observed as to the nature of his food, that is observed in his
mode of eating it. When turnips were introduced from England
into Scotland, it was only the third generation which heartily
adopted this diet, the first having been starved into an acqui-
escence in it. In the same manner it required some years to
[Seite 578] establish the English practice of bringing up calves by hand in
Scotland; the first who were so fed being cheated into swallowing
milk, as the English calves at first are, by dipping the finger in
the bowl and giving it the animal to suck. Nor was this mode of
administering nourishment (slowly and reluctantly admitted by
Lowland calves) ever, I believe, cordially adopted by their moun-
tain kindred. The Highland beast has shown himself the worthy
imitator of the Highland man, and is as obstinate in his opposition
to this as his Celtic master is to any other southern improvement
which can be offered to him.”’o

The effect of civilization on corporeal strength was proved by
Peron,p who ascertained, by means of Regnier’s Dynamometer, the
bodily power of the complete savage of Van Diemen’s land to be
inferior to that of the more cultivated New Hollander, of the latter
to that of the still more cultivated inhabitant of Timor, and of the
last very considerably to that of Europeans. The weakest French-
man was equal in the hands to the strongest man of Van Diemen’s
Land, and the weakest Englishman stronger than the strongest
New Hollander: the average strength of Europeans in the loins
exceeded that of the most powerful individuals of either Van
Diemen’s Land, New Holland, or Timor.

On account of all these facts, and of the consideration that a child
is continually produced differing remarkably from both its parents
and that such an individual born in ancient times might have given
origin to a large nation resembling himself, I can discover no
reason for not believing that we are sprung from two parents.

Perfection, in other words, the highest compatible point of
utility or agreeableness, or of both, is nature’s universal aim in
her productions, but it is in general obtained slowly, and the
more so in proportion to the excellence or degree of the qualities
to be perfected. Animals and vegetables have to pass one period
before they burst into birth, and another before their full powers
and proportions are reached; and man, whose perfections are
very excellent, arrives at his acmé very late.

[Seite 579]

It is in this respect with species as with individuals, – their
improvement is gradual.

In conformity with such observations, some suppose that all
mankind were once so far below the excellence of which they
are susceptible, – that this was to be acquired so slowly, that the
Caucasian variety once did not exist. They support this opinion
by the remark of Mr. Hunter, – that the changes of colour in
brutes are always from the darker to the lighter shades,q by the
numerous instances of individual blacks turning permanently
white, whereas individual whites have rarely been known to turn
black, and by the asserted probability of the most ancient people
of the earth, from whom Europeans must be descended, having
been genuine Ethiopians or Negroes.r

Those who oppose the opinion of our descent from two parents,
urge that the five millions of human beings that may at present
exist could not have descended from one pair without a chain of
wonders; that accidents, diseases, &c. might have happened to
our first parents, and the peopling of the earth would thus have
been left to chance; that no reason can be given for mankind
wishing to leave their place of birth and traverse continents and
oceans, that indeed mankind is generally indisposed to migration;
[Seite 580] and that the supposition is supported by no other authority than
‘“a very improbable Jewish tradition.”’s

I confess myself unable to discover the weight of these as-
sertions.

So high is the power of circumstances to alter the constitution
estimated by some writers, that they would have us believe every
species and variety in the whole vegetable and animal kingdom
to be the same, and to differ solely by modifying influences.
Common matter, they contend, becomes vivified under favourable
circumstances into vegetable, and then into animal, or at once into
animal.t Many individuals of the simplest animal race, M.
Lamarck argues, gradually acquire more complexity, accordingly
as the circumstances in which they may be placed are favourable
to the development of various powers and structures. These
produce their like, and many of their progeny become variously
influenced still farther, and so the change has proceeded till all
the varieties of vegetables and animals, from mildew to the
banian-tree casting a shadow of 11,000 feet in circumference,
from the microscopic animalcule to man and the mammoth, have
been produced. The reason that man and the brutes around us
appear exactly the same as they are mentioned in the oldest his-
tories, he ascribes to the shortness of the period, long as it seems
to us in comparison with our own career of life. The earth, he
believes, from its marks of great antiquity, to have existed for
innumerable ages, quite long enough to explain all the diversities
of animals considered as changes gradually effected; and the re-
motest ages of which we have records, to be too modern for
obvious alterations to have been subsequently effected, though
change has, doubtless, silently proceded. The effect of circum-
stances he illustrates by our tame geese and ducks, which have,
with their wildness, lost the power of elevated or protracted flight,
and undergone some changes of structure. Upon this doctrine he
explains the similarity of structure in all animals, – how every
species runs insensibly into others; the modifying influences having
[Seite 581] operated in infinite degrees, and affected certain parts more than
the rest. He considers, that except those races of animals which
man has extirpated, the others whose fossil remains attest their
former existence, but which are thought to be extinct, really
exist at present, but so modified by the evolution of various parts
that they appear under the form of new animals.u

Great as the power of circumstances is in altering structure and
habits, I cannot believe that the kangaroo’s peculiarities arose
from some animals happening to have used their fore-extremities
too little, and their hind extremities and tails very much; or
the web of aquatic birds, from their progenitors having happened
to separate their claws as much as possible in swimming. Spon-
taneous generation is doubtful, and I think Lamarck’s principles
apply to the production of varieties only, and those chiefly among
the lower species, and that there is neither proof nor probability
that the enormous diversities of animals, from man to the animal-
cule of a vegetable infusion, can be attributed to external cir-
cumstances.

Still there is nothing atheistical, but the very highest sublimity,
in the conception. We have reason to believe that among the
myriads of worlds and systems of worlds in the universe, world
after world, and system after system are, like countries, and
like animals and vegetables, silently and successively destroyed,
and others produced. Our new earth Lamarck imagines to have
been endowed by the Creator with such powers that, under certain
circumstances, portions of its matter became animated and or-
ganised, and these animated portions he imagines to have been
endowed with the property of becoming more and more compli-
cated in their structure and excellent in their properties, till in the
course of countless ages the world came to abound as it does, in
all the varieties of living beings, with the human race at their
head.

POSTSCRIPT.

[Seite 582]

Page 161. for ‘“Oronoco,”’ read ‘“the Orinoco.”’

Page 216. for ‘“Meckel’s”’ read ‘“Gasser’s.”’

Page 221. Experiments similar to some which have been
lately made, were performed above a century and a half ago.
In 1673, M. Duverney removed the cerebrum and cerebellum
from a pigeon, and found the animal ‘“live some time, search for
aliment, &c.”’ He removed the cerebrum from a dog without a
fatal result for some time: the removal of the cerebellum was
instantly fatal. Yet, by instituting artificial respiration, he sus-
tained life for an hour after the removal of the cerebellum. In
one experiment, the dog ‘“lived twenty-four hours, and his heart
beat well.”’ The instantly fatal result of the division of the spinal
marrow at the first vertebra he prevented also by artificial respir-
ation, and found that ‘“the motion of the heart continued, and the
animal could move his body.”’ See Phil. Trans. vol. xix.

Page 488. The reference to the Ed. Med. and Surg. Journal,
should be vol. xvii. The experiments are by Dr. Mayer of Bonn.
Those with madder, and on the continuance of the foetal circul-
ation in warm water, are by Dr. Chapman, and will be found in the
Philadelphia Journal, No. I.

Page 485. I cannot deny myself the gratification of stating,
that since this Note was written I have witnessed the complete
extirpation of a scirrhous and ulcerated uterus, fundus, cervix
and os, through the vagina, by Dr. James Blundel, without injury
of any neighbouring organ, hemorrhage, or the least unpleasant
circumstances either during or after the operation; and that the
woman is now at the end of three weeks perfectly well.

THE END.


LONDON:
printed by A. & R. Spottiswoode,
New-Street-Square.

Notes
a.
[Seite x]

Into German, by Jos. Eyerel. Vienna, 1789.

Ed. 2. Ib. 1795.

Into Dutch, by two writers. First, by P. J. Wolff, with a pre-
face by Rud. Forsten. Harderwick, 1791. Afterwards, by
James Vosmaer. Ib. 1807.

Into English, by two writers likewise. First, by C. Caldwell,
Philadelphia, 1795.

Afterwards, by J. Elliotson. London, 1815.

Ed. 2. Ib. 1817. This second edition is a curiosity in typo-
graphy, being the first book printed by steam. The printers were
Bensley and Son.

Ed. 3. Ib. 1820.

Into French, by J. Fr. Pugnet. Lyons, 1797.

Into Spanish, by Jos. Coll. Madrid, 1801.

Into Russian, by Borsuk Moiseew. Moscow, 1796.

b.
[Seite x]

This the translator has thought it superfluous to insert. – J. E.

a.
[[xi]]

Pref. to the Institut. Medic. Leyden. Fourth edition.

b.
[Seite xii]

Pref. to the Prim. lin. Physiol. Göttingen. First edition.

c.
[Seite xiii]

These are of the heart, eye, testis in its descent, and the
ovum. The Translator has judged it unnecessary to have them
copied, as English students rarely consult Eustachius, but study
native anatomists, in whose works these parts are given with
the others of the body. – J. E.

a.
[Seite 1]

Thus, long ago, the author of the book generally included among the writ-
ings of Hippocrates, Epidemic. VI. Sect. 8. § 19. said, ‘“Those things which
contain, are contained, or moved in us with force, are to be considered.”’ This
celebrated passage gave origin to the excellent work of Abr. Kaau Boerhaave,
entitled, ‘“Impetum faciens dictum Hippocrati per corpus consentiens.”’ L. B.
1745. 8vo.

b.
[Seite 2]

The great preponderance of the fluids is strikingly exemplified in an entire,
but perfectly dry, mummy of an adult Guanche, one of the original inhabitants
of the island of Teneriffe. It was sent to my anthropological collection by the
illustrious Banks, and, with all its viscera and muscles, wonderfully dried, weighs
only 7 1/2 lbs.

c.
[Seite 2]

Medical Communications, by a Society for the Promotion of Medical Knowledge,
vol. ii. 1790. Read to the Society, Jan. 1788.

d.
[Seite 3]

Nosographie Philosophique, 1797.

e.
[Seite 3]

Anatomie Générale, t. 1. p. lxxx.

f.
[Seite 3]

Grundriss der Physiologie, 68.

g.
[Seite 3]

See Appendix, by Dr. Copeland, to his translation of Richerand’s Nouveaux
Elémens de Physiologie,
p. 553. sqq. Many writers have asserted the globular
composition of various parts of the animal and vegetable frame. Lately, the cel-
lular, muscular, and nervous structures were described as consisting of globules,
and some novel views presented, by Dr. M. Edwards. (Archives Générales de
Médecine,
t. 3. Paris, 1823.) But the whole results have just been denied by
Dr. Hodgkin and Mr. Lister, who repeated the examination with a much superior
microscope. Philos. Magazine, August, 1827.

Another author professes to have made still more minute discoveries than
Dr. Edwards. Dutrochet, Recherches, Anatomiques et Physiologiques, sur la
Structure Interne des Animaux et Végétaux.

a.
[Seite 6]

Suffice it, once for all, to recommend, on the chemical investigation of the
fluids of the human body, J. Jacob Berzelius’s Föreläsningar i Diurkemien.
Stockholm, 1806–1808. two vols. 8vo.

b.
[Seite 6]

J. Hunter, Treatise on the Blood, Inflammation, &c. London, 1794. 4to.

c.
[Seite 7]

It is astonishing how variously physiologists have estimated the quantity of
blood in a well formed adult. Allen, Mullen, and Abildgaard, make it scarcely
more than 8 pounds; Harvey, 9; Borelli, 20; Haller, 30; Riolan, 40; Ham-
berger, 80; J. Keil, 100. The former are evidently nearer the truth. (A)

d.
[Seite 7]

J. Martin Butt, De spontanea sanguinis separatione. Edinb. 1760. 8vo.
reprinted in Sandifort’s Thesaurus, vol. ii. J. H. L. Bader, Experimenta circa
sanguinem.
Argent. 1788. 8vo.

e.
[Seite 7]

The elements of aëriform fluids of course exist in the blood; that they are
not, however, in the elastic state, as so many physiologists formerly believed, was
clearly shown in some experiments made by me during the year 1812, upon other
mammalia. I found that a small portion of the purest air, infused into the
jugular vein, excited palpitations, drowsiness, convulsions; and, if the quantity
was a little increased, even death ensued. I have detailed these experiments in
the Medicin. Biblioth. vol. i. p. 177.

The illustrious Bichat observed the same effects in his experiments. Journal
de Santé, &c. de Bourdeaux,
t. ii. p. 61. (B)

f.
[Seite 8]

J. Bostock, Medico-Chirurgical Transactions, published by the Medical and
Chirurgical Society of London,
vol. i. 1809. p. 46.

g.
[Seite 9]

G. Chr. Reichel, De sanguine ejusque motu experimenta. Lips. 1767. 4to.
p. 27. fig. 3. g. g.

h.
[Seite 9]

Consult Ever. Home, Phil. Trans. 1818. P. I. p. 172.

i.
[Seite 9]

Unwilling as I am to follow the example of those who, especially in mo-
dern times, delight in changing scientific terms, I cannot but think that the words
oxygenised and carbonised may be advantageously substituted for arterial and
venous: because arterial blood is contained in some vessels called veins, v. c. the
pulmonary and umbilical; while, on the other hand, venous blood is contained
in the pulmonary and umbilical arteries. In the same manner, the veins of the
chorion in the incubated egg contain arterial; and the arteries, venous blood; –
to use these expressions in their common acceptation. But we shall treat of the
doctrine of the relation of oxygen and carbon to each kind of blood, in the
section on respiration.

k.
[Seite 10]

Consult, among others, J. Ferd.h. Autenreith, Experimenta et observata de
sanguine, praesertim venoso.
Stuttg. 1792. 4to.

l.
[Seite 10]

Berzelius, Annales de Chimie et de Physique, t. v. Mai, 1817.

m.
[Seite 10]

T. F. D. Jones, On the process employed by nature in suppressing the he-
morrhage from divided, &c. arteries.
London, 1805. 8vo. Translated into
German, and supplied with notes by G. Spangenberg. Hanov. 1813. 8vo.

n.
[Seite 10]

Such are those spurious membranes found exuded on the surface of inflamed
viscera, v. c. those cellular connections between the lungs and pleura after
peripneumony, and the tubes observed within the bronchia after croup; such also
are those artificial ones, called, from their inventor, Ruyschian, and made by
stirring fresh blood about with a stick.

o.
[Seite 11]

Comparative Anatomy, ch. xii. ed. 1. p. 245. Translated by Mr. Lawrence.

p.
[Seite 11]

Précis Elémentaire de Physiologie. 2d edition, 1825. t. ii. p. 433. sqq.

q.
[Seite 11]

Med. Chir. Trans. 1818, p. 65. sq.

r.
[Seite 11]

Magendie, l. c.

s.
[Seite 12]

Magendie, Journal de Physiologie, t. i., and l. c. t. ii. p. 260.

t.
[Seite 12]

Vogel, Annales de Chimie, t. xciii.

u.
[Seite 12]

Professor Brande, Phil. Trans. 1818. p. 181.

x.
[Seite 12]

Phil. Trans. 1820. p. 6. An Essay on the Blood, p. 107. By C. Scudamore,
M. D. F. R. S. 1824.

y.
[Seite 12]

Scudamore, l. c.

z.
[Seite 12]

A Treatise on the Blood, &c.

a.
[Seite 12]

An Enquiry into the Nature and Property of the Blood. By C. Turner Thack-
rah. London, 1819.

b.
[Seite 13]

Dr. Turner, Elements of Chemistry, 1827. p. 638.

c.
[Seite 13]

J. Hunter mentions the coagulation of blood let out from the tunica va-
ginalis, in which it had lain fluid sixty-five days after a wound. On the Blood,
p. 25.

d.
[Seite 13]

l. c. p. 23.

c.
[Seite 14]

Dr. Gordon, Annals of Philosophy, vol. iv.

f.
[Seite 14]

Dr. J Davy, Journal of Science and Arts, No. iv.

g.
[Seite 14]

Scudamore, l. c. p. 68. sqq.

h.
[Seite 14]

Hewson, Experimental Enquiries into the Blood and the Lymphatic System,
P. 1. p. 45. sq.

i.
[Seite 14]

Scudamore, l. c.

k.
[Seite 15]

Hewson, l. c. p. 90.

l.
[Seite 15]

l. c. p. 52. sqq.

m.
[Seite 15]

l. c. p. 56. sqq.

n.
[Seite 15]

l. c. p. 96.

o.
[Seite 15]

l. c. p. 211.

p.
[Seite 16]

Berzelius discovers lactic acid, free or combined, in all animal fluids. It was
first noticed by Scheele, but is generally regarded as a combination of acetic acid
with animal matter, and so now even by Berzelius himself.

q.
[Seite 16]

See Dr. Bostock’s papers in the first, second, and fourth volumes of The
Medico-Chirurgical Transactions,
and Berzelius’s in the third.

r.
[Seite 16]

A layer of serum or milk does not prevent this change of colour, while a
layer of water or oil does. Dr. Priestley, Experiments and Observations on different
kinds of Air,
vol. iii. p. 78. sqq.

l.
[Seite 17]

Edinburgh Medical and Surgical Journal, Jan. 1827. Engelhart’s Essay
obtained the prize at Gottingen in 1825.

m.
[Seite 17]

Experimental Inquiries, part 3. p. 16. 1777.

n.
[Seite 17]

On these measurements consult Phil. Trans. 1818. Dr. Young’s Medical
Literature,
p. 571. sqq. Prevost and Dumas, Annales de Chimie, Nov. 1821.

o.
p.
[Seite 17]

l. c. p. 8. sq. Hewson says, that dilution with water, or a change towards
putrefaction, makes the vesicles globular, and that farther putrefaction breaks them
down.

q.
[Seite 17]

Phil. Trans. 1819. p. 2. sq. The globules of pus also are maintained to form
gradually, and it to be originally an homogeneous fluid. The globules of milk,
healthy pus, and chyle, in different animals, are said by Prevost and Dumas to
be of the same form and dimensions; and likewise those of the muscular fibre
and of albumen, when coagulated, for particles are not previously seen in it.

But Dr. Hodgkin finds the particles of pus to be quite irregular in size and
figure, and those of milk, though globules, to be some twice, some only one
tenth, the size of the particles of the blood. Phil. Mag. Aug. 1827.

r.
[Seite 18]

The following results are given in the Recherches Physico-Chimiques, (t. ii.)
by Gay Lussac and Thenard:

[Seite 19]
Carbon.Hydrogen.Oxygen.Nitrogen.
Gelatin,47.8817.91427.20716.998
Albumen,52.8837.54023.87215.705
Fibrin,53.3607.02119.68519.934

Besides these constituents, they, as well as the colouring matter of the blood,
contain a very minute portion of the earthy phosphates.

Fibrin is inodorous and tasteless, whitish, insoluble in water, alcohol, and
acids; and, as already said, coagulates when separated from the body.

Albumen is inodorous, tasteless and colourless, and soluble in water, and
coagulates by a certain temperature, by the mineral acids, tan, and many metallic
salts, especially by corrosive sublimate, and by prussiate of potass, if a little dilute
acid is previously mixed with it.

Gelatin is inodorous and tasteless, dries into glue, is soluble in warm water,
and becomes solid again on cooling, and dissolves in acids and alkalies.

For minute chemical particulars, however, respecting the nature of the solids
and fluids, I must refer the reader to works professedly chemical.

s.
[Seite 19]

Medico-Chirurgical Journal, 1817, p. 276.

t.
[Seite 19]

Medico-Chirurgical Transactions, 1818.

u.
[Seite 19]

Grundriss der Physiologie, 159.

x.
[Seite 20]

Hewson observed the difference of their size in different animals, and that
this bore no relation to the difference in the size of the animal. l. c. part iii.
p. 10. sqq.

y.
[Seite 20]

Annales de Chimie, t. xviii. xxiii. 1821 and 1823.

z.
[Seite 20]

l. c. part iii. p. 39.

a.
[Seite 20]

Annales des Sciences Naturelles, 1824, 1825.

a.
[Seite 23]

Hier. Dav. Gaubius, Spec. exhibens ideam generalem solidarum c. h. partium.
Lugd. Bat. 1725. 4to.

b.
[Seite 23]

Abr. Kaau Boerhaave, on the cohesion of the solids in the animal body,
Nov. Comm. Acad. Petropolit. t. iv. p. 343. sq.

c.
[Seite 23]

They divided the human body into similar, or homogeneous parts, – those con-
sisting of particles similar to one another, as the bones, cartilages, muscles, ten-
dons, &c.; and dissimilar, – those composed of the similar, as the head, trunk,
limbs, &c.

d.
[Seite 23]

The parallel and reticulated bony fibres are most striking in the radiated
margins of the flat bones, as we find these in new-born heads much enlarged by
hydrocephalus. I have, in my anatomical museum, a preparation of this kind,
where, in the sphenoid angles of the parietal bones the fibres are an inch or two
in length, distinct, and very delicate. The hardest parts of the skeleton, – the
bony and vitreous portions of the teeth, exhibit a structure similar to that which
in the zeolite, malachite, hematite, &c., all mineralogists call fibrous.

e.
[Seite 24]

Dav. Chr. Schobinger, (Praes, Hallero) De telae Cellulosae in fabrica. c. h.
dignitate.
Gotting. 174S. 4to.

Sam. Chr. Lucae at the end of his Observ. circa nervos arterias adeuntes.
Francof. 1810. 4to.

f.
[Seite 24]

Casp. Fr. Wolff, Nov. Act. Petropol. t. vi. p. 259.

g.
[Seite 25]

I have treated this point at large in my work, De Generis Humani varietate
nativa,
p. 46. edit 3.

h.
[Seite 26]

Recherches sur le Tissu Muqueux.

i.
[Seite 26]

Medical Observations and Inquiries, vol. ii. p. 33. sqq.

a.
[Seite 27]

A host of authors on the vital powers will be found in Fr. Hildebrandt,
Lehrbuch der Physiologie, p. 54. sq. edit. 2. 1809. To whom we may add a
few of a large number, G. R. Treviranus, Biologie, Oder Philosophie der lebend-
en Natur,
vol. i. Gött. 1802. E. Bartels, Systemat. Entwurf einer allgemeinen
Biologie.
Franckfort. 1808. J. B. P. A. Lamarck, Philosophie Zoologique.
Paris, 1809. 2 vols. 8vo. Bern. Fr. Sverman, or. de iis quae cum veteres tum
recentiores, imprimis Batavi et Germani, de vilae corporeae principio philosophati
sunt.
Harderv. 1810. 4to.

b.
[Seite 28]

‘“Life is formally nothing more than the preservation of the body in mix-
ture, corruptible indeed, but without the occurrence of corruption.”’ Stahl.

‘“What we call life is opposite to putridity.”’ J. Junker.

c.
[Seite 29]

That Haller and Theoph. de Bordeu – the chief writers on the mucous
tela, did not form a just conception of this vital power, is evident from the
latter’s Recherches sur le Tissu Muqueux. Par. 1767. 8vo; and from the dissert-
ation of the former on Irritability, in the Dictionnaire Encyclopédique d’Yverdun,
t. xxv.

d.
[Seite 30]

Haller, De partibus corp. hum. irritabilibus in the Nov. Comm. Soc. Reg.
Scient. Gotting.
t. iv.

e.
[Seite 30]

I have spoken of these at large both in my treatise De iridis motu, 1784;
and my programma De vi vitali sanguini deneganda, 1795.

f.
[Seite 30]

On the vita propria of the absorbent vessels consult, Seb. Justin. Brugmans,
De causa Absorptionis per Vasa Lymphatica. Lugd. Bat. 1795. 8vo.

On the peculiar vital properties of the arteries consult Chr. Kramp, Kritik der
Praktischen Arzneikunde.
Leipzig. 1795. 8vo.

Many of the phenomena now mentioned are ascribed by others to an orgasm,
to use an old expression, struggling from the centre to the circumference, and
lately designated vital turgor.

g.
[Seite 30]

Fouquet, Dictionnaire Encyclopédique de Paris, t. xv. art. Sensibilité.

h.
[Seite 31]

Consult C. Fr. Kielmeyer, über die Verhältnisse der organischen Kräfte in
der Reihe der verschiedenen Organisationen.
1793. 8vo.

H. F. Link, über die Lebenskräfte in naturhistorischer Rücksicht. Rostock.
1795. 8vo.

i.
[Seite 31]

See Abildgaard, Acta Reg. Soc. Med. Havniens. t. i.

k.
[Seite 33]

v. c. Dan. Bernouilli, De Respiratione. Basil. 1721.

‘“Respiration supplies a very subtle air, which, when intimately mixed with
the blood, greatly condensed, conveyed to the moving fibres, and allowed by the
animal spirits to exert its powers, inflates, contracts, and moves the muscles, and
thus promotes the circulation of fluids and imparts motion to mobile parts.”’

l.
[Seite 33]

Laur. Bellini, De Sanguinis Missione, p. 165. 183.

Sylvest. Douglas, De Stimulis. Lugd. Bat. 1766.

m.
[Seite 33]

Montesquieu, De l’Esprit des Lois, t. ii. p. 34. London. 1757. 8vo.

n.
[Seite 33]

J. Casp. Hirzel, De Animi laeti et erecti efficacia in corpore sano et aegro.
Lugd. Bat. 1746.

o.
[Seite 34]

Called Le Tact on le Gout particulier de chaque Partie, by Theoph. de
Bordeu, Recherches Anatomiques sur les Glandes, p. 376. sq.

p.
[Seite 34]

Sam. Farr, on Animal Motion. 1771. 8vo. p. 141.

J. Mudge’s Cure for a recent catarrhous Cough. Edit. 2. 1779. 8vo. p. 238.

Gilb. Blane, On Muscular Motion. 1788. 4to. p. 22.

J. L. Gautier, De irritabilitatis notione, &c. Hal. 1793. 8vo. p. 56.

q.
[Seite 34]

J. H. Rahn, De Causis Physicis Sympathiae. Exerc. i. – vii. Tigur. from
1786. 4to.

Sylloge selectiorum opusculor. de mirabili sympathia quae partes inter diversas
c. h. intercedit.
Edited by J. C. Tr. Schlegel. Lips. 1787. 8vo.

r.
[Seite 34]

G. Egger (the author Lawr. Gasser), De consensu nervorum. Vindob,
1766. 8vo.

s.
[Seite 34]

J. G. Zinn’s Observations on the different Structure of the Human (and
brute) Eye. Diss. ii. 1757. Comment. Soc. Reg. Scient. Gotting. antiquiores. t. i.

t.
[Seite 35]

Consider the constant sympathy of heat between certain parts of some ani-
mals, v. c. of the hairs with the fauces, in variegated rabbits, sheep, dogs, &c.;
of the feathers with the covering of the bill and feet in varieties of the domestic
duck. That such instances are not referrible to the influence of nerves, I
contended by many arguments in my Comm. de motu iridis. p. 12. sq.; and also in
my work de generis humani varietate nativa. p. 364. sq.

u.
[Seite 35]

Innumerable pathological phenomena will be found explained by this sym-
pathy in S. Th. Soemmerring, De Morbis Vasorum Absorbentium Diss. quae
praemium retulit.
Francof. 1795. 8vo.

x.
[Seite 36]

Hence, after death, even in young subjects full of juices, the back, loins, and
buttocks, having for some time lost their vital tone, are, if the body is supine,
depressed and flattened by the superincumbent weight, which now is not resisted:
this appearance may, therefore, be regarded among the indubitable signs of death.

y.
[Seite 37]

Treatise on the Blood, &c. Introduction.

z.
[Seite 37]

Anatomie Génêrale. T. i. p. 183. sq.

a.
[Seite 37]

Consult Dr. Whytt, Observations on Nervous Diseases, ch. i.

b.
[Seite 37]

Sir Gilbert Blane, Medical Logic. 3d Edit. p. 154. Some, as M. Du-
trochet, have imagined vegetables to have a nervous system, but never shown
it. The opinion has been thought proved by the action of certain poisons upon
them. We know that they are poisoned like animals; arsenic, mercury, copper,
lead, and tin, destroy them, and are found to be taken up by their vessels.
Carbonic acid, azote, nitric oxide, hydrogen, when applied to the roots, are
equally fatal. Opium, prussic acid, belladonna, nux vomica, menispermis
coculus, hemlock, digitalis, alcohol, and oxalic acid, are no less so; and because
these destroy the life of animals without leaving chemical traces, and affect the
nervous system, M. F. Marcet, whose experiments will be found in the Annales
de Chimie,
June 1825, concludes that they must destroy vegetables by acting on
a nervous system in them. But although no trace be discoverable, this may
[Seite 38] be on account of their chemical peculiarities, (and, in fact, prussic acid and
alcohol have been found absorbed, Annales de Chimie, Oct. 1814, and Dr. Cooke on
Apoplexy,
) and they, as well as other poisons, affect the nervous system of animals
only as one part of the living body, – arsenic, besides its general deleterious agency,
causing particularly gastritis, even if applied to a sore of the leg, digitalis ex-
citing the kidneys (indeed their action on vegetables, might, on the other hand,
be urged as a proof of their general hostility to life); arid the mineral ones, which
often leave chemical traces, also produce peculiar effects on the nervous system,
and often destroy life without being detected beyond the alimentary canal.

c.
[Seite 38]

Whytt, l. c.

d.
[Seite 38]

Darwin, Zoonomia.

e.
[Seite 38]

Dr. Alison’s Observations on Sympathy in the Edinburgh Med. Chirurg.
Trans.
vol. ii., in which is ably refuted an attempt by Mr. Charles Bell to explain
associated muscular contractions in certain actions by communications of nerves
at their roots, in his Exposition of the Natural System of the Nerves of the Human
Body,
1824.

f.
[Seite 39]

See Alison, l. c.

g.
[Seite 39]

Consult Bichat, Traité des Membranes.

h.
[Seite 39]

Grundriss der Physiologie, 113.

a.
[Seite 40]

Consult Alex. Chrichton, Inquiry into the Nature and Origin of Mental De-
rangement, comprehending a concise System of the Physiology and Pathology of the
Human Mind.
Lond. 1798. 2 vols. 8vo.

Em. Kant, Anthropologie in pragmatischer Hinsicht. Konigsb. 1798. 8vo.

Chr. Meiner, Untersuchungen über die Denkkräfte und Willenskräfte des
Menschen nach Anleitung der Erfahrung.
Gött. 1806. 2 vols. 8vo.

Gottl. E. Schulze, Psychische Anthropologie. 2d ed. Gött. 1819. two vols. 8vo.

b.
[Seite 41]

The difference, or analogy and relation, of memory and judgment, have
given rise to various controversies. Some celebrated psychologists have included
both under the word imagination taken in its most comprehensive sense, and have
divided it into two species; memory representing former ideas, and the facultas
fingendi,
representing such ideas only as are formed by abstraction. They again
divide memory into sensitive (imagination in a stricter sense) and intellectual.
Their facultas fingendi they also subdivide into intellectual – the more ex-
cellent; and phantasy – obeying mechanical laws. Consult Feder, Grundsätze
der Logik und Metaphysik.
Gotting. 1794. p. 20.

c.
[Seite 41]

Of this the highest prerogative of the human mind, by which man exerts his
dominion over other animals, and, indeed, over the whole creation, I have fully
treated in my book De Gen. Hum. Var. Nat. p. 52. ed. 3.

d.
[Seite 42]

Dugald Stewart, Outlines of Moral Philosophy, p. 10.

e.
[Seite 42]

Anatomie et Physiologie du Système Nerveux. Paris, 1818, 1819.

Sur les Fonctions du Cerveau et sur celles de chacune de ses Parties. 8vo. Paris
1822–1825.

f.
[Seite 43]

Gall, Sur les Fonctions du Cerveau, t. vi. p. 451, sqq.

g.
[Seite 44]

See the poet Cowper’s amusing account of the different characters of his
three hares. But all persons conversant with horses, dogs, cats, or any other
domestic brute, knows that every individual among them is proportionally as differ-
ent in its various abilities and dispositions, from others of its species, as every
human being is from other men.

h.
[Seite 45]

l. c. t. iii. p. 213. sqq.

i.
[Seite 46]

l. c. t. vi. p. 405. sqq. See also t. iii. p. 131. sqq.

k.
[Seite 47]

l. c. t. vi. p. 408.

l.
[Seite 47]

l. c. t. i. p. 49. sq. See also t. vi. p. 392. sqq.

m.
[Seite 48]

l. c. t. v. p. 243.

n.
[Seite 48]

l. c. t. v. p. 406. Gall’s late pupil and assistant, Dr. Spurzheim, thinks he has
discovered distinct faculties and organs for conscientiousness and hope, and for
judging of weight and size. (Phrenology, or the Doctrine of the Mind, by
J. Spurzheim, M. D. London, 1825. 3d edit.) In Edinburgh, they think they
have discovered a faculty and organ for concentrating the action of the other
faculties. (A System of Phrenology, by George Combe, 2d ed. Edinb. 1825, and the
Phrenological Journal, published quarterly at Edinburgh.) They have also an organ
for judging of differences, a new portion of brain for the sense of the ludicrous,
and make several other refinements, the foundation for which requires much
further investigation.

o.
[Seite 48]

l. c. t. v. p. 406. sq.

p.
[Seite 48]

It is remarkable, that nearly every one of these faculties has been admitted
by one metaphysician or another. See Mr. G. Combe’s Letter in reply to Mr.
Jeffery, the editor of the Edinburgh Review, reprinted in the Phrenological Journal
of Edinburgh, 1827.

Notwithstanding, too, that memory, like judgment. attention, &c., was con-
sidered a distinct and fundamental faculty, some writers taught that there were
[Seite 49] three sorts of memory; one for facts (memoria realis), one for words (me-
moria verbalis
), and one for places (memoria localis). See Gall, l. c. t. iv.
p. 380. Some, that there are four; a memory for words, another for places, a
third for time, and another for cause and effect. See Gall, l. c. t. ii. p. 353.

q.
[Seite 49]

Serm. i. Upon the social nature of Man. Serm. ii. iii. Upon the natural
supremacy of conscience.

r.
[Seite 49]

Essay on the Constitution of Man, and its Relation to External Objects. Edinb.
1827.

Upon the subject of metaphysics or the science of mind, all our knowledge,
I think, may be found in Dr. Gall’s works, – Sur l’Anatomie et Physiologie du
Système Nerveux,
and his Fonctions du Cerveau; and the admirable Lectures on
the Philosophy of the Human Mind,
by Thomas Brown, M. D., Edinb. 1826, 4
vols. 8vo.

Dr. Thomas Brown is not only among the ablest metaphysical writers, but is the
latest, and his work approaches as near to phrenology as was possible without the
aid of Gall’s method of investigation.

a.
[Seite 50]

Theod. G. Aug. Roose, über die Krankheiten der Gesunden. Gotting.
1801. 8vo.

G. Chr. Klett, Tentamen evolvendi notionem de sanitate hominis. Wirceb.
1794. 8vo.

b.
[Seite 50]

Galen, quod animi mores corporis temperaturas sequantur.

St. J. Van. Geuns, De corporum habitudine animae hujusque virium indice ac
moderatrice
. Harderv. 1789. 4to.

c.
[Seite 51]

Galen, De sanitate tuenda, l. i.

d.
[Seite 51]

W. F. Ad. Gerresheim, De sanitate cuivis homini propria. Lugd. Bat.
1764. 4 to.

e.
[Seite 51]

Lavater, Physiognomische Fragmente, t. iv. p. 343.

W. Ant. Ficker, Comm. de. temperamentis hominum quatenus ex fabrica et
structura corporis pendent.
Gotting. 1791. 4to.

J. N. Hallé, Mém de la Soc. Médicale d’Emulat. t. iii. p. 342.

f.
[Seite 51]

To the numerous arguments by which the moderns have overthrown the
doctrine of the ancients, and proved that the temperament depends on the living
solids rather than on the nature of the blood, I may add the celebrated example
of the Hungarian sister twins, who, at the beginning of the last century, were
born united at the lower part of the back, and attained their twenty-second year
in this state. They were, as is well known, of very different temperaments,
although dissection discovered that their sanguiferous systems anastomosed so
considerably that the blood of both must have been the same.

g.
[Seite 51]

Kant, l. c. p. 257. sq.

h.
[Seite 52]

Feder, Untersuchung über den menschlichen Willen. T. ii. p. 49.

i.
[Seite 52]

Galen, De Consuetudine.

G. E. Stahl, De consuetudinis efficacia generali in actibus vitalibus. Hal. 1700.
4to.

H. Cullen, De Consuetudine. Edinb. 1780. 8vo.

C. Natorp, De vi consuetudinis. Gött. 1808. 4to.

k.
[Seite 52]

The very acute Gilbert Blane’s classification of the functions of the animal
economy according to the powers which direct them, surpasses all other modern
attempts of the kind. Elements of Medical Logic. London, 1819. 8vo. (p. 14. sqq.
of the vernacular version.)

l.
[Seite 53]

See Platner, Quaest. Physiol. p. 31. Ith, Versuch einer Anthropologie. t. i.
p. 108. 222.

m.
[Seite 53]

J. J. Bernhard, Versuch einer Vertheidigung der alten Eintheilung der
Functionen, und einer Classification des organisirten Körper nuch denselben.
Erf.
1804. 8vo.

n.
[Seite 54]

See Dr. James Gregory’s Conspectus Med. Theoreticae, cap. xxiii.

o.
[Seite 54]

Upon the independence of the character upon the temperament, see Gall, Sur
les Fonctions du Cerveau,
t. ii. p. 142, sqq.

p.
[Seite 54]

Physiologie des Tempéramens ou Constitutions, par F. Thomas, M. D.
Paris, 1826.

q.
[Seite 54]

See the Phrenological Journal, Oct. 1827.

r.
[Seite 55]

Treatise on Febrile Diseases, ch. iii. sect. 3. First edition. 1799. Paper
read to the Royal Med. Society of Edinburgh,
1791 or 1792, and inserted in its
Records. Essay on Opium.
1795. Edinburgh Med. and Surgical Journal,
July, 1809. p. 301. sq.

s.
[Seite 55]

Recherches Physiologiques sur la Vie et la Mort. 1805.

t.
[Seite 56]

Bordeu, also Buffon, Cabanis, the anatomist Reil, placed the passions in
the thoracic and abdominal viscera, &c.; the two first in the diaphragm particularly.
Gall has shown the absurdity of these authors in his Fonct. du Cerveau, t. ii.
p. 93. sqq. We might as well consider the cheeks the seat of the feeling of
shame, because in shame we blush.

u.
[Seite 57]

The following is Bichat’s table of the properties of the living body: –

xxx

Although these are the general properties of the living frame, and sensibility,
or more properly excitability, is at the bottom of all the other vital or organic
properties except the active power of contraction, yet each part has also some
peculiarity, altogether inexplicable, not in the least, I think, to be accounted for
on Bichat’s supposition of each part possessing a certain degree of organic sen-
sibility in relation to its fluids. What causes the vessels of muscle to produce
muscle; of bone, bone; of membrane, membrane; what causes the secreting
vessels of the liver to form bile, and of the testes semen, we know not. The
cause of these circumstances may be called by Blumenbach, after Bordeu, vitae
propriae;
but it must be carefully remembered, that this expression simply denotes
an unknown cause of a fact, and affords no explanation.

Feeling (I use the word for want of another to embrace consciousness and
perception) is in the same manner at the bottom of all the mental properties
[Seite 58] except the active power of willing, but it alone will not explain them. All
matter is probably the same; but its modifications also are so various, that at
present we are compelled to speak of distinct kinds of matter.

The operation of agents on the system is analogous. As far as they all affect
the living solid, they may be all called stimuli; but they differ in something more
than degree of stimulus. Each affects particular parts more than others; each
affects in a peculiar way; some directly depress life, and many occasion opposite
results in different parts.

When organic sensibility is heightened in one part, it sinks in another, and
vice versa; unless the change of it should be such as to extend generally, and
even then it is still frequently found in the opposite state in some particular part:
v. c. we notice coldness and paleness of the feet, and heat and fulness of the head,
together; blisters relieve internal inflammation, and irritate the more difficultly
in proportion to the violence of the internal disease. The same phenomena are
observable in animal sensibility and in the mind at large: –

‘“Tut, man! one fire puts out another’s burning,’
‘One pain is lessen’d by another’s anguish;’
‘Turn giddy, and be holp by backward turning;’
‘One desperate grief cures with another’s languish;’
‘Take thou some new infection to thy eye,’
‘And the rank poison of the old will die.”’

The effect of vicissitudes of temperature, and a large number of other patho-
logical phenomena, are principally explicable on the derangement of the balance
of excitability, and for the most part, consequently, of circulation. (Sect. XX. (B.))

Notwithstanding it is a general law (53) that the effects of a stimulus diminish
the more frequently it is applied, and vice versa, as shown on the one hand, in
the large quantities of spirituous liquors which persons at length bear, and on
the other by the violent inflammation excited by the application of warmth to
parts exposed to intense cold; yet, if a stimulus is applied so energetically as to
leave the sensibility heightened, especially if to the point of inflammation, its
subsequent power is greatly increased. Immense potations of spirituous liquors
may gradually be borne, but if the increase is too great, the sensibility of the
stomach may become such that a single glass will prove violently irritating.

The general law, to which the effects of stimuli, in proportion to their previous
application, is referable, appears to be this; – that a stimulus acts according
to the difference between its strength and the strength of the former application.
Thus, if the right hand be immersed in water of 30°, and the left in water of 50°,
and both are removed to water of 70°, the effect of the water at 70° upon the
right hand will be greater than upon the left, on account of the difference be-
tween 30° and 70° being greater than between 50° and 70°; and this explains the
glow of the cold bath, as, during immersion, there is less stimulus, and, on emerg-
[Seite 59] ing, the temperature of the atmosphere, and the readmitted blood into the super-
ficial vessels, though stimuli absolutely of the same strength as before immersion,
are, comparatively, more powerful than what the system experienced during
immersion.

The specific action of one agent frequently prevents or destroys that of another:
v. c. small-pox and measles very rarely occur together; the former disease is ge-
nerally prevented for ever by the cow-pock; bark cures the effect of miasmata.
It in some cases destroys its own power in future, as is exemplified in those
diseases which occur usually but once during life.

The effects of rare or frequent stimulation may relate to stimulation in general
or by particular agents. A very high or low excitement may influence the effects
of all subsequent stimuli; but the rare or frequent application of a particular
stimulus in less intensity may influence its own effects only, as exemplified in
acquired capability of smoking or taking snuff, while other vapours or powders
affect no less than usual.

While moderate excitement is necessary to maintain action and excitability,
and excitement by one stimulus, within due limits, augments the effects of an-
other, (54) violent excitement wears out the power, and very violent may suddenly
destroy life altogether: according to the verses,

Nutritur ventis, ventis extinguitur ignis,
Lenis alit flammas, grandior aura necat.

Dr. John Brown, seizing the undeniable general facts respecting the effect of
rare or frequent application upon the power of stimuli, and naming all agents
stimuli, founded a system of pathology and practice at once absurd and destruct-
ive. (Elementa Medicinae). Exhaustion, from excess of stimulus, he termed
direct debility; torpor, from deficiency of stimulus, indirect debility; and how-
ever inflammatory a disease, if it arose from a stimulus, it was to be treated by
violent stimuli, to prevent the excitability from falling too low.

In the first place, he abused the word stimulus, by confounding it with the
word agent, forgetting what has been just advanced respecting the peculiar pro-
perties of every agent, – that some depress, and thus, though agents, are not
stimuli; and some affect different parts differently; and some have a specific
power upon certain parts and certain diseases, and against other agents.

In the second place, he forgot what has been just said respecting the necessity
of a certain degree of excitement to maintain excitability; the effect of one sti-
mulus, within due limits, of increasing the effect of others; and the fact of a
stimulus producing so much excitement, that morbid sensibility occurs, far less
stimulus than was at first applied causing ten times the effect, and this being
reducible only by lessening all stimuli, – the temperature, the quantity of blood, &c.,
and stimulating distant parts. He forgot, also, the effect of sympathy and specific
action.

His error was in keeping in view some general laws, which all know and ac-
knowledge, to the exclusion of others of at least equal importance.

x.
[Seite 60]

There is no proof of feeling. There can be no feeling. We see them act
in consequence of the stimulus, and say they feel. The expression is only
admissible figuratively, but as all figurative terms in physiology are continually
accepted literally, and establish the most absurd notions, especially among the
vulgar, it had much better be explained by a mere expression of the fact, by
the word excitement.

y.
[Seite 60]

It is said that the heart has the same repose as the brain, the auricles
and ventricles acting in succession, and a pause occurring before their ac-
tion is renewed. But while these parts are not acting, their functions continue,
because they are becoming distended by the blood. The function, therefore, of
the heart constantly goes on, while that of the brain entirely intermits in sound
sleep.

z.
[Seite 62]

‘“In universum sane post omnia quae super hoc argumento sive meditando
sive experiundo hactenus elicere licuit, nulli humorum nostri corporis genuina
vis vitalis tribuenda videtur, si unice a genitali utriusque sexus latice discesseris,
utpote cui jam ante quam uterino cavo exceptus et intime mixtus in foetus forma-
tionem abit, vitales inhaerere vires formativas, praeter alia paterni vultus in nepotes
propagata similitudo, aliaque id genus phaenomena haud infitianda demonstrare
videntur.”’ Comment. Soc. Reg. Societ. Gotting. vol. ix p. 12.

a.
[Seite 62]

The doctrine of the life of the blood was maintained by Critias and his sect
among the ancients (Aristotle, De anima, cap. 2.), Harvey (Exercit. L. De
Generationis ordine,
&c.), Glisson (De ventriculo et intestinis), and Albinus. (Blu-
menbach’s Commentat. l. c.) I am surprised that Moses should have been adduced
by Harvey as authority for this opinion. When he says (Leviticus, ch. xvii. 11. 14.),
‘“For the life of the flesh is in the blood”’ – ‘“For it is the life of all flesh,”’ – he
can only mean, that, when it is withdrawn, life ceases, – that it is necessary to the
life of animals. He also says (v. 14.) ‘“the blood of it is for the life thereof.”’
The construction which would make Moses assert that the blood is alive, involves
the absurd assertion that the blood only is alive. Indeed, before the time of
Moses, the expression was used to Noah. In Genesis (ix. 4.) we read, ‘“Flesh
with the life thereof, which is the blood thereof, shall you not eat.”’ The whole
of the matter appears to be, that the Jews, like other neighbouring nations, were
in the habit of tearing limbs and cutting flesh from living animals, and eating
these portions raw. Saul’s army after a battle did this. (Samuel, xiv. 32. 33.)
To prevent this horrid cruelty, they were forbidden to eat flesh before the animal
had been drained of its blood, and thus deprived of life; and what is, in our own
version of the Bible, rendered, ‘“flesh with the life thereof, which is the blood
thereof,”’ is said to be rendered by the best interpreters, ‘“flesh or members torn
from living animals having the blood in them.”’ See Bruce, Travels to discover
the Source of the Nile,
vol. iii. p. 297.

b.
[Seite 63]

Corrie, on the Vitality of the Blood, p. 45.

c.
[Seite 63]

J. Hunter, Treatise on the Blood, &c. p. 1. ch. 1.

d.
[Seite 63]

Dr. Thomson believes, that when blood has been effused between divided
surfaces, its coagulum is absorbed, and secreted lymph only coagulates and be-
comes vascular. Lectures on Inflammation, p. 214. Yet at page 216 he does
not deny the occurrence.

e.
[Seite 63]

Phil. Trans. vol. cviii. p. 188. sq.

f.
[Seite 64]

Elements of the Philosophy of the Human Mind, vol. i. p. 8.

f.
[Seite 65]

Annals of Medicine and Surgery, 1817, p. 373. In the Treatise on the
Blood
(p. 89. sq.), John Hunter says, ‘“Life is a property (not a subtle fluid)
we do not understand.”’ This property he conceives to reside in a certain matter
similar to the materials of the brain; diffused through the body and even con-
tained in the blood. ‘“The brain,”’ he adds, ‘“is a mass of this matter, not
diffused through any thing, for the purpose of that thing, but constituting an
organ
in itself.”’ This materia vitae is, therefore, not subtle, but pretty solid, and
no other than medullary matter; and Vauquelin says he has lately discovered a
fatty matter in the blood, and which M. Chevreuil thinks he proves to be the
same as the substance of the brain and nerves. But the subtle-fluidists would
not tolerate gross fatty matter, and J. Hunter calls life a property.

g.
[Seite 65]

Lectures on the Physiology, Zoology, and Natural History of Man, p. 84.

h.
[Seite 65]

J. Abernethy, Lectures delivered before the Royal College of Surgeons. 1814.

i.
[Seite 65]

As the fluids which form the embryo must be endowed with life, organisation
cannot be the cause of life; but in truth, organisation is the effect of life, although
when produced it becomes an instrument of life. The erroneousness of the
French doctrine, – that ‘“life is the result of organisation,”’ was refuted in the
Annals of Medicine and Surgery. (1816, Sept. p. 346. 386.) The error appears
to have arisen in some measure from the want of definition, – the word life
being used sometimes properly for the power, sometimes improperly for the
result. Even if the result of life, – the functions of a part, should be called its
life, life could not be said to be the result of organisation, but of a power to
which organisation is an instrument. The Greeks had distinct appellations for
the cause and the result; the former they termed ψυχὴ; the latter ζωὴ.

k.
l.
[Seite 66]

Cicero, De Senectute & Quaest. Tuscul.

m.
[Seite 66]

See Gall, l. c. t. 1. p. 56. sqq. Aristotle no sooner asserts that a share of
divinity is bestowed on man ‘“only of all animals,”’ than he is obliged to retract,
and say ‘“or most of all animals,”’ – ἢ μάλιστα πάντων. De part. animal. l. ii. c. 10.

n.
[Seite 66]

A stupid person is honoured with the expressions numb-scull, thick-head,
addle-pated, shallow-pated, badly furnished in the upper story; a clever person
with strong-headed, long-headed, having plenty of brains; a madman is said to
be wrong in the head, touched in the noddle, &c. A person whose memory or
power of attention is impaired, says he has no head, &c. When a catarrh chiefly
affects the head, we complain of stupidity, because ‘“we have such a cold in the
head,
”’ &c.

o.
[Seite 66]

‘“The same progression which exists in the gradual perfection of animal
organisation, as far as regards vegetable life only, is observed in the gradual
perfection of the nervous system, and of animal life which depends upon it.
Comparative anatomy has followed the gradual perfection of animals, from the
most simple absorbent vessels to the most complicated apparatus of mastication,
deglutition, and digestion, – to the most perfect circulation. With every fresh
viscus, every fresh apparatus for sensation, is discovered a fresh function, and
this function is more complicated in proportion as the organisation of the viscus
or apparatus of sensation is more perfect. The stomach, kidneys, lungs, heart,
eyes, ears, are the more complicated as their functions become so.’

‘“The same gradation may be demonstrated in the structure of the brains of the
different species. I have demonstrated in the preceding chapter, that the exist-
ence of each moral quality and intellectual faculty, depends solely upon the
presence of certain determinate cerebral parts, and not upon the whole mass of
brain. It follows, that the number of the faculties is in direct proportion to
the integrant parts of the brain. In insects, fish, and amphibia, the nervous mass
contained in the cerebral reservoir, is still divided into several distinct masses.
[Seite 67] The greater part of these are not integrant parts of the brain, properly so called;
they are ganglia, from which arise the nerves of smell, hearing, sight, &c. The
two hemispheres, properly so called, are placed behind the two ganglia of
the olfactory nerves, and are the more complicated as the industrial instincts
are more numerous; the cerebellum in these animals generally forms a hollow
pouch, sometimes placed horizontally, sometimes folded together.’

‘“In birds, the two hemispheres are already more considerable, although distinct
convolutions cannot be discerned. The cerebellum still consists merely of its
middle or fundamental part; but already appears composed of many rings placed
side by side.’

‘“In the small mammalia, the shrew-mouse, mouse, rat, squirrel, weasel, &c.
convolutions are not yet discoverable. But as they are already distinctly found
in other larger rodentia, the beaver, kangaroo, &c., we may suppose that they
equally exist in them.’

‘“In the larger mammalia, the cat, pole-cat, marten, fox, dog, ape, the
convolutions are more distinct and numerous, but their form varies according to
the species.’

‘“In the dolphin, elephant, and man, they are more numerous and deep than in
the beaver, kangaroo, cat, &c., and their form and direction vary completely ac-
cording to the species.’

‘“In all the mammalia, the cerebellum possesses, besides the middle or funda-
mental part, two lateral parts, which are more or less complicated, according to
the species; and as the soi-disant pons varolii, or the soi-disant cerebral ganglia,
i. e. the transverse layers of nervous bands are only the commissure or junction
of the lateral parts of the cerebellum, they are found in all the mammalia, and
in none of the ovipara.’

‘“The number of the integral parts, or of the convolutions of the brain, varies
equally in the different species of mammalia; in some, the anterior lobes of the
hemispheres are larger or more elevated; in others again, the inferior parts of
the anterior lobes are nearly wanting. The middle lobes, and the other con-
volutions, present similar varieties.’

‘“In this way, the integrant parts of the brain augment in number and develop-
ment, as we pass from a less perfect to a more perfect animal, till we arrive at
the brain of man, who, in the anterior-superior, and in the superior region of the
frontal bone, possesses several parts of which other animals are deprived, and by
means of which he is endowed with the most eminent qualities and faculties,
with reason, and the feeling of religion and the existence of God.”’ Gall,
l. c. t. ii. p. 364. sqq. ‘“Some pretend to discover a striking resemblance
between the brain of an orang-outang and that of man. But, in the first
place, the difference of their volume is as five to one; their convolutions differ
considerably in number and structure; the anterior lobes, especially, are con-
tracted into a cone, flattened above, hollow below, &c.; and the difference is still
more remarkable in other simiae.”’ t. vi. p. 298.

p.
[Seite 68]

See Gall, l. c. t. i. p. 196. sqq., and t. ii. p. 322. sqq. Willis has described
the brain of a young man imbecile from birth; its volume is scarcely 1/5th
part of that of an ordinary human brain. M. Bonn, professor at Amsterdam,
has two little crania of idiots, and the brain of an imbecille who attained his
twenty-fifth year. He was so stupid, that he was shown for money as an
African savage, &c. ‘“I have observed heads equally small in many living
idiots from birth. All these crania and heads are 13 or 14 inches in circum-
ference, and 11 or 12 inches from the root of the nose to the foramen occi-
pitale.”’ ‘“With from 14 to 17 inches in circumference; and about 10 or 12
from the root of the nose to the foramen occipitale, we have more or less stupidity,
a more or less complete incapacity to fix the attention upon one object; uncertain
and transitory feelings and passions; confusion of ideas, &c.”’ ‘“Heads of 18 or
18 1/2 inches in circumference, are still small, although they permit a regular exer-
cise of the faculties; they possess but a sad mediocrity of talent, a spirit of servile
imitation, &c.; an extreme deficiency of seizing the relation between cause and
effect; a want of self-government, and often few desires. Still some qualities or
faculties may be considerable, because particular organs may be greatly developed,
forming a striking contrast with the mediocrity of the rest. But as we approach
larger brains, we see intellectual faculties of greater magnitude, till we arrive at
heads 21 or 22 inches in circumference, – the dimensions at which men obtain
the height of intelligence.”’

‘“The dimensions of the brain,”’ says Dr. Magendie, ‘“are proportioned to
those of the head. In this respect there is a great difference in individuals.
The volume of the brain is generally in direct proportion to the capacity of
the mind.”’ ‘“It is rarely found that a man distinguished by his mental faculties
has not a large head.”’ Précis de Physiologie, t. 1. p. 184.

Dr. Marshall, an anatomical lecturer in London from two-and-forty to six-
and-twenty years ago, taught that the brain was the organ of mind, its original
defective conformation a source of idiocy, its disease the cause of insanity; and
gave many dissections of maniacs, and an excellent sketch of the varieties of the
disease. Morbid Anatomy of the Brain, &c. collected from the Papers of the late
Andrew Marshall,
M. D., by S. Sawrey, London, 1815.

q.
[Seite 69]

If of children it is said,

––––– ‘“Inter se quas pro levibus noxiis iras gerunt?’
‘Quapropter? quia enim qui eos gubernat animus, infirmum gerunt.”’

The old man, –

‘“Res omnes timide gelideque ministrat,’
‘Dilator, spe longus, iners –”’

or, in the plainer language of Shakspeare, ‘“Old men have grey beards, their
faces are wrinkled, their eyes purging thick amber and plum-tree gum, and they
have a plentiful lack of wit, together with most weak hams.”’

Hamlet, Act 2. Sc. 2.

Mr. Dugald Stewart allows that ‘“In the case of old men, it is generally found
that a decline of the faculties keeps pace with the decay of bodily health and
vigour. The few exceptions that occur to the universality of this fact, only prove
that there are some diseases fatal to life, which do not injure those parts of the
body with which the intellectual operations are more immediately connected.”’
Outlines of Moral Philosophy, p. 233.

‘“Praeterea gigni pariter cum corpore, et una’
‘Crescere sentimus, pariterque senescere, mentem.”’

‘“In new-born children, it is difficult to discern, without maceration in spirits
of wine, any traces of fibres in the great collections of grey, reddish substances,
or the great cerebral ganglia which supply, reinforce, and perfect, or which, ac-
cording to the opinion of others, give activity to, the hemispheres. The nervous
fibres are more visible in the middle and posterior lobes than in the anterior.
The fibrous structure of the white substance of the cerebellum also becomes
apparent gradually, and in proportion to its development. All the nervous
fibres are at this period still so involved in the more or less reddish and gelatinous
substance, and in blood-vessels, that all the brain looks like a nervous pulp or
jelly.’

‘“The only functions of the infant, at this age, are very imperfect, and are those
of the five senses, of voluntary motion, hunger, the sensation of being comfort-
able or uncomfortable, and the want of sleep.’

‘“After some months, the parts of the brain situated near the anterior-superior
region of the forehead, grow more rapidly than the other parts. The forehead,
from being flat, becomes prominent, and the child begins to fix its attention upon
external objects, to compare, and form abstract ideas, – to generalise.’

‘“The whole brain is developed in succession, until, at the age of from twenty to
forty, it has attained its full growth relatively to each individual. The cerebellum,
likewise, which is smaller than the cerebrum in proportion as the subject is
younger, is developed and perfectly formed towards the age of from eighteen to
twenty. The youth, the young man, and the young girl, take an interest in
each other; and the talents and inclinations are exercised and perfected till they
obtain maturity. From thirty or forty years of age, the cerebrum and cerebellum
[Seite 70] remain nearly stationary till the fiftieth or seventieth year, according to individual
constitution. The same is the case with the moral and intellectual powers.
Certain parts of the brain, however, especially those in the anterior-inferior region
of the forehead, have at this time already begun to diminish; the memory is less
faithful, and the imagination less ardent, and hint to us the approach of old age
and the decline of our faculties.’

‘“At length all the cerebral mass gradually loses its nervous turgescence; it
diminishes, wastes, shrinks (‘“the convolutions lie farther from each other;”’
t. i. p. 192.); the consistence of its two substances undergoes alteration. The
moral and intellectual powers sink in proportion; the inclinations, the talents,
disappear, the affairs of the world assume a gloomy aspect, the past only is
considered good; and, at the age of decrepitude, there remains only imbecility,
the weakness of a second childhood.”’ Gall, l. c. t. ii. p. 156. sqq. Also
t. iii. p. 28. sqq. Dr. Magendie allows that ‘“the brain is almost liquid in the
foetus, firmer in infancy, and still more so in manhood:”’ (Précis de Physiologie.)
that above the age of seventy, the weight of the brain is on the average less
than in the prime of life; and that the convolutions are then often distant half an
inch from each other, and their surface very distant from the cranium, as Co-
tugno had observed. Journ. de Physiol. t. vii. p. 5. 87.

r.
[Seite 70]

‘“Mulieres sunt, ferme ut pueri, levi sententia.”’ – Terence, Hecyra.

s.
[Seite 70]

‘“Parentibus liberi similes sunt non vultum modo et corporis formam, sed
animi indolem, et virtutes, et vitia. – Claudia gens diu Romae floruit impigra,
ferox, superba: Eadem illachrymabilem Tiberium, tristissimum Tyrannum
produxit: tandem in immanem Caligulam et Claudium, et Agrippinam, ipsum-
que demum Neronem, post sexcentos annos desitura.”’ – Gregory, Conspectus
Medicinae Theoreticae.
So true is the verse

Et patrum in natos abeunt, cum semine, mores.
t.
[Seite 71]

The Analogy of Religion, natural and revealed, to the Constitution and Course
of Nature.
By Joseph Butler, LL. D. Lord Bishop of Durham, p. 33.

u.
[Seite 71]

I will not insult the understanding of my readers by showing that we have
no authentic instance of the real absence of brain in the cranium of a being
possessed of a mind. The records of medicine no less teem with wonders than
those of theology. The miracles of the Fathers and of the Romish Church may
be matched by cases not only of mind without brain, or some similar organ, but
of human impregnation without males, or by males without testes, and of human
foetuses nourished without communication with the mother.

In most cases where the mind is said to have been vigorous when the state
of the body at large, or of the brain alone, rendered the perfect performance of the
cerebral functions improbable in the eyes of the relaters, I believe the mental
power has been greatly overrated, – that, because the individual merely talked col-
lectedly, he was imagined sufficient for the exertions of his best health.

The part of the brain affected by disease may have been one whose function is
not intellectual, but merely relating to the feelings, or may have related to
intellectual faculties whose state was not noticed by the narrators. In truth, the
narrators give us no satisfactory account of the feelings and intellectual powers of
the patients, nor of the exact portions of the brain affected; nor could they, being
unacquainted with phrenology; and they also forget that the cerebral organs are
all double. (See Gall, l. c. t. ii. 188. sqq., 246. sq.; and a paper by Dr. Andrew
Combe, on the effects of injuries of the brain upon the manifestation of the
mind, in the Transactions of the Phrenological Society, Edinb. 1824.)

If after insanity no trace of disease is sometimes discoverable in the brain, let
us remember that the same is sometimes the case after epilepsy and various un-
doubted diseases of the brain, and sometimes with respect to the stomach after
chronic dyspepsia. Diseases maybe functional only. Nay, when our senses are
not nice enough to discover structural affection of the brain in insanity, &c. we
have generally strong presumptive evidence of its affection, in the thickening or
excessive secretions of its membranes, – points more easily ascertained than equal
changes in the delicate texture of the brain.

[Seite 72]

Those who thus attempt to prove the substantial distinctness of the mind and
brain, forget that their facts, or rather arguments, are equally strong against what
they all admit, – the necessary connection of the mind and brain in this life, and
are therefore grounded on what, if true, were violations of the course of nature.

x.
[Seite 72]

Si quis animum diligentius advertat, non minus periculi naturali philosophiae
ex istiusmodi fallaci in iniquo foedere, quam ex apertis inimicitiis, imminere.
Tali enim foedere et societate accepta, in philosophia tantum comprehendi, aucta
autem, vel audita, vel in melius mutata, etiam severius et pertinacius excludi.
Denique versus incrementa et novas veluti oras et regiones philosophiae, omnia
ex parte religionis, pravarum suspicionum et impotentis fastidii plena esse. Alios
siquidem simplicius subvereri, ne forte altior in naturam inquisitio ultra datum
et concessum sobrietatis terminum penetret, &c. &c. Quare satis constabat in
hujusmodi opinionibus multum infirmitatis, quin et invidiae et fermenti non parum
subesse, &c. – Cogitata et Visa, vol. ix. p. 167. 8vo. edition. In the same pa-
ragraph he remarks, with regret, that no writers are more popular than those who
pompously set forth the union of divinity and philosophy, i. e. faith and sense, as
if it were not illegitimate. ‘“Haud alias opiniones et disputationes magis secundis
ventis ferri reperies, quam eorum, qui, theologiae et philosophiae, conjugium veluti
legitimum, multa pompa et solemnitate celebrant, et grata rerum varietate animos
hominem permulcentes, interim divina et humana inauspicato permiscent.”’

y.
[Seite 73]

The hypothesis of a subtle mobile fluid is downright materialism – the doc-
trine of Lucretius.

––– ‘“Quoniam est animi natura reperta’
Mobilis egregie, perquam constare necesse est’
Corporibus parvis et levibus atque rotundis.”’

Bacon complained (l. c.) that those who first attempted to explain thunder and
tempests were accused of impiety by religious persons, who thought that religion
demanded these phenomena to be referred to the immediate operation of the Deity.
The lovers of subtle fluids and spirits, conversely and as strangely, think religion
served by interposing a subtle fluid between common matter and the Deity. Van
Helmont was remarkably fortunate, for, after severe meditation, he fell into an
intellectual vision, and saw his own soul: ‘“Magna mox quies me invasit, et incidi
in somnium intellectuale satisque memorabile.”’ It was very small and had no
organs of generation: ‘“Yidi enim animam meam satis exiguam, specie humana,
sexus tamen discrimine liberam.”’ Ortus Medicinae, Confessio auctoris, p. 13.
He gave the soul, however, a close and dirty dwelling, for he placed it, not in the
pineal gland, but in the stomach.

z.
[Seite 73]

Locke (Second Reply to the Bishop of Worcester, p. 477. 8vo. edition) in
disparaging philosophical reasons for the immortality of the soul, says,

‘“Dr. Cudworth affirms that there was never any of the ancients before Chris-
tianity that held the soul’s future permanency after death, (i. e. from its inherent
immortality) who did not likewise assert its pre-existence.”’ If we necessarily
shall exist to all eternity, we then must have existed from all eternity; yet we are
not aware of having been alive before our brains. Sterne’s fine ridicule of the
absurdities introduced by this hypothesis of a soul, and that independent of the
brain, into the Romish church, is well known. A great French man-midwife
acquaints us that he baptised a little abortion of the magnitude of a skinned
mouse; and on another occasion, when a woman was miscarrying in her fourth
[Seite 74] month, and the child’s posteriors presented, that he sprinkled water upon them
and baptised them, in case the little thing should turn out alive. (De la Motte,
Traité complet des Accouchemens, p. 243. 246.) Dr. Fodéré in his noted Mé-
decine Légale,
1813, (vol. ii. p. 62.) gravely suggests that baptism may always be
administered by a squirt, after the membranes are pierced, – ‘“Quant au bap-
tême, il me semble qu’il sera toujours facile de l’administrer, après avoir percé
les membranes, par le moyen d’un seringue à injection.”’ A good idea of what
follows in its train may be collected from Dante’s tiresome account of the intro-
duction of the soul into the body, beginning, ‘“Sangue perfetto che mai non si
beve,”’ &c. – Purgatorio, canto xxv. It is one parent of necromancy, of the belief
in ghosts, and of all the popish ‘“trumpery”’ respecting purgatory and the worship
of dead people called saints, of the opinions held by many respecting our oc-
cupations between death and doomsday, as if a future state began before; and
old writers sicken one with their notions about the period at which the soul enters
the body, when it first existed, how it was engaged before it united with the body,
and how it employs itself after its separation till the day of judgment, &c.

‘“Hierom, Austin, and other fathers of the church, hold that the soul is immortal,
created of nothing, and so infused into the child or embryo in his mother’s womb
six months after the conception; some say at three days, some six weeks, others
otherwise.”’ Burton’s Anatomy of Melancholy, p. 1. s. 1. m. 2. subs. 9. Where
the depot of souls is; how they learn when a youth has impregnated an ovarian
vesicle, and how they fly to and get into it; how it happens that the qualities of
the soul correspond with the brain, and are as hereditary as those of the body;
whether this depends upon souls varying, and, if so, how a soul finds a body just
corresponding to itself; or upon the soul being obliged to conform to the character
of the brain, and thus suffering by the brain’s defects (XXXVI. G.): we are not
satisfactorily informed.

a.
[Seite 74]

‘“All the difficulties that are raised against the thinking of matter, from our
ignorance or narrow conceptions, stand not at all in the way of the power of God,
if he pleases to ordain it so.”’ The faculties of brutes prove, ‘“either that God
can and doth give to some parcels of matter a power of perception and thinking,
or that all animals have immaterial and consequently immortal souls as well as
men; and to say that fleas and mites, &c. have immortal souls as well as men,
will possibly be looked on as going a great way to serve an hypothesis.”’ Locke,
Second Reply to the Bishop of Worcester, p. 466. 8vo. edit.

b.
[Seite 75]

Miscellaneous Tracts, &c. by Richard Watson, D. D. F. R. S. Lord Bishop
of Llandaff. Sermon iii. p. 399. sq.

c.
[Seite 75]

Heathens have, very consistently with this reason for immortality, given it to
the fancied souls of brutes: Ulysses is made by Homer to behold the shade of
Orion –

Θῆρας ὁμ [...] εἰλεῦντα, κατ’ ἀσφοδελὸν λειμῶνα
Τοὺς αὐτὸς κατέπεφνεν ἐν οἰοπολοισιν ὄρεσσι.

And ‘“the pious and benevolent Bonnet promised brutes immortality.”’

d.
[Seite 75]

Addison, Cato. See a full enumeration in Mr. Dugald Stewart’s Outlines,
&c. p. 235. sq.

e.
[Seite 75]

Bishop Watson, l. c. Sermon vi. p. 504. sq.

f.
[Seite 75]

‘“Nor can we be obliged, where we have the clear and evident sentence of
reason, to quit it for the contrary opinion, under a pretence that it is a matter of
faith, which can have no authority against the plain dictates of reason. But
[Seite 76] there are many things wherein we have very imperfect notions, or none at all;
and other things, of whose past, present, or future existence, by the actual use
of our faculties, we can have no knowledge; these, as being beyond the discovery
of our natural faculties, and above reason, are, when revealed, the proper matter
of faith. Thus, that part of the angels rebelled against God, and thereby lost
their first happy state, and that the dead shall rise and live again; these and the
like, being beyond the discovery of reason, are purely matters of faith, with
which reason has nothing directly to do.”’ – Locke, Essay on Human Under-
standing,
iv. ch. 18.

Reason’s province is only to examine the proofs of the authenticity of a reve-
lation, and faith should thus be founded on reason. But how few of the human
race ever think, or are even capable, of carefully examining them! And of those
who do examine them, how few do not commence the examination with their
minds unconsciously half made up! And yet the greater number look down with
a self-complacent and uncharitable feeling upon even good men whose opinions
differ in any respect from their own, forgetting that good conduct is the only
test of goodness, – that grapes cannot come from thorns, nor figs from thistles.

g.
[Seite 76]

Bishop Watson, Apology for the Bible, Letter x. near the end.

h.
[Seite 76]

Idem. Miscellan. Tracts. l. c.

i.
[Seite 76]

Idem. Apology, l. c.

k.
[Seite 76]

Anecdotes of the Life of Richard Watson, D. D. F. R. S. late Lord Bishop
of Llandaff. – Vol. i. p. 107. See also a very decisive passage, beginning
[Seite 77] ‘“As a Deist I have little expectation; as a Christian I have no doubt, of a
future state,”’ in his Apology for the Bible, Letter x. near the end.

Locke argues, ‘“that all the great ends of religion and morality are secured
barely by the immortality of the soul, without a necessary supposition that it is
immaterial.”’ – First Reply, p. 34.

Mr. Dugald Stewart concedes that ‘“the proper use of the doctrine of the
immateriality of the soul is not to demonstrate that the soul is physically and
necessarily immortal.”’ l. c. p. 227.

The celebrated Dr. Rush, of America, remarks upon this subject, ‘“that the
writers in favour of the immortality of the soul have done that truth great injury
by connecting it necessarily with its immateriality. The immortality of the soul
depends upon the will of the Deity, and not upon the supposed properties of
spirit. Matter is in its own nature as immortal as spirit. It is resolvable by
heat and moisture into a variety of forms; but it requires the same almighty
hand to annihilate it, that it did to create it. I know of no arguments to prove
the immortality of the soul but such as we derive from the Christian revelation.”’
Medical Inquiries and Observations, vol. ii. p. 15.

‘“I rather think,”’ says Dr. Priestley, ‘“that the whole of man is of some uni-
form composition, and that the property of perception, as well as the other
powers that are termed mental, is the result (whether necessary or not) of such
an organised structure as the brain. Consequently, that the whole man be-
comes extinct at death, and that we have no hope of surviving the grave, but
what is derived from the scheme of revelation.”’ First Introductory Essay to his
Edition of Hartley,
p. xxiii. sq.

l.
[Seite 77]

The more uninformed the age, the greater the disposition to explain every
thing. The savage personifies the winds and the heavenly bodies; the ancients
fancied all matter endowed with a spirit – spiritus intus alit. Philo and Origen
maintain that the stars are so many souls, incorruptible and immortal. In the
older writings of the moderns, even in those of the father of experiment and
observation – Lord Bacon, the properties of matter are referred to spirits: –
‘“from them and their motions principally proceed arefaction, colliquation, con-
coction, maturation, putrefaction, vivification, and most of the effects of nature;”’
‘“for tangible parts in bodies are stupid things, and the spirits do, in effect, all.”’
(Natural History, cent. i. 98.) – In fact, some authors believe in three souls –
the vegetable, sensible, and natural – for vegetables, brutes, and man; those who
have the second having also the first, and those who have the third having all
three. Paracelsus believed in four. These old writers, in providing a spirit for
every thing, were more consistent than the moderns, who require it for only life
[Seite 78] and mind; because a subtle fluid or spirit is quite as necessary to explain the
arrangement of saline particles into the regular form of a beautiful crystal.
All these notions still exist among the vulgar; and the last remaining among
the better informed, though it too is rapidly dying away, relates to mind. Those
who upbraid others for refusing their assent to this hypothesis, may recollect
that Anaxagoras and many more were accused of atheism and impiety, because
they denied that the heavenly bodies were animated and intelligent. Even in
the last reign the Newtonian doctrines were thought irreligious by the Hutchin-
sonian sect, to which Bishop Horne, the amiable writer on the Psalms, and
Mr. Jones, the learned and ingenious writer in defence of the Trinity, belonged:
and the Jesuits, in their edition of Newton, 1742, carefully disclaim all belief in
his demonstration of the earth’s motion, as this is decreed false by the Pope.

Materialist is as good a word as any other for branding those from whom we
differ, but materialism in its true acceptation signifies the doctrine of no first
cause, or that all has been produced ex fortuita atomorum collisione. The whole
tenor of scripture implies that we are bodies endowed with certain properties;
and those passages from which our having a distinct immaterial substance is
inferred, may be easily explained by the figurative style of the Bible, by the
necessary adoption of the language of the times, and by the influence of the
national opinions and prejudices of the writers on their modes of expression.
Without due allowance, we might deem it impious to deny that ‘“the round
world cannot be moved;”’ that the sun ‘“pursues its course”’ round the earth;
(Galileo was imprisoned for doing so, and yet, said the sage to himself while
in prison, ‘“the earth does move”’ – e pur si muove:) that Naaman’s leprosy (a
condition of body) was a real substance, because we read that it left him and ‘“clave
unto Gehazi;”’ that Adam ‘“surely”’ died on the very day he tasted the forbidden
fruit; that the winds possessed sense, because Christ said ‘“Peace, be still;”’ that
the earth is square, because we twice read of its four corners (Isa. xi. Rev. vii.);
and that Saul’s melancholy, and the cases of insanity and epilepsy related in the New
Testament, were possessions by demons, which are pronounced by St. Paul to be
‘“nothing in the world.”’ (See the Rev. Hugh Farmer’s original and admirable
works, especially his Essays on the Demoniacs of the New Testament, and on Christ’s
Temptation.
) Without due allowance, what absurdities might not be inferred
from Christ’s use of the word heart? But the most enlightened divines allow
us at present to follow Bacon’s advice, and to read the Bible, not as a work of phi-
losophical instruction, but of the revelation of religious matters beyond our know-
ledge, v. c. to learn from Genesis only how the world was created by God, and to study
geology without reference to Moses. ‘“The expressions of Moses are evidently
accommodated to the first and familiar notions derived from the sensible appear-
ances of the earth and heavens, and the absurdity of supposing that the literal
interpretation of terms in Scripture ought to interfere with the advancement of
philosophical enquiry, would have been as generally forgotten as renounced, if
the oppressors of Galileo had not found a place in history.”’ A Treatise on the
Records of the Creation,
&c., by J. B. Sumner, M. A. Prebendary of Durham, &c.
3d edit. 1825, vol. i. p. 327. We may, therefore, learn the miracle of the
[Seite 79] resurrection from the gospels, and enjoy our own opinions respecting matter and
spirit, body and soul, which, as relating to our nature, are objects of physical
enquiry, and therefore not of revelation, any more than astronomy or geology.
The writer of the celebrated Apology for the Bible says, ‘“when I went to the
University, I was of opinion, as most schoolboys are, that the soul was a sub-
stance distinct from the body, and that when a man died, he, in classical phrase,
breathed out his soul, animam expiravit; that it then went I knew not whither, as
it had come into the body, from I knew not where nor when, and had dwelt in the
body during life, but in what part of the body it had dwelt I knew not.”’ ‘“This
notion of the soul was, without doubt, the offspring of prejudice and ignorance.”’
‘“Believing as I do in the truth of the Christian religion, which teaches that men
are accountable for their actions, I trouble not myself with dark disquisitions
concerning necessity and liberty, matter and spirit; hoping as I do for eternal
life through Jesus Christ, I am not disturbed at my inability clearly to convince
myself that the soul is or is not a substance distinct from the body.”’ Anec-
dotes of the Life of Bishop Watson,
p. 14. sqq.

‘“Well indeed is it for us,”’ says a liberal writer in the Quarterly Review,
on the subject of geology, ‘“that the cause of revelation does not depend upon
questions such as these; for it is remarkable that in every instance the controversy
has ended in a gradual surrender of those very points which were at one time
represented as involving the vital interests of religion. Truth, it is certain, can-
not be opposed to truth. How inconsiderate a risk then do those advocates run
who declare that the whole cause is at issue in a single dispute, and that the sub-
stance of our faith hangs upon a thread – upon the literal interpretation of some
word or phrase against which fresh arguments are springing up from day to day.”’
1823, April, p. 163.

For an account of all the hypotheses that have been taught upon life and mind, see
An Enquiry into the opinions, ancient and modern, concerning life and organis-
ation.
By John Barclay, M. D. Edinb. 1822.

m.
[Seite 79]

2 Timothy, i. 10.

n.
[Seite 79]

Errant exsangues sine corpore et ossibus umbrae. Ovid, Metam. iv.

o.
p.
[Seite 79]

It is the doctrine of the Church of England, that all men shall rise with their
bodies.
Enoch and Elijah are represented to have been translated bodily. Nay,
our church has so little of this horror of matter, that it declares that Christ, ‘“the
very and eternal God”’ (Article ii.), ascended into heaven, and there sits, with
‘“his body, with flesh, bones, and all things appertaining to the perfection of
man’s nature.”’ Article iv.

q.
[Seite 80]

Respecting a difficulty which may present itself to the conceptions of some
Christians, but which the miraculousness of a future existence, I think, should re-
move, I may quote Paley’s sermon on the state after death. He concludes,

‘“That it is a question by which we need not be at all disturbed, whether the bodies
with which we shall arise be new bodies, or the same bodies under a new form;’

‘“For no alteration will hinder us from remaining the same, provided we are sen-
sible and conscious that we are so, any more than the changes which our visible
person undergoes even in this life, and which from infancy to manhood are un-
doubtedly very great, hinder us from being the same, to ourselves and in ourselves,
and to all intents and purposes whatsoever.”’ – Sermons on several Subjects, by
the late Rev. W. Paley, D. D. serm. 3. p. 96. These are a small system of
divinity, and, having been bequeathed by him to his parishioners, probably contain
his mature convictions.

a.
[Seite 81]

Among warm-blooded animals, the egg, especially at the fourth and fifth
day of incubation, if placed under a simple microscope, such as the Lyonetian,
is most adapted for the demonstration of the circulation.

Among frogs, the most proper is the equuleus of Lieberkühn, described in the
Mém. de l’Acad. de Berlin, 1745.

b.
[Seite 81]

For the various opinions respecting the number and differences of the ar-
terial coats, consult among others Vinc. Malacarne, Della Osservat. in Chirurgia.
Turin, t. ii. p. 103.

And C. Mondini, Opuscoli scientifici, t. i. Bologna, 1817. 4to. p. 161.

c.
[Seite 82]

Fr. Ruysch, Respons. ad ep. problematicam. iii. Also his Thesaur. Anat. iv.
tab. 3.

d.
[Seite 82]

B. S. Albinus, Annot. Academ. l. iv. tab. 5. fig. 1.

e.
[Seite 83]

See also J. Theod. Van Der Kemp, De Vita. Edinb. 1782. 8vo. p. 51.

And Seerp Brouwer, Quaestiones Medic. varii argum. Lugd. Batav. 1816.

4 to. p. 8.

f.
[Seite 83]

This is remarkably observable in the adult stag, by comparing the areae of
the external carotid and its branches, during the spring, just before the horns
have attained their full growth and when they are still covered with their
downy integuments (called in German, dér Bast), with such as they are after this
covering has fallen off.

g.
[Seite 83]

Ant. Scarpa, Sull’ Aneurisma, Pav. 1804, fol. cap. 4.

h.
[Seite 84]

H. Marx, diatr. praemio ornata, de structura atque vita venarum. Carlsr.
1819. 8vo.

i.
[Seite 85]

W. Cowper, Myotomia Reformata. (Posth.) Lond. 1724. fol. max. Tab.
xxxvi–xl.

k.
[Seite 85]

Casp. Fr. Wolff on the origin of the large coronary vein, Act. Acad. Scient.
Petropol.
1777. P. i.

Petr. Tabarrani on the same subject, Atti di Siena, vol. vi.

l.
[Seite 85]

Respecting these openings consult among others J. Abernethy, Philos. Trans.
1798. p. 103.

m.
[Seite 85]

James Penada, Memorie della Societa Italiana. t. xi. p. 555.

n.
[Seite 85]

Consult Achil. Mieg, Specimen ii. Observationum Botanicarum, &c. Basil,
1776. 4to. p. 12. sq.

o.
[Seite 86]

Eustachius, tab. viii. fig. 6. – tab. xvi. fig. 3. – Santorini. Tab. Posth. ix.
fig. 1.

p.
[Seite 86]

Eustachius, tab. xvi. fig. 6.

q.
[Seite 86]

Eustachius, tab. xvi. fig. 4.

r.
[Seite 86]

Eustachius, tab. xvi. fig. 5. – Morgagni, Adversar. Anat. i. tab. iv. fig. 3.
Santorini, l. c.

s.
[Seite 86]

Consult Hunter, who treats very minutely of the mechanism of these valves
in his work On the Blood, p. 159.

t.
[Seite 87]

Leop. M. A. Caldani, Memorie lette nell’ Acad. di Padova. 1814. 4to. p. 67.

u.
[Seite 87]

Casp. Fr. Wolff, Act. Acad. Scientiar. Petropol. for the year 1780. sq., es-
pecially for 1781. P. i. p. 211. sq., on the cartilaginous structure of the heart,
or on the cartilagineo-osseous bands, and their distribution at the base of the
heart.

x.
[Seite 87]

Scarpa, Tabulae Neurologicae ad illust. Hist. Anat. cardiac. nervor. tab. iii.
iv. v. vi.

y.
[Seite 87]

Ruysch, Thesaur. Anat. iv. tab. iii. fig. 1, 2.

z.
[Seite 87]

Brandis has proposed an ingenious hypothesis to explain the use of so great
an apparatus of coronary vessels. Versuch über die Lebenskraft. p. 84.

a.
[Seite 87]

Haller, Elemenla Physiol. t. i. tab. i.

Nicholls, Philos. Trans. vol. lii. P. i. p. 272.

b.
[Seite 87]

Consult, v. c. Littre, Hist. de l’Academie des Sc. de Paris. 1712. p. 37.

Baillie, Transactions of a Society for the Improvement of Medical and Chirur-
gical Knowledge,
t. i. p. 91.

a.
[Seite 88]

Consult Ant. Portal, Mémoires sur la Nature & le Traitement de plusieurs
Maladies,
t. ii. 1800. p. 281.

b.
[Seite 89]

My observations differ but little from those made by W. Heberden in Eng-
land, Med. Trans. vol. ii. p. 21. sq.

c.
[Seite 89]

J. H. Schönheyder, De Resolutione et Impotentia motus Muscularis. Hafn.
1768. p. 15. With which work compare the observations of F. Gabr. Sulzer,
Naturgesch. des Hamsters, p. 169.

d.
[Seite 89]

Stenonis, Act. Hafniens. t. ii. p. 142.

Sometimes, though rarely, it happens that the right portion of the heart,
oppressed with too much blood, becomes, contrarily to what usually takes place,
paralysed before the left. This I have more than once observed on opening
living mammalia, particularly rabbits.

e.
[Seite 90]

J. N. Weiss, De Dextro Cordis Ventriculo post mortem ampliori. Altorf.
1767. 4to.

f.
[Seite 90]

Ant. Chaum. Sabatier, E, in vivis animalibus Ventriculorum Cordis eadem
capacitas.
Paris, 1772. 4to.

g.
[Seite 90]

Sam. Aurivilius, De Vasorum Pulmonal. & Cavitat. Cordis inequali ampli-
tudine.
Gotting. 1750, 4to.

h.
[Seite 91]

The experiments of Hales, in which the blood was received into very long
glass tubes fixed to the arteries of living animals, and the length of its projection
measured, are indeed beautiful, like every thing done by this philosopher, who
was calculated by nature for such enquiries. But, if the force of the heart is to
be estimated in this way, we must take into account the pressure of the column of
blood contained in the tube and gravitating upon the left ventricle.

The result of Hales’s calculations was, that the blood being projected from the
human carotid to the height of seven feet and a half, and the surface of the left
ventricle being fifteen square inches, a column of blood, weighing 51.5 lbs. was
incumbent upon the ventricle and overcome by its systole. Statical Essays, vol. ii.
p. 40. London, 1733. 8vo.

i.
[Seite 92]

Thus, to say nothing of the phenomena so frequently observed in the cold-
blooded amphibia and fishes, I lately found the heart of the chick to beat for twelve
hours, in an egg, on the fourth day of incubation.

k.
[Seite 92]

Consult Fontana, who treats of this prerogative of the heart minutely in his
Ricerche sopra la Fisica animale, and limits it too much. Haller answered him
in the Literary Index of Gottingen.

l.
[Seite 92]

See Haller on the motion of the heart from stimulus, Comment. Soc. Scient.
Gottingens.
tom. i.

G. E. Remus, Experimenta circa circulat. sanguin. instituta. Gotting.
1752. 4to. p. 14.

m.
[Seite 92]

On this dispute consult v. c. R. Forsten, Quaestion. select. Physiol. Lugd.
Bat. 1774. 4to.

J. B. J. Behrends, Dissert. qua demonstratur cor nervis carere. Mogunt.
1792. 4to.

And, on the other side, J. Munniks, Observationes variae. Groning. 1805. 4to.

Lucae, l. c. p. 37. tab. ii.

n.
[Seite 92]

And how much more so when the heart is diseased, is shown v. c. in Caleb
Hillier Parry’s Inquiry into the Symptoms and Causes of the Syncope Anginosa,
commonly called Angina Pectoris. Bath, 1799. p. 114.

o.
[Seite 93]

Andr. Wilson, Inquiry into the moving powers employed in the Circulation of
the Blood.
Lond. 1784. 8vo. p. 55. sq.

And at great length in J. Carson’s Inquiry into the Causes of the Motion of the
Blood.
Ibid. 1815. 8vo.

p.
[Seite 93]

See v. c. C. W. Curtius, De monstro humano cum infante gemello. Lugd.
Bat. 1762. 4to. p. 39.

W. Cooper, Philos. Transact. vol. lxv. p. 316.

And, instar omnium, Fr. Tiedemann, Anatomie der Kopflosen Missgeburten.
Landshut, 1813. fol. p. 70. sq.

q.
[Seite 93]

Walter Vershuir, De arteriar. et venar. vi irritabili: ejusque in vasis excessu;
et inde oriunda sanguinis directione abnormi.
Groning. 1766. 4to.

Rich. Dennison, Diss. arterias omnes et venarum partem irritabilitate praeditas
esse.
Edinb. 1775. 8vo.

Chr. Kramp, De vi vitali arteriarum. Argent. 1785. 8vo.

r.
[Seite 94]

Observe, for instance, in Walter’s Tabulae nervor. thorac. et abdominis, the
right hepatic, tab. ii. O. tab. iii. l. – the splenic, tab. ii. P., tab. iii. m., tab. iv. o.
the superior mesenteric, tab. ii. Q., tab. iii. f. – the inferior mesenteric, tab. ii. T.
– and many others.

Consult Soemmerring, De c. h. fabrica. t. iv. p. 362.

s.
[Seite 94]

Haller, De Nervor. in arterias imperio. Gotting. 1744. 4to.

Lucae, l. c.

t.
[Seite 94]

T. Kirkland, Inquiry into the present state of Medical Surgery. London,
1783. 8vo. vol. i. p. 306. sq.

But especially Cal. Hillier Parry’s Experimental inquiry into the arterial
pulse.
Lond. 1816. 8vo.

u.
[Seite 95]

Consult his Physiological Essays, containing an inquiry into the causes which
promote the circulation of the fluids in the very small vessels of animals.
Second
edition, Edinb. 1761. 12mo.

H. v. d. Bosch, über das Muskelvermögen der Haargefässgen. Munster,
1786. 8vo.

x.
[Seite 95]

What is commonly, but improperly, called the venous pulse, observable on
opening living animals, and in some morbid affections, and also under a violent
effort, does not correspond with the action of the heart, but with respiration;
since, if an expiration is unusually deep and lengthened, and the reflux of the
blood to the lungs thus impeded, the jugular vein swells as far as the brain, the
subclavian as far as the basilic, and the inferior cava as far as the crural.

y.
[Seite 95]

G. E. Stahl, De vena portae porta malorum. Halae, 1698. 4to.

z.
[Seite 95]

Lister, De humoribus, p. 25.

a.
[Seite 96]

See the lamented Dr. Laennec’s most admirable work, Traité de l’Auscul-
tation Médiate, et des Maladies des Poumons et du Coeur.
2d edit. 1826. t. ii.
p. 403, sqq.

b.
[Seite 97]

Treatise on the Blood, &c., by John Hunter, p. 146. Note.

c.
[Seite 97]

El. Physiol, t. i. p. 394.

d.
[Seite 97]

Mr. H. Mayo, Outlines of Human Physiology. 1827. p. 68.

e.
[Seite 97]

l. c. ibid. where he refers to Senac and Ferrein.

f.
[Seite 97]

Traité du Coeur, p. 357.

g.
[Seite 98]

The Muscular Motions of the Human Body, p. 567.

h.
[Seite 98]

Practice of Physic.

i.
[Seite 98]

Haller, El. Physiol. t. ii. p. 263.

k.
[Seite 98]

Edinburgh Medical and Surgical Journal. 1815.

l.
[Seite 98]

Transactions of the College of Physicians. London, vol. ii. p. 31.

m.
[Seite 98]

Dr. Cooke, A Treatise on Nervous Diseases, vol. i. p. 63.

n.
[Seite 98]

Quoted by Haller, El. Physiol. t. ii. lib. vi. p. 325.

o.
[Seite 99]

‘“Sanguinem in auriculam dextram, tanquam in vacuum castellum apprope-
rare, ne id quidem videtur absque specie veri dici.”’ l. c. An idea of the same kind
appears to have been entertained before the time of Rudiger, whose work, De regressu
sanguinis per venas mechanico,
was published at Leipsig in 1704. For in Pecquet’s
Experimenta nova Anatomica, published in 1651, arguments are adduced against
those who conceived that the diastole sucked the blood towards the heart,
(‘“num, ut quibusdam placuit, attrahendo pelliciat exugatve, investigandum.”’
Chap. vii. sqq.) At that time suction was not generally known to be merely
a means of removing or diminishing the resistance to the pressure of air, but sup-
posed to be an occult principle. He details experiments to show its true nature,
but urges nothing against suction in the proper acceptation of the term, and his
adversaries were right in their fact, though ignorant of its true nature.

p.
[Seite 99]

A Treatise on the Blood, &c. p. 185.

q.
[Seite 99]

An Inquiry into the Causes of the Motion of the Blood. 1815.

r.
[Seite 100]

The heart was shown by Dr. Alexander Stewart, about the beginning of the
last century, to be resolvable by boiling water into a semicircular muscle, with all
its fibres running parallel to the base. Being rolled round in a funnel form,
the left ventricle is produced, and the second turn produces the right, by the
space between it and the first layer. The walls of the left ventricle, except the
septum, are strengthened by an additional convolution, which the right ventricle
has not. The auricles are distinct, and by boiling drop off from the ventricles.
Phil. Trans. vol. ix. abridg.

s.
[Seite 100]

De Corde.

t.
[Seite 100]

Anatomie Générale, t. ii.

u.
[Seite 100]

Animal Chemistry, p. 25.

x.
[Seite 101]

See Dr. Wilson Philip, On Febrile Diseases; Dr. Thomson, Lectures on In-
flammation;
Dr. Hastings, A Treatise on the Inflammation of the Mucous Mem-
brane of the Lungs.
1820.

y.
[Seite 101]

De Art. et Ven. vi Irrit.

z.
[Seite 101]

See Hastings, l. c. The introduction to this work is a body of information
on the present subject.

a.
[Seite 101]

Disputatio inauguralis de Inflammatione.

b.
[Seite 101]

On Haemorrhage.

c.
[Seite 101]

l. c. expt. 22.

d.
[Seite 102]

De irritabilitate.

e.
[Seite 102]

l. c. p. 52. sq.

f.
[Seite 102]

See also J. Hunter, On the Blood, p. 114. 116.

g.
[Seite 102]

Journal de Physiologie, t. i. p. 111.

h.
[Seite 103]

Dissertation sur le passage du Sang à travers le Coeur. Paris, 1827. p. 78.

Also, Annales des Sciences Naturelles, June 1827.

i.
[Seite 103]

Journal de Physiologie, t. i. p. 110.

k.
[Seite 103]

An Experimental Enquiry into the Nature, Causes, and Varieties of the Ar-
terial Pulse,
&c., by Caleb Hillier Parry, M. D. F. R. S. 1816. Likewise a
second work, entitled, Additional Experiments on the Arteries of warm-blooded
animals,
&c., by Chas. Hen. Parry, M. D. F. R. S. 1819. – the latter displays
as much talent and learning as the former of originality. Dr. Young, in a
Croonian lecture, highly worth perusal, on the functions of the heart and
blood-vessels, reasons to prove that the muscular power of arteries has very
little effect in propelling the blood. Phil. Trans. 1809.

l.
[Seite 103]

On the operation of the elastic and muscular coats, see Hunter, l. c. p. 118. sqq.

m.
[Seite 104]

See the Syllabus of his lectures for 1810.

n.
[Seite 104]

Hastings, l. c. p. 46. sq. Magendie, Journal de Physiol. t. i. p. 107. sq.,
says that the blood streams in the arteries and veins of cold-blooded animals, as if
the vessels were motionless.

o.
[Seite 105]

Hewson, Exp. Enquiry, v. ii. p. 15. Mr. Brodie, Phil. Trans. 1806.

p.
[Seite 105]

Phil. Trans. 1793. p. 155.

q.
[Seite 105]

Dr. Young, Introduction to Med. Literature. 1823. 2d edit. p. 631. sq.

r.
[Seite 105]

An Experimental Enquiry into the Laws of the Vital Functions. 3d ed. expt. 67.

s.
[Seite 105]

Observations on some of the most frequent and important Diseases of the
Heart,
&c. By Allan Burns. 1809. p. 117. sqq.

t.
[Seite 105]

l. c. p. 120.

u.
[Seite 106]

l. c. p. 124. sq.

x.
[Seite 106]

Hunter, l. c. p. 138.

y.
[Seite 106]

Journal Complimentaire, t. 21. June, 1825.

z.
[Seite 106]

Journal der Praktischen Heilkund. Sept. 1815.

a.
[Seite 106]

Archiv. für Medinische Erfahrung. July and August, 1822.

b.
[Seite 106]

Dublin Hospital Reports, vol. iv.

c.
[Seite 106]

1736. Haller’s Disputationes, t. v. p. 407.

d.
[Seite 106]

El. Phys. t. ii. p. 356.

e.
[Seite 106]

l. c. p. 186. sq.

f.
[Seite 107]

Dr. Hastings, when observing the circulation in the frog’s foot under the
microscope, saw that the blood moved ‘“faster in the arteries than in the veins,
and in the veins than in the capillaries.”’ l. c. p. 47.

g.
[Seite 107]

l. c. p. 47. sqq.

h.
[Seite 108]

Hales, Statical Essays, vol. i. p. 101.

i.
[Seite 108]

Galen De Anat. Admin. vii. 15., where are some amusing anecdotes of his
pupils and some persons who promised to prove the arteries empty.

k.
[Seite 108]

History of England, ch. 62.

l.
[Seite 109]

This he laments in a letter to a friend, as may be seen in a MS. of the
Royal Society, referred to in the life prefixed to the College edition of his
works: – ‘“Quod multo rarius solito ad aegros invisendos accersitus esset, post-
quam librum de motu cordis ediderit.”’

m.
[Seite 109]

Hume, l. c.

n.
[Seite 109]

See Haller, El. Physiol. t. i. p. 243.

a.
[Seite 110]

Soemmerring and Reisseisen, über die Structur, die Verrichtung und den
Gebrauch der Lungen. Zwey Preischriften.
Berlin, 1808. 8vo.

b.
[Seite 110]

J. Carson, On the Elasticity of the Lungs, in the Phil. Trans. 1820. p. 29.

Consult also, Const. Ern. de Welzien, De Pulmonum autenergia, &c. Dorpat,
1819. 8vo.

c.
[Seite 110]

Respecting all the organs concerned in respiration, consult Corn. J. Van
Den Bosch, Anatomia Systematis Respirationi inservientis Pathologica. Harlem,
1801. 4to. p. 1–44.

d.
[Seite 111]

Keil, indulging his luxuriant iatro-mathematical genius, assigned more than
1,744,000,000 cells to each lung.

e.
[Seite 111]

Lieberkühn, with equal exaggeration, made the surface of the cells equal to
1500 square feet.

f.
[Seite 111]

Eustachius, tab. xxvii. fig. 13.

g.
[Seite 112]

Mascagni, Histor. vasor. lymphaticor. tab. xx.

h.
[Seite 112]

Ibid. tab. xxi.

i.
[Seite 112]

Consult Portal, Mém. de l’Acad. des Scienc. de Paris. 1780.

k.
[Seite 112]

J. G. Amstein (Praes. Oetinger), De usu et actione musculor. intercostal.
Tubing. 1769. 4to. Theod. Fr. Trendelenburg, Jun. De sterni costarumque
in respiratione vera genuinaque motûs ratione.
Gotting. 1779. 4to.

Bordenave and Sabatier, Mém. de l’Acad. des Scienc. de Paris. 1778.

l.
[Seite 112]

Haller, Icon. Anat. fascic. 1. tab. i.

B. S. Albinus, Tab. musculor. tab. xiv. fig. 5, 6, 7.

J. G. Röderer, De arcubus tendineis muscul. progr. 1. Gotting. 1760. 4to.

Santorini, Tab. Posth. x. fig. 1.

m.
[Seite 113]

De Anatomicis Administrationibus, l. viii. cap. 8. The whole book is very
rich in experiments on respiration.

n.
[Seite 113]

Ephr. Krüger, De nervo phrenico. Lips. 1759.; reprinted in Sandifort’s
Thesaurus. tom. iii.

Walter, Tab. nervor. thorac. et abdominis, tab. i. fig. 1. n. 1.

o.
[Seite 113]

The antiquity of the notion that air is the pabulum vitae, is seen in the book
de Flatibus, usually ascribed to Hippocrates. The author regards the aliment
as three-fold, – victuals, drink, and air; but the latter he calls vital, because we
cannot, for a moment, dispense with a supply of it without danger to life.

p.
[Seite 114]

Consult Harvey’s Dispute upon the necessary renovation of the aërial succus
alibilis,
with the celebrated Astronomical Professor, J. Greaves, in the latter’s
Description of the Pyramids in Egypt, p. 101. sq. Lond. 1646. 8vo.

Also the popular Edm. Halley’s immortal Discourse concerning the means
of furnishing air at the Bottom of the Sea in any ordinary Depths.
Phil. Trans.
vol. xxix. No. 349. p. 492. sq.

q.
[Seite 114]

Fr. Stromeyer, Grundriss der theoretischen Chemie. P. ii. p. 619.

r.
[Seite 114]

Consult, v. c. Abildgaard, Nordischen Archiv. für Naturkunde, &c. t. 1.
P. i. and ii.

s.
[Seite 114]

Consult, besides, Priestley and others, especially C. H. Peaff, ib. t. iv. P. ii.

t.
[Seite 114]

To discover how frequently an animal could breathe the same portion of the
different kinds of air that we have mentioned, I took three dogs equal in size and
strength, and to the trachea of the first, by means of a tube, I tied a bladder,
containing about 20 cubic inches of oxygen gas. He died in 40 minutes.

[Seite 115]

For the second, the bladder was filled with atmospheric air. He died in six
minutes.

For the third, I employed the carbonised air last expired by the second dog.
He died in four minutes.

The air of the bladder, upon subsequent examination, gave the common signs
of carbonic acid gas.(E)

The instruments which I employed are described and illustrated by a plate in
the Medic. Biblioth. vol. i. p. 174. sq. tab. l.

u.
[Seite 115]

J. A. De Luc, Idées sur la Météorologie. tom. ii. p. 67. 229.

x.
[Seite 115]

Rob. Menzies, De Respiratione. Edinb. 1790. 8vo.

H. G. Rouppe, on the same subject. Lugd. Batav. 1791. 4to.

J. Bostock, Versuch über das Athemholen. übers. von A. F. Nolde. Erf. 1809.
8vo.

y.
[Seite 115]

W. Allen and W. H. Pepys, Phil. Trans. 1808. p. 249. and 1809. p. 404.
But how various the quantity of carbonic acid gas expired is, at different times
of the day, and under different circumstances, is shown by the experiments of
W. Prout, in Thomson’s Annals of Philosophy, vol. ii. p. 328.

z.
[Seite 115]

Nasse in J. F. Meckel’s Archiv. für die Physiol, vol. ii. p. 200.

And G. Wedmeyer, Physiologische Untersuchungen über das Nervensystem und
die Respiration.
Hanov. 1817. 8vo. p. 175.

a.
[Seite 115]

J. Andr. Scherer, Beweis, dass J. Mayow vor 100 Jahren den Grund zur anti-
phlogistischen Chemie und Physiologie gelegt hat.
p. 104.

Edm. Goodwyn, Connexion of Life with Respiration. Lond. 1788. 8vo.

J. Hunter, On the Blood, p. 68.

J. A. Albers, Beyträgen zur Anat. und Physiol. der Thiere. P. 1. p. 108.

b.
[Seite 116]

It has the epithet Hookian, because it was most varied by Rob. Hooke.
See Th. Sprat, History of the Royal Society. Lond. 1667. 4to. p. 232. But
it was before instituted by Vesalius, and very much praised for its beauty. De
c. h. Fabrica,
p. 284.

c.
[Seite 116]

Wm. Harvey, De circulat. sanguin. ad J. Riolan. p. 258. Glasgov. 1751.
12mo.

And especially his Exerc. de gener. Animalium. p. 263. Lond. 1651. 4to.

d.
[Seite 116]

See Theod. C. Aug. Roose, über das Ersticken neugeborner Kinder, in his
Physiologisch. Untersuchungen. Brunsw. 1796. 8vo.

J. D. Herholdt, De vita, imprimis foetus humani, ejusque morte sub partu.
Havn. 1802. 8vo.

e.
[Seite 116]

Consult, for example, Petr. J. Daoustenc, De Respiratione. Lugd. 1743.
4to. p. 54. sqq.

Rob. Whytt, On the Vital and other Involuntary Motions of Animals, p. 222.
Edinb. 1751. 8vo.

f.
[Seite 117]

The Morbid Anatomy of the Brain in Mania, Hydrophobia, &c.

g.
[Seite 117]

Journal de Médecine. 1818.

h.
[Seite 117]

Francis Daniel Reisseisen, M. D. of Strasburgh, über den bau der Lungen,
eine von der Königlichen Academie der Wissenshaften zu Berlin gekrönte Preiss-
chrift.
Berlin, 1822.

i.
[Seite 118]

Epist. de Pulmon. l. p. 133.

k.
[Seite 118]

Mémoires de la Société Royale de Médecine. 1779. p. 394. sqq.

l.
[Seite 118]

Précis Elémentaire, t. ii. p. 317.

m.
[Seite 119]

See Haller, El. Pliys. lib. viii. s. iv. p. 259. 275.

n.
[Seite 119]

Dr. Carson found the elasticity of the lungs of calves, sheep, and large dogs,
balanced by a column of water of from a foot to a foot and a half in height, and
of rabbits and cats by a column of from six to ten inches. Phil. Trans. 1820.
Part 1.

o.
[Seite 120]

l. c. p. 223.

p.
[Seite 120]

Gazette de Santé, Dec. 5. 1826.

q.
[Seite 120]

Dr. Bostock, An Elementary System of Physiology, vol. ii. p. 15.

r.
[Seite 120]

l. c. vol. ii. p. 7. 15.

s.
[Seite 121]

Administ. Anat. lib. viii. c. ult.

If, instead of a bladder, a tube immersed in a coloured fluid is employed,
this will of course rise in inspiration, and remain stationary or fall in expiration.
See Experimental Researches on the Influence exercised by Atmospheric Pressure
upon the Progression of the Blood in the Veins,
&c. By Edward Barry, M. D.
London, 1826.

t.
[Seite 121]

l. c. lib. viii. sect. iv. p. 275. sq.

t.
[Seite 122]

Dr. Carson. l. c. p. 226.

u.
[Seite 122]

Magendie, Journal de Physiologie, t. i. p. 81.

x.
[Seite 122]

Reisseisen. l. c. p. 23.

y.
[Seite 123]

l. c. lib. vi. sect. iv. p. 333. 1760.

z.
[Seite 123]

Journal de Physiologie, t. i. p. 136. 1821. For the same reason, if a tube
is placed in the jugular vein, the air rushes into it during respiration with a noise,
and the ill effects of air in the heart occur. Magendie, l. c. p. 195. And if a
large vein is opened in surgical operations, and any thing prevents the sides from
collapsing, the air may rush in and destroy life, as happened a few years ago at
Paris. l. c. p. 192. sqq. This may be shown also, by inserting a tube, immersed
in a coloured fluid, into a large vein, when the liquid will rise during inspiration,
and stop or descend during expiration. See Dr. Barry, l. c. who conceives
another source of vacuum to the pulmonary veins and venous sinuses, by the
distraction of their parietes during inspiration, p. 29. 1826. And Dissertation,
&c. p. 13. sq. Still more recently, Dr. Barry has applied the barometer to the
chest of a pigeon, a viper, a common snake, and a frog, and found the mercury
descend during inspiration. When connected with the exterior of the pericardium
of an eel, the mercury became concave each time that the heart retired from the
pericardium, so that its pulsations could be counted, and also at every effort of
the animal to open its gill-covers. Sur l’application du Barométre, &c. Annales
des Sciences Naturelles.
Avril, 1827.

a.
[Seite 124]

l. c. ibid.

b.
[Seite 124]

Journal de Physiologie, t. i. p. 136. Paris, 1820.

c.
[Seite 124]

Bordeu, Du Pouls, p. 324. quoted by Haller; and Bichat, Recherches
Physiol.
p. 223. See Magendie for the veins, Journal de Physiol. t. i. p. 138.,
and Tulpius. In violent efforts the chest is still more compressed, whence
the blood accumulates without the heart in the veins, and is driven more
forcibly from the heart to all parts. These may be made after expiration or in-
spiration, but for a very violent effort we usually inspire first, to afford a better
fixed point, and to continue the effort longer than would be possible after ex-
piration. Respiration is generally suspended and the glottis closed, but if the
effort is made after an inspiration, the glottis need not be closed, provided the
air is allowed to leave the chest very slowly.

In myself, a deep inspiration, not followed in due time by an expiration, causes
the pulse in a few seconds to become suddenly slow for a few seconds, falling as
much as five-and-twenty beats per minute, and even double this, if it has just be-
come rapid by a deep and prolonged expiration: but, as the breath continues to be
held, which may be done much longer than inspiration can be refrained from
after expiration, as there is a supply of air in the lungs in the former case, and not
in the latter, – (in the latter I can refrain for a quarter of a minute, and in the
former for rather above a minute) – the pulse gradually resumes its former quick-
ness; and when the breath can be held no longer, evidently grows more and more
rapid and weak. The effects of refraining from expiration, are the same in me as of
refraining from inspiration. Rapid respiration quickens the pulse, by drawing the
blood more frequently to the heart, and, in my case, if very deep as well as rapid,
the circulation through the head becomes so violent, that vertigo occurs, and be-
tween this and the rapidity of the pulse, I at length cannot count the latter.

d.
[Seite 125]

My own pulse, if a deep expiration is made, and inspiration refrained from,
becomes rapid and excessively feeble, and more and more so till I can hold out
no longer.

e.
[Seite 125]

See Haller, l. c. lib. vii. sect. iv. p. 253.

f.
[Seite 125]

On connecting the barometer with the interior of the pericardium of an eel,
Dr. Barry found the mercury move.

g.
[Seite 126]

Hunter, On the Blood, p. 75. sq. Haller had prievously ascertained the
same thing, and while allowing the influence of a vacuum, urged it as a proof,
that the vacuum was not efficient, but only auxiliary. El. Physiol. t. ii. p. 325.

h.
[Seite 126]

Mr. Spry, Lancet. Jan. 1827.

i.
[Seite 126]

Dr. David Williams, Edinb. Med. & Surgical Journal, 1823, p. 528.

k.
[Seite 126]

Journal de Physiol. t. i. p. 111.

l.
[Seite 126]

Statical Essays, vol. ii. p. 6.

m.
[Seite 126]

Med. Chir. Trans. vol. xi.

n.
[Seite 126]

Dr. Fennel, The Philadelphia Journal, Nov. 1822.

o.
[Seite 127]

Recherches Physiologiques, p. 225. sq.

p.
[Seite 127]

Mr. Robert Hunter. Edinburgh Journal. Oct. 1824.

q.
[Seite 127]

l. c. p. 167.

r.
[Seite 127]

Voyage dans les Alpes.

s.
[Seite 128]

l. c. p. 138. sq.

t.
[Seite 128]

Elements of Physics. By N. Arnott, M. D. Lond. 1827. p. 500.

u.
[Seite 128]

See Bichat, l. c. p. 198. sqq.

u.
[Seite 130]

De l’Influence des Agens Physiques sur la Vie. Paris, 1824. p. 410. sqq.

x.
[Seite 130]

Annales de Chimie et Physique, t. iv. p. 115. sq.

y.
[Seite 130]

Journal de Physique, t. 77.

z.
[Seite 130]

l. c. p. 420. sqq. 461. sqq.

a.
[Seite 131]

Mémoires sur la Respiration, p. 184. 258.

b.
[Seite 131]

Mémoires d’Arcueil, t. ii.

c.
[Seite 131]

l. c. p. 462.

d.
[Seite 131]

l. c. 429. sqq.

e.
[Seite 131]

l. c. p. 437. sqq.

f.
[Seite 131]

An Enquiry into the Changes induced in Atmospheric Air. 1807. Further
Enquiries,
&c. 1816.

g.
[Seite 131]

Dr. Orfila, Toxicologie Générale, t. i. p. 531. sq. Dr. Magendie had previously
found the same result in injecting the solution into the pleura. Mémoire sur la
Transpiration,
p. 19.

h.
[Seite 132]

Dr. Thomson’s Annals of Philosophy. 1819.

i.
[Seite 132]

See a case related by Dr. Baillie, in the Transactions of a Society for the
Improvement of Medical and Chemical Knowledge,
vol. i.

k.
[Seite 132]

Edwards, l. c. p. 437. sqq.

l.
[Seite 133]

If extravasated, or inclosed between two ligatures in an artery, the same
happens. Hunter, On the Blood, p. 65. sq.

m.
[Seite 133]

Fish and crustacea purify their blood by the air contained in the water which
they draw over their gills. They perish if the water is deprived of air: and in this
case, as well as when the water is aërated but limited in quantity, and whether it
is exposed to the air or in close vessels, they perish sooner as the tempe-
rature is higher. Dr. Edwards, l. c. P. ii. ch. 2. And the younger and smaller
they are, when there is too little air in the water, the more they come to breathe at
the surface, and die if prevented, (p. 118.) Fish die in the air by drying and
wasting, (p. 126.) The syren lacertina and proteus anguina, have both gills and
lungs: insects have no lungs, but openings on the surface of the body leading to
air-vessels are distributed in the interior. All the experiments of naturalists
made it appear that no animal could live without oxygen, but M. Biot has
asserted, that what are called blaps and tenebrions, remain in as good a vacuum
as can be formed for any length of time without apparent inconvenience.
Animals found in many parts of the bodies of others, can hardly be thought to
have access to gaseous oxygen. Vegetables occasion the same change in the air
as animals, according to Mr. Ellis. Further Inquiries into the Changes induced
in Atmospheric Air, &c.

n.
[Seite 133]

Dr. Thomson’s Annals of Philosophy. 1814.

o.
[Seite 134]

On Animal Heat, p. 387.

p.
[Seite 134]

Encyclopédie Methodique, t. i. p. 494. Dr. Prout also observed this effect
of exercise before fatigue occurred.

q.
[Seite 134]

Mémoires de l’Academie des Sciences. 1789. p. 575.

r.
[Seite 134]

l. c. p. 200. sqq.

s.
[Seite 134]

l. c. Dissert. Inaugur. &c. Edin. 1814. The smallest quantity yet observed
was in a diabetic patient of mine, taking very large doses of opium and nux
vomica. Numerous Cases, illustrative of the Efficacy of the Hydrocyanic or
Prussic Acid in Affections of the Stomach, with a Report upon its Powers in Pec-
toral and other Diseases, in which it has been already recommended, and some Facts
respecting the Necessity of varying the Doses of Medicines according to circumstances,
and the Use of Opium in Diabetes.
By John Elliotson, M. D. &c. p. 99.

t.
[Seite 134]

Boyle, Works, vol. iii. p. 360. Edwards, l. c. p. 189. sqq.

u.
[Seite 135]

An Elementary System of Physiology, vol. ii. p. 24. sq. Dr. Thomson thinks
the estimate of Menzies most correct. System of Chemistry, vol. iv.

x.
[Seite 135]

See Hales. See also infra, Sect. XI. note (G).

y.
[Seite 135]

Recherches Expérimentales sur l’Exhalation Pulmonaire. Paris, 1826.

z.
[Seite 135]

Vauquelin, Annales de Chimie, t. xii. p. 278. Spallanzani, Mém. sur la
Respiration,
p. 62.

a.
[Seite 135]

Some assert that the respiration of pure oxygen excites violently, others gently,
others not at all; some, that more oxygen is consumed than in common, some
[Seite 136] no more. Pure hydrogen and azote appear to destroy by the mere exclusion of
oxygen; carbonic acid by poisoning, but, if not diluted with rather more than
double its bulk of common air, it will not pass the glottis. Nitrous oxide intoxicates
quickly, briefly, and without consequent exhaustion, and appears to be absorbed
by the blood. (See Sir Humphry Davy’s Researches, &c.) Drowning destroys
life only by the exclusion of air, and as the glottis closes, little or no water, –
nothing often but frothy mucus, is found in the air-passages. Yet Professor
Meyer asserts, that he has seen the fluid in which the animal was drowned,
generally, in the lungs, in his experiments.

b.
[Seite 136]

Journal de Physique, t. xxv. p. 102. sqq. The usual reason that an animal
will live in air in which another has died, is, that it comes fresh and strong into
it, and therefore resists the poison better than its enfeebled predecessor.

c.
[Seite 136]

Mémoires de l’Academie des Sciences. 1789. p. 573.

d.
[Seite 136]

l. c. p. 184. sqq.

e.
[Seite 136]

Edwards, l. c. p. 191. sqq.

f.
[Seite 136]

l. c. p. 513. sqq.

g.
[Seite 136]

Sir Anth. Carlisle, Phil. Trans. 1805.

h.
[Seite 136]

Edwards, l. c. p. 269. Mr. Brydone (Tour through Sicily and Malta),
frequently saw divers remain, in the Bay of Naples, under water, for three mi-
nutes. In Percival’s History of Ceylon, they are said sometimes to remain five
minutes under water.

Some very grand instances of the exaggeration on this subject, will be found
in an amusing and useful book, entitled The Uncertainty of the Signs of Death.
[Seite 137] M. D’Egly, Member of the Royal Society of Inscriptions, declares that he was
engaged to a dinner for which the fish was to be provided by a Swiss diver, who
got his living by plunging into the water and pulling the fish out of their holes.
The dinner hour arrived, but no fish. Drags were employed, and the diver’s body
found. The curate wished to bury it immediately, as it had been nine hours under
water, but M. D’Egly determined on attempting resuscitation, and succeeded in
three quarters of an hour. The Rev. Mr. Derham, in his Physico-Theology, is
more credulous than the Curé; he quotes Pechlin for the case of a man pensioned
by the queen for having joined this world again, after remaining upright under
water, his feet sticking in the muddy bottom, for sixteen hours, at Tronningholm.
Yet this is nothing; for Mr. Tilesius, the keeper of the royal library, has written
an account of a woman whom he saw alive and well, after being three days under
water. And this is nothing; for Mr. Burmann declares he heard a funeral sermon
at Boness in Lithovia, upon an old man of seventy, who, the preacher protested,
had fallen into the water when sixteen years old, and remained under it for seven
weeks. Mr. Brydone was told that one diver, called Calas, but nicknamed Pesce,
could live several days in the sea; and Kircher asserts, that this aquatic person
could walk under water from Sicily to Italy.

i.
[Seite 137]

Bichat, Recherches Physiologiques, p. ii. art. 6, 7, 8.

k.
[Seite 138]

Mém. sur la Respiration. See Dr. Bostock, l. c. vol. ii. p. 184. sqq.

a.
[Seite 139]

Th. Young, Philos. Trans. P. i. 1800.

b.
[Seite 139]

Jan. Marg. Busch, De Mechanismo organi Vocis hujusque functione. Groning.
1770. 4to.

c.
[Seite 139]

Soemmerring, Icones organorum Gustus et Vocis. Francof. 1808. fol.

d.
[Seite 139]

B. S. Albinus, Tab. Muscul. Tab. X. fig. 1–15. Tab. XI. fig. 45–48.
Tab. XII. fig. 1–7.

e.
[Seite 140]

Kratzenstein viewed the glottis and larynx as a kind of drum, with its head
bisected. Tentamen de natura et charactere Sonorum Litterarum Vocalium.
Petrop. 1781. 4to.

I would, in some sense, compare it to an Aeolian harp, particularly one of the
description found by Labillardière in Amboyna. Voyage à la Recherche de La
Perouse,
t. i. p. 326.

f.
[Seite 140]

See some experiments made at Göttingen with the view of settling this con-
troversy, in J. G. Runge’s Dissertation De Voce ejusque Organis. L. B. 1753.
4to.

Also consult Jos. Ballanti, Commentar. Instituti Bonon. t. vi.

And Vicq.-d’Azyr, Mém. de l’Acad. des Sc. de Paris. 1779.

g.
[Seite 140]

Respecting this celebrated experiment, anciently made by Galen, consult
among others W. Courten, Philos. Trans. N. 335.

Morgagni, Ep. Anatom. xii. No. 20. P. P. Molinelli, Comment. Institut.
Bonon.
t. iii.

J. Haighton, Memoirs of the Medical Society of London, t. iii.

h.
[Seite 141]

The larynx, even among the most ferocious people, is capable of imitating
the sounds of brutes. Consult, v. c. Nic. Witsen, Noord en OostTartarye,
ed. 2. Amst. 1705. vol. i. p. 165., respecting the inhabitants of New Guinea of
the southern hemisphere, called Papus. And J. Adair, History of the American
Indians,
p. 309., respecting the Choktah tribe of North America.

i.
[Seite 141]

I have in my hands the testimony of most respectable travellers, in regard,
for instance, to the inhabitants of Ethiopia, Greenland, Canada, California,
Kamtschatka, &c., and therefore wonder at the assertion of Rousseau, – that
singing is not natural to man. Dictionn. de Musique, t. i. p. 170. Geneva,
1781. 12mo.

k.
[Seite 141]

See Rich. Payne Knight, Analytical Essay on the Greek Alphabet. Lond.
1791. 4to. p. 3.

l.
[Seite 142]

Consult F. Mercur. ab Helmont, Alphabeti vere naturalis Hebraici Delineatio.
Sulzbac. 1657. 12mo.

Joach. Jungius, Doxoscopiae Physicae Minores (1662.) 4to. Append. Section i.
P. ii. fol. Gg. ii. 3.

J. Wallis, Grammatica Linguae Anglicanae, cui praefigitur de loquela s. sonorum
omnium loquelarium formatione tract. grammatico-physicus.
Ed. 6. Lond. 1765.
8vo.

Gottl. Conr. Chr. Storr, De Formatione Loquelae. Tubing. 1781. 4to.

m.
[Seite 142]

K. G. Anton, über Sprache in Rücksicht auf Geschichte der Menschheit.
Görlitz. 1799. 8vo.

Er. Darwin, Temple of Nature. Addit. Notes, p. 112.

n.
[Seite 142]

His Surdus Loquens. Amst. 1692. 8vo. Enlarged under the title of
Dissert. de Loquela. Ib. 1700.

o.
[Seite 142]

Respecting their formation, consult Chr. Theoph. Kratzenstein, Tentamen,
recommended above.

p.
[Seite 143]

Fr. Lupichius, De Risu. Basil. 1738. 4to.

Traité des Causes physiques et morales du rire. Amst. 1788. 8vo.

q.
[Seite 143]

J. Melch. Fr. Albrecht, (Praes. Hallero) Experimenta in vivis animalibus
circa tussis organa exploranda instituta.
Gotting. 1751. 4to

r.
[Seite 143]

Marc. Beat. L. J. Porta, De Sternutatione. Basil. 1755. 4to.

s.
[Seite 143]

C. J. Sig. Thiel, De Singultu. Gotting. 1761. 4to.

t.
[Seite 144]

J. F. Schreiber, De Fletu. L. B. 1728. 4to.

u.
[Seite 144]

Dav. C. Em. Berdot, De Suspirio. Basil. 1756. 4to.

x.
[Seite 144]

Just. Godofr. Günz, (Praeside Walthero) De Oscitatione. Lips, 1738. 4to.

x.
[Seite 146]

Mémoire sur la Voix Humaine, par F. Savart. Magendie’s Journal de Phy-
siologie,
t. v. p. 367.

Mémoire sur les Voix des Oiseaux, par F. Savart. Annales de Chimie.

y.
[Seite 146]

Expériences sur le Principe de la Vie.

z.
[Seite 146]

An Enquiry into the Miraculous Powers, &c. Miscellaneous Works, vol. i.
p. 148. 4to.

a.
[Seite 147]

Jussieu, On Speech without a Tongue. Mém. de l’Acad. des Sciences. 1718.
p. 6.

b.
[Seite 147]

Report of Observations made in the British Hospitals in Belgium, after the
Battle of Waterloo; with some Remarks on Amputation.

c.
[Seite 147]

Account of a Woman who spoke fluently without a Vestige of Tongue. Phil.
Trans.
1742. p. 143.

Dr. Parson’s Account of Margaret Cutting, who had lost her Tongue. Phil.
Trans.
1747. p. 621.

d.
[Seite 148]

For the more open sounds, the jaws are generally more separated; but this
is not indispensable.

e.
[Seite 148]

This vowel is much used by the Irish in pronouncing such syllables as bate,
fait,
&c., for our English words beat, faith, &c.

f.
[Seite 151]

Observations sur la Physique, par Rosier, Supplement, 1782. p. 758.

g.
[Seite 151]

Ueber den Mechanismus der Menschlichen Sprache. Vienna, 1791.

h.
[Seite 152]

Prosodia Rationalis; or, An Essay towards establishing the Melody and Measure
of Speech, to be expressed and perpetuated by peculiar Symbols.
2d edit. London,
1779.

i.
[Seite 153]

El. Physiol. lib. viii. sect. iv. p. xxx-xl.

k.
[Seite 153]

Sur les Fonctions du Cerveau, t. v. p. 49. sq.

a.
[Seite 154]

W. B. Johnson, History of Animal Chemistry, vol. iii. p. 79.

b.
[Seite 154]

The torpid state of some animals, during winter, is of course an exception
to this. During it most of the functions cease or languish considerably, and the
animal heat is reduced nearly to coolness. This well-known circumstance pre-
vents me from acceding to the opinion of the very acute J. Hunter, – that the
animals which we call warm-blooded, should rather be called animals of a per-
manent heat under all temperatures. On the Blood, p. 15.

c.
[Seite 154]

J. B. Van Mons, Journal de Physique, t. lxviii. 1809. p. 121.

d.
[Seite 154]

Philos. Trans. vol. i. p. ii. 1758.

Arn. Duntze had previously made the observation in regard to brutes. Exper.
calorem animalem spectantia.
Lugd. Bat. 1754. 4to.

Consult also Benj. Franklin, Experiments and Observations on Electricity.
Lond. 1769. 4to. p. 365.

e.
[Seite 154]

Duhamel and Tillet, Mem. de l’Acad. des Scienc. de Paris. 1704.

Blagden and Dobson, Philos. Trans. 1775.

f.
[Seite 155]

The heat of the weather, even in Europe, occasionally exceeds our natural
temperature. This was the case on the third of Aug. 1783, at noon, when I was
on the Lucerne Alps, in company with the excellent Schnyder of Wartensee.
The thermometer in the shade stood above 100° Fahr., and when applied to the
body, invariably sunk to near 97°.

g.
[Seite 155]

See Lichtenberg’s animadversions upon this part of Crawford’s Theory, in
his notes to Erxleben’s Anfangsgr. der Nalurlehre. p. 447. ed. vi.

h.
[Seite 155]

Hence the constant coldness of those wretched beings who labour under the
blue disease, which arises from a mal-conformation of the heart. Sometimes the
septa of the heart are imperfect, sometimes the aorta arises with the pulmonary
artery from the right ventricle, as in the tortoise. In such instances, the che-
mical changes can take place in the lungs but imperfectly.

Consult a host of cases in J. C. Hein’s Diss. de istis Cordis deformationibus
quae sanguinem venosum cum arterioso miscere permittunt.
Gotting. 1816. 4to.

i.
[Seite 156]

I have formerly treated at some length of the influence of the nervous system
upon animal heat, in my Specimen Physiologiae Comparatae inter animantia calidi
& frigidi sanguinis.
1786. p. 23.

See the same confirmed by many arguments in Magn. Ström, Theoria inflam-
mationis doctrinae de calore Animali superstructa.
Havn. 1795. 8vo. p. 30. sq.
and by the much lamented Roose, Journal der Erfindungen, &c. t v. p. 17.

Consult also Dupuytren, Analyse des Travaux de l’Institut. 1807. p. 16.

But especially B. C. Brodie’s Experiments and Observations on the Influence
of the Brain on the Generation of Animal Heat. Phil. Trans.
1812. p. 378.

Also J. Davy, Ibid. 1814. t. ii. p. 590.

Wilson Philip, Experimental Inquiry into the Laws of the Vital Functions,
2d edit. Lond. 1818. 8vo.

k.
[Seite 156]

Consult Crawford, Phil. Trans. vol. lxxi. p. ii.

l.
[Seite 156]

G. Pickel, Experimenta Physico-Medica de Electricitate et Calore animali.
Wirceb. 1788. 8vo. p. 91. sq.

m.
[Seite 156]

C. Ferd. Becker, De Effectibus caloris et frigoris externi in c. h. Gott. 1802.
4to.; and Wm. Fr. Baur, On the same subject. ib. eod. (both honoured with
the royal prize
.)

Mich. Skjelderup, Dissert. sistens vim frigoris incitantem. Hafn. 1803. 8vo.

n.
[Seite 157]

J. Chr. Goeschen, (Praes. Ph. Fr. Meckel) Pulmonum cum Cute commer-
cium.
Hal. 1789. 8vo.

But especially J. D. Brandis, Pathologie. Hamb. 1808. p. 316. sqq.

o.
[Seite 157]

Consult, for instance, Tacconi, Comment. Instit. Bononiens. vol. vi. p. 74.

p.
[Seite 157]

M. W. Plagge, über die im darmcanal stattsindende respiration; in
Meckel’s Archiv. t. v. p. 89.

q.
[Seite 158]

De l’Influence des Agens Physiques. Edinburgh Journal of Science, vol. iv.
p. 185. J. Hunter states that the temperature of the ass is one degree higher in the
evening than the morning. On the Blood, p. 298.

r.
[Seite 158]

Exp. sur les effets qu’une forte chaleur produit sur l’economie. Paris, 1805.

s.
[Seite 158]

Edwards, l. c, p. 489.

t.
[Seite 158]

Dr. Prevost, See Edwards, l. c. p. 490.

u.
[Seite 159]

Dr. Davy, Phil. Transact. 1814.

v.
[Seite 159]

l. c. 298. sqq.

w.
[Seite 159]

Edinburgh Journal of Science, vol. iv.

x.
[Seite 159]

Dr. De la Roche, Journal de la Physique, t. lxiii.

y.
[Seite 159]

American Medical and Philosophical Register, vol. iii. p. 19. 1814.

z.
[Seite 159]

Phil. Trans. 1775.

a.
[Seite 159]

An Introduction to Physiological and Systematic Botany. By Sir J. E. Smith,
M. D. p. 92.

b.
[Seite 159]

Hunter, l. c. p. 79.

c.
[Seite 161]

Edwards, l. c. p. 374. and indeed, see p. iv. ch. xiv.

d.
[Seite 161]

Philosophical Transactions, abridged, vol. iii. p. 470.

e.
[Seite 161]

Flora Siberica. Preface.

f.
[Seite 161]

Journal of a Second Voyage, p. 157.

g.
[Seite 161]

l. c. p. 40.

h.
[Seite 162]

Sennebier, Notes to his Translation of Spallanzani.

i.
[Seite 164]

Philos. Trans. 1814.

k.
[Seite 164]

l. c. vol. ii. p. 263.

l.
[Seite 165]

Crawford, l. c. p. 387. sq.

m.
[Seite 165]

Edwards, l. c. p. 488.

n.
[Seite 165]

See supra, p. 133.

o.
[Seite 165]

Edwards, l. c. p. 165. sqq.

p.
[Seite 165]

Edwards, l. c. p. 299. 310.

q.
[Seite 165]

l. c. p. 301.

r.
[Seite 166]

l. c. p. 162. sqq. 252. sqq.

s.
[Seite 166]

l. c. p. 200. sqq.

t.
[Seite 166]

Spallanzani, Mémoires sur la Respiration, p. 77. De Saissy could not by
cold produce torpor in a marmot, till he had deprived it of fresh air. Edwards,
l. c. p. 154.

u.
[Seite 166]

M. de Saissy. See Edwards, l. c. p. 286.

x.
[Seite 166]

M. De Saissy. See Edwards, l. c. p. 305.

y.
[Seite 166]

l. c. p. 306. sq.

z.
[Seite 166]

l. c. p. 301.

a.
[Seite 166]

Boyle’s Works, vol. iii. p. 368.

b.
[Seite 167]

Mr. Allan Burns, Essay on Diseases of Ike Heart, and Dr. Farre’s Treatise on
Malformation of the Heart,
give excellent accounts of these cases.

c.
[Seite 168]

Phil. Trans. 1812.

d.
[Seite 168]

Expériences sur le Principe de la Vie.

e.
[Seite 168]

On Animal Heat, p. 388. Instances are recorded by Morgagni (iv. xlix. 26.)
and De Haen (Ratio Medendi, vol. iii. p. 36.), and Mr. Thackrah, of the blood
which streamed down the extremity in venesection feeling cold to the patient and
the practitioner. One woman compared it to ice; and the sensation given to Mr.
Thackrah was the same as that of water at 68°. (Thackrah, On the Blood, p. 87.)
The stomach of a cod was found by Dr. Mosely to be not only colder than the
water from which it was taken, and the rest of the fish, but painfully to benumb
the hand. (Diseases of Tropical Climates.) Similar observations were made at
Newfoundland, and are quoted by Professor Rudolphi. (Grundriss der Physio-
logie,
182.)

f.
[Seite 169]

An Experimental Inquiry into the Laws of the Vital Functions. 3d edit.
p. 180. sqq.

g.
[Seite 170]

Grundriss der Physiologie, 150.

h.
[Seite 170]

Dr. Abercrombie, Edin. Med. and Surg. Journal.

i.
[Seite 170]

Dr. Philip, we have seen, found rabbits just killed cool in exactly the same
time, whether the brain and spinal marrow were destroyed or not, although
where they were destroyed a stop was put to the secretion of gastric juice. Yet
when the same was done to a living rabbit, with the same effect on the stomach,
the animal’s temperature fell. This, however, would result from the shock given
to the nervous system as merely a part of the body, as we see every day in cases
of severe injuries even of the extremities.

k.
[Seite 171]

Experimental Enquiry, p. 230. sqq.

l.
[Seite 171]

Consult Kirby and Spence, An Introduction to Entomology, vol. ii.
p. 409. sqq.

a.
[Seite 172]

Al. Monro (Primus), Oratio de Cuticula Humana. Opera. English edi-
tion. Edinb. 1781. 4to. p. 54. sq.

b.
[Seite 172]

Among others, consult J. Mitchell, Philos. Trans. vol. xliii. p. 111.

c.
[Seite 173]

Abr. Kaau, Perspiratio dicta Hippocrati, p. 7.

Lieberkühn, De fabrica Villor. Intestin. Tenuium, p. 16.

Cruikshank, Expts. on the Insensible Perspiration, p. 5.

Rudolphi, Reisebemerkungen, t. i. p. 29. 140.

Jens. W. Neergaard, Vergleichende Anat. der Verdauungswerkzeuge, p. 21,
et alibi.

J. B.Wilbrand, Hautsystem in allen seinen Verzweigungen. Giessen. 1813. 8vo.

d.
[Seite 173]

The very dense epidermis of some immense animals consists of vertical fibres,
which, in arrangement, somewhat resemble the structure of the Boletus igniarius.
Its internal surface is porous, and penetrated by the silky filaments of the sub-
jacent corium. This is remarkably exemplified in a preparation now before me,
taken from the skin of the balaena mysticete.

The human cuticle, in certain diseased states, exhibits the same appearance
as in the Englishman called the Porcupine Man, who laboured under a cutaneous
complaint which he transmitted to his children and grand-children. Vide W. G.
Tilesius, Beschreibung und Abbildung der beiden sogenannten Stachelschwein-
Menschen
(Porcupine Men.) Altenb. 1802. fol.

The innumerable polyedrical papillae and horny warts which I witnessed upon
every part of the skin of these brothers, excepting the head, the palms of the
hands, and the soles of the feet, bore some resemblance to the skin of the elephant,
especially about the vertex and forehead of the animal. (A)

Similar also are corns and the brawny cuticle of the feet in those who walk
barefooted. Vide Carlisle on the Production and Nature of Corns, Med. Facts
and Observations,
vol. vii. p. 29.

e.
[Seite 173]

W. Hunter, Med. Observations and Inquiries, vol. ii. p. 52. sq. tab. i.
fig. 1, 2. The conjecture of this eminent man, – that these fibrils are vessels
which excrete the perspirable matter, is, I think, improbable.

f.
[Seite 174]

Hence I have found the epidermis of Albinoes separate easily by the heat of
the sun; whereas, in negroes, it scarcely does so on the application of a blister.
Consult Mitchell, l. c. p. 108.

g.
[Seite 174]

B. S. Albinus, De sede et causa coloris aethiopum et caeteror. hominum. Lugd.
Batav. 1737. 4to. fig. 1.

Sam. Th. Soemmerring, über die körperl. Verschiedenh. des Negers vom
Europäer.
Ed. 2. p. 46. sq.

Some even of the moderns have assigned many laminae, and even different
species, to the reticulum; as Lieutaud, Essais Anatomiques, p. 103. ed. 1766.

Cruikshank, l. c. p. 43. 99.

But especially G. A. Gualtier, Recherches Anatomiques sur le Système cutané de
l’Homme.
Paris, 1811. 4to.

h.
[Seite 175]

Jo. Nic. Pechlin, De Habitu et Colore Aethiopum, qui vulgo et Nigritae.
Kilon. 1677. 8vo.

Camper’s oration on the same subject will be found in his Kleiner Schriften,
vol. i. P. i. p. 24–49.

i.
[Seite 175]

I have given this opinion at some length, in my work, De Gen. Human.
Varietate Nativa,
p. 122. sq. ed. 3. Some eminent chemists accord with me,
among whom suffice it to mention the celebrated Humphry Davy, Journals of the
Royal Institution,
vol. ii. p. 30. ‘“In the rete mucosum if the African, the carbon
becomes the predominant principle; hence the blackness of the negro.
”’ W. B. John-
son, l. c. vol. ii. p. 229.

F. B. Osiander has given an abundance of very careful observations upon the
various proportions of the carbonaceous element in the Malpighian mucus. Com-
ment Soc. Reg. Scientiar. Gotting. recentiorum,
vol. iv. p. 112. sqq.

k.
[Seite 176]

Chr. Gottl. Ludwig, Be Humore cutem inungente. Lips. 1748. 4to.

l.
[Seite 176]

Lyonet, Lettre à M. Le Cat. p. 12.

m.
[Seite 176]

J. Ph. Withoff, De pilo Humano. Duisb. 1750. 4to. Compare the Com-
mentar. Societ. Scient. Gotting.
vol. ii.

Job. Baster, Verhandel. der Maatsch. te Haarlem, t. xiv. p. 382.

C. Asm. Rudolphi, De pilorum structura. Gryph. 1806. 4to.

n.
[Seite 176]

De Generis Human. Variet. Nativ. p. 29.

p.
[Seite 177]

Galen, Ars Medicinalis, p. 211–235. M. Ant. Ulm, Uterus Muliebris,
p. 128. et alibi, and Lavater, Fragmente, t. iv. p. 112, among many others.

q.
[Seite 177]

I suspect that the bulb is intended for support rather than for nourishment,
from this circumstance, – that the locks of hairs sometimes found in melicera
and steatomata of the omentum and ovarium, some of which I have now before
me, are usually destitute of bulbs, because they are not fixed, but lie naked in
the honey-like fatty matter.

r.
[Seite 177]

Duverney, Oeuvres Anatomiques, vol. i. tab. xvi. fig. 7. 9–14. tab. xvii.
fig. 3. sqq.

s.
[Seite 177]

B. S. Albinus, Annotat. Academ. l. vi. tab. iii. fig. 45.

t.
[Seite 178]

Hence the danger of contagion from hairs, as miasmata adhere to them very
tenaciously for a great length of time. Vide Cartwright, Journal of Transactions
on the Coast of Labrador,
vol. i. p. 273. vol. ii. p. 424.

u.
[Seite 178]

G. Wedemeyer, Historia Pathologica Pilorum, (honoured with the royal
prize.) Gotting. 1812. 4to.

x.
[Seite 178]

Ars Sanctor. Sanctorii de Statica Medicina aphorismor. sectionibus vii. com-
prehensa.
Venet. 1634. 16mo.

y.
[Seite 178]

C. de Milly and Lavoisier, Mémoires de l’Acad. des Sc. de Paris. 1777.
p. 221. sq. 360. sq.

J. Ingen-Housz, Expts. upon Vegetables. Lond. 1779. 8vo. p. 132. sqq.

J. H. Voight. Versuch einer neuen Theorie des Feuers, p. 157. sq.

z.
[Seite 178]

W. Bache, On the Morbid Effects of Carbonic Acid Gas on Healthy Animals.
Philadel. 1794. 8vo. p. 46.

a.
[Seite 178]

Abernethy, l. c.

b.
[Seite 179]

Fr. L. Andr. Koeler, De Odore per cutem spirante in slatu sano ac morboso.
Gotting. 1794. 4to.

c.
[Seite 179]

The balance employed by Sanctorius to estimate the loss of perspired matter,
is described in his Comm. in primam Fen primi L. Canon. Avicennae. Venet.
1646. 4to. p. 781.

Another, much simpler and better adapted for the purpose, is described by
Jo. Andr. Segner, De Libra, qua sui quisque corporis pondus explorare posset.
Gotting. 1740. 4to.

J. A. Klindworth, an excellent Gottingen instrument-maker and engineer,
altered this at my suggestion, and rendered it more convenient and accurate.

d.
[Seite 180]

System of Anatomy, vol. i. p. 242.

e.
[Seite 180]

Rees’s Cyclopaedia, art. Integuments.

f.
[Seite 180]

Transactions of a Society for the Improvement of Medical and Surgical Know-
ledge,
vol. ii. Another case will be found in the Edinburgh Journal of Medical
Science,
1827.

g.
[Seite 180]

De curandis hominum morbis, t. iv. p. 124.

h.
[Seite 180]

Phil. Trans. vol. v. quoted by Dr. Good.

i.
[Seite 180]

Voyage round the World. Translated from the original German by G. B.
Hoppner, vol. ii. p. 78.

k.
[Seite 181]

Genesis, c. xxv.

l.
[Seite 181]

Quaestiones Medico-Legales, lib. vii. Tit. 1. quaest. ix.

m.
[Seite 181]

Παρατηρήσιων, sive Observ. &c. Volumen, p. 778. sq.

n.
[Seite 181]

Quarterly Journal of Foreign Medicine, No. xvii.

o.
[Seite 181]

l. c. ibid.

p.
[Seite 181]

See references in Dr. Good’s Study of Medicine, vol. v. p. 681.

q.
[Seite 181]

Blumenbach, Comparative Anatomy, § 138.

r.
[Seite 182]

Cruikshanks on Insensible Perspiration, and Ellis, Further Enquiry on the
Changes produced in Atmospheric Air,
&c. Others have questioned this, but no
one doubts the fact in regard to cold-blooded animals. Dr. Edwards found the
surface of frogs and salamanders to carbonise the air. (l. c. p. 12.) Frogs are amphi-
bious. They live indefinitely in extensive or renewed water, and die if it is
de-aërated, or not changed (p. 41. sqq.); as also do aquatic salamanders and the
common toad. If their lungs are removed, they still live indefinitely in such water
or in air, and die if no air has access to their skin, or the water is not purified
enough (p. 71.); and die sooner as they are younger and smaller. Although
frogs live in air, mere respiration appears insufficient after a time; – some
application of air or aërated water to the surface is also requisite to their life. That
they live so long inclosed in wood or mineral substances, as is commonly known,
appears owing to the opposition afforded, under these circumstances, to transpira-
tion, which, in the open air, is so great as speedily to dry them up, while, at
the same time, the closeness is not such as entirely to exclude air (p. 13.) They
die in vacuo.

In a limited quantity of water, they die sooner, the higher the temperature
(p. 25. sqq.); and they support a high temperature better, if previously subjected
for some time to a cold temperature (p. 33, sqq.) Although their skin be care-
fully moistened, they cannot live without respiration in summer (p. 91.) It
appears from Dr. Edwards’s experiments to be a general fact among animals,
[Seite 183] that the want of air is best borne in a low temperature. The general good effect of
the application of cold in asphyxia by carbonic acid, is well known. The
greater the external heat, on the contrary, the more is air required by the skin
and lungs, independently, it would appear, of its chemical effect, as it is of use
when there is no circulation, – when the heart is excised, either in frogs or cats,
which perish after this operation the sooner as the temperature is higher. When
the quantity of water, though limited, is sufficient to support life, the want of
respiration causes the frogs to become as slow in their motions as turtles, and
dull to all impressions on the senses, (p. 65.) Lizards, serpents, and turtles,
also carbonise the air by their surface; but serpents and turtles, and, indeed,
some varieties of frogs, can live by respiration only, and this happens where the
lungs of the animal are proportionally large (p. 128.) The effect of air, how-
ever, upon the surface, in reptiles at least, does not require the aid of circulation
to distribute its benefits, for when their heart is removed (and the same happens
with toads, salamanders, and cats), they live much longer in air than in de-aërated
water (p. 3. sqq.); yet they live longer if the heart is not removed (p. 7. sqq.)

s.
[Seite 183]

Mémoires de l’Academie des Sciences, 1790.

t.
[Seite 184]

Annales de Chimie, t. xc.

u.
[Seite 184]

l. c. part iv. c. xi.

x.
[Seite 184]

He contends, however, that, in the lungs, all is evaporation without secretion.
But, with Dr. Bostock, I must dissent from him.

y.
[Seite 185]

For what relates to this function in the batracians, see l. c. part i. c. v.
and vi.

z.
[Seite 185]

p. 92. sqq. 98. sqq. 351. sqq.

a.
[Seite 185]

Berzelius, Animal Chemistry, p. 95.

b.
[Seite 185]

l. c. p. 386. sq.

c.
[Seite 185]

p. 380. sq.

d.
[Seite 185]

p. 335. sq.

e.
[Seite 186]

Medical Reports, &c.

f.
[Seite 186]

Rollo, On Diabetes.

g.
[Seite 186]

La Médecine éclairée, &c. t. 3.

h.
[Seite 186]

Edinburgh Med. and Surg. Journal, vol. i.

i.
[Seite 186]

Bishop Watson, Chemical Essays, vol. iii. p. 101.

i.
[Seite 186]

Bishop Watson, Chemical Essays, vol. iii. p. 101.

k.
[Seite 186]

Medical Facts and Experiments.

l.
[Seite 187]

Phil. Trans. vol. xlii. p. 496.

m.
[Seite 187]

l. c. p. 362.

n.
[Seite 187]

Dr. Edwards, l. c. part iv. ch. xii.

o.
[Seite 187]

l. c. p. 101.

p.
[Seite 187]

l. c. p. 360.

q.
[Seite 187]

l. c. p. 98. sqq. 352. sqq.

r.
[Seite 187]

Discourses on the Elements of Therapeutics and Mat. Med. 1817. p. 56. sq.

a.
[Seite 188]

In this section consult especially the work of the celebrated Wedemeyer,
already referred to, p. 115. note z.

b.
[Seite 188]

Diss. de basi encephali. Gotting. 1778. 4to. p. 17. Also his work, already
quoted, upon the anatomy of the negro, i. 59. sq.

J. Gottfr. Ebel, Observationes neurologicae ex anatome comparata. Traj. ad
Viadr. 1788. 8vo.

c.
[Seite 189]

Eustachius, tab. xvii, xviii.

Haller, Icones Anat. fasc. vi. tab. i, ii, iii.

Santorini, tab. posth. ii, iii.

F. B. Osiander, in the Comment. Soc. Reg. Scient. Gotting. vol. xvi. p. 105.
tab. i, ii.

Detm. W. Soemmerring, De oculor. sect. horizontali, tab. i. Others will be
mentioned hereafter.

d.
[Seite 189]

J. Ladmiral, Icones durae matris in concava et convexa superficie visae. Amst.
1738. fasc. i, ii. 4to.

e.
[Seite 189]

In the skulls of some genera of mammalia, a remarkable lamina of bone
penetrates a duplicature of the tentorium and supports it. Cheselden (Anat. of the
Bones,
c. 8.) supposes this bony tentorium to exist in ferae only; but it is found in
the equine genus, the cercopithecus paniscus, the delphinus phocaena, orycteropous
capensis, &c. Its use is uncertain: that which is generally ascribed to it (for
instance, by Laur. Nihell, de cerebro. Edin, 1780. p. 4.), – of protecting the
cerebellum in those mammalia which leap very swiftly, is improbable, because
we find it in the bear and other animals of still slower motion, and not in the
ibex, which moves with the greatest rapidity.

f.
[Seite 189]

Vieussens, Neurograph, universal, tab. xvii. fig. 1.

Duverney, Oeuvres anatom. vol. i. tab. iv.

Haller, Icones Anat. fasc. i. tab. vi.

Walter, De morbis peritonaei et apoplexia. Berol. 1785. 4to. tab. iii, iv.

Vicq. d’Azyr, Planches Anatomiques, xxxii. et xxxv.

g.
[Seite 190]

Ruysch, Respons. ad ep. problemat. nonam. Amst. 1670. tab. x.

h.
[Seite 190]

B. S. Albinus, Annot. Acad. l. i. tab. ii. fig. 1–5.

i.
[Seite 190]

Consult, besides other authors already mentioned or to be mentioned here-
after, Jos. and C. Wenzel, De structura cerebri. Tubing. 1812. fol.

C. G. Carus, Darstell. des Nervensystems, &c. Leipz. 1814. 4to.

C. Fr. Burdach, Von Bau u. Leben des Gehirns, vol. i. Leipz. 1819. 4to.

Specially on the successive formation of the foetal brain, Ign. Döllinger, Beytr.
zur Entwickelungsgesch. des menschl. Gehirns.
Francfort. 1814. fol.

J. L. Schoenlein, v. der Hirnmetamorph. 1816. 8vo.

Fr. Tiedemann, Anat. u. Bildungsgesch. des Gehirns im Foetus, &c. Nurem-
berg. 1816. 4to.

k.
[Seite 190]

S. Th. Sömmerring, über das Organ der Seele. Köningsberg. 1796. 4to.
tab. i, ii.

l.
[Seite 190]

The importance of these plexuses is shown in the dissection of maniacs, in
whom they alone are very frequently found diseased.

m.
[Seite 190]

De basi encephali, p. 63.

Compare Gennari, De peculiari structura cerebri. Parmae, 1782. 8vo. tab. ii, iii.

n.
[Seite 190]

Malpighi, De cerebri cortice; and his other Exercitationes de viscerum struct-
ura.
Lond. 1699. 12mo.

Ruysch, De cerebri corticali substantia ep. problemat. xiima. Amst. 1699. 4to.

Chr. Fred. Ludwig, De cinerea cerebri substantia. Lips. 1799. 4to.

o.
[Seite 191]

Sömmerring, De habitu vasorum cerebri in Denkschriften der Acad. der Wiss.
zu München,
1808. tab. i.

p.
[Seite 191]

B. S. Albinus, Annat. Acad. l. i. tab. ii. fig. 4, 5.

q.
[Seite 191]

Consult Metzger, Animadversiones ad doctrinam nervorum. Regiomont.
1783. 4to.

r.
[Seite 191]

C. Chr. Sass, De proportionibus quatuor elementorum in Cerebro et Musculis.
Kil. 1818. 4to.

s.
[Seite 191]

T. Dan. Schlichting first accurately described this striking phenomenon,
Commerc. litter. Noric. 1744. p. 409. sq., and more largely, Mém. présentées à
l’Acad. des Sc. de Paris,
t. i. p. 113.

Haller sagaciously discovered the cause of it by numerous dissections of
living animals. J. Dit. Walstorf, his pupil, Experimenta circa motum cerebri,
cerebelli,
&c. Gotting. 1753.

Consult also, after F. de la Mure’s works, Lorry’s dissertations on the same
point, Mém. présentées, t.iii. p. 277. sq. 344. sq.

Also Portal on a similar motion observable in the spinal marrow, Mém. sur
la Nature de plusieurs Maladies,
t. ii. p. 81.

t.
[Seite 191]

I once enjoyed an opportunity of very distinctly observing this motion, and
making some experiments with respect to it, in a young man eighteen years old.
Five years before, he had fallen from an eminence and fractured the frontal bone
on the left side of the coronal suture, since which time there had been an im-
mense hiatus, covered by merely a soft cicatrix and the common integuments.
The hiatus formed a hollow, very deep during sleep, less so when he was awake;
and varying according to the state of respiration, i. e. very deep if he retained
his breath, much more shallow, and even converted into a swelling, by a long-
continued expiration. At the bottom of the hollow, I observed a pulsation syn-
chronous with the pulsation of the arterial system, such as deceived Petrioli,
Vandelli, and others, at one time the adversaries of Haller, who all foolishly
confounded it with that other remarkable motion which depends upon respiration.
– I may add, that this wound on the left side of the head had rendered the
right arm and leg paralytic.

u.
[Seite 192]

J. J. Huber, De medulla spinali. Gotting. 1741. 4to. The plate is also to
be found among Haller’s fascic. i. tab. ii.

Haller’s own plates of the same part are in the same fasciculus, vii. tab. iv, v.

Monro, On the Nervous System, tab. x. fig. 1.

G. G. Th. Keuffel, De medulla spinali. Hal. 1810. 8vo.

x.
[Seite 192]

Consult the Anatomie et Physiologie du Système Nerveux, &c., par F. J.
Gall et G. Spurzheim, t. i. Paris, from 1810. 4to.

y.
[Seite 192]

Reil, De structura nervorum. Hal. 1796. fol.

F. B. Osiander, Comm. Soc. Reg. Sc. Gotting. t. xvi.

z.
[Seite 192]

Rol. Martin’s oration De Proprietatibus Nervorum generalioribus, prefixed to
his Instit. Neurologicae.

a.
[Seite 192]

See Haller on the sensible parts of the human body, Comment. Soc. Sc.
Gotting.
t. i.

And his three discourses upon them, Nov. Comment. t. iii.

Peter Castell, Experim. quibus constitit varias h. c. partes sentiendi facultate
carere.
Gotting. 1753. 4to.

And three entire collections on the controversies excited by the Gottingen
publications throughout Europe.

Sull’ insensibilita e irritabilita, dissertazioni transportate da J. G. V. Petrini.
Rom. 1755. 4to.

Sulla insensitivita ed irritabilita Halleriana opuscoli raccolti da G. B. Fabri.
Bologna, 1757–59. 4vols. 4to.

And that which Haller himself published under the title of Mémoires sur la
Nature Sensible et Irritable des Parties du Corps Humain.
Lausanne, 1756–59.
4 vols. 12mo.

b.
[Seite 193]

Amidst the great variety, and even contradiction, of opinion, that, as we
shall presently mention, exists with respect to the feeling of tendons and other
parts when injured, I have always considered negative arguments of more weight
than positive, because nothing is more fallacious than the ideas of patients as to
the seat of internal pains. To say nothing of cases in which amputated parts appear
to the patient as still in possession of feeling, it is well known that some have
felt a fixed pain for a great length of time in parts where after death no morbid
appearance was observable; and that, on the other hand, in chronic diseases, pain
is sometimes not felt in the diseased part, but in another which is healthy and
perhaps very remote.

We may in this way much more easily explain, for instance, syphilitic pains
referred to the bones, than the result of so many contradictory experiments, in
which I have seen the medulla of the human subject roughly handled without
causing the least uneasiness, though the patient knew what was doing.

c.
[Seite 193]

I am every day more convinced that much caution, and practice, and re-
petition of the same experiment in many different kinds of animals, are necessary
in establishing the laws of physiology from dissections of living animals. To
adduce the example of the supposed feeling of the medulla, I have found dif-
ferent results in many mammalia and birds. Many allowed the medulla to be
destroyed without evincing any symptom of pain; others were convulsed, and
cried out on the approach of the instrument. The latter might be agitated from
the dread of fresh torment, on seeing the knife; and the former, having suffered
great torture, might have been insensible to the less violent irritation of the me-
dulla, even although it be endowed with nerves.

d.
[Seite 194]

Lassus has diligently collected the different opinions of writers on this point,
Sur les découvertes faites en Anatomie, p. 299. sq.

e.
[Seite 194]

Compare Mein. Sim. Du Pui, De homine dextro et sinistro. LB. 1780.
8vo. p. 107. sq.

C. Fr. Ed. Mehlis, Commentatio (honoured with the royal prize) de morbis
hominis dextri et sinistri.
Gotting. 1814. 4to.

f.
[Seite 194]

v. Gall and Spurzheim, and likewise Osiander. ll. cc.

g.
[Seite 194]

Sömmerring, Hessischen Beyträgen zur Gelehrsamkeit. P. i. and iv.

F. N. Nöthig, (praes. Sömmerring) De decussatione nervorum optic. Mogunt.
1786. 8vo.

J. F. Ackermann in the Biblioth. Medica which I published, vol. iii. p. 337.
706.

Flor. Caldani, Opuscula Anatomica. Patav. 1803. 4to. p. 111.

Jos. and C. Wenzel, l. c.

h.
[Seite 194]

Consult Pfeffinger, De structura Nervorum. Argent. 1782. 4to.

i.
[Seite 194]

Wm. Battie, De Principiis Animalibus, p. 126.

k.
[Seite 194]

Comment. Instituti Bononiens. t. iii. 1755. p. 282. sq. fig. 1, 2.

The observation of Mollinelli has been abundantly confirmed and further il-
lustrated by Felix Fontana and Al. Monro: by the latter in his work so often
quoted, and by the former in his treatise Sur le Vénin de la Vipère. Flor. 1781.
4to. vol. ii.

l.
[Seite 194]

C. Asm. Rudolphi, Abhandl. der Berliner Acad. der Wissensch. 1814. p. 168.

m.
[Seite 194]

J. Stieglitz, über den thierischen Magnetismus. Hanov. 1814. 8vo.
p. 536. sq.

n.
[Seite 194]

Mém. de l’Acad. des Sc. de Berlin, vol. ix. 1753.

o.
[Seite 195]

Consult, among others who treat professedly of the ganglia, Ant. Scarpa
Anatom. Annotat. l. i. de nervor. Gangliis et Plexubus. Mutin. 1799. 4to.

G. Prochaska, De structura nervorum. Vindob. 1780. 8vo.

C. W. Wutzer, De corporis humani gangliorum fabrica atque usu. Berol.
1817. 4to.

p.
[Seite 195]

See Reil, Archiv. für die Physiologie, t. vii. p. 189.

q.
[Seite 196]

The Cartesian hypothesis appeared to receive some weight from the dis-
section of maniacs, in whom the pineal gland was found full of calcareous sub-
stances. But more careful observation showed, that, after about the twelfth
year, it was generally filled with a pearly sand, in the healthiest persons, though
very seldom in brutes. See Sömmerring, De lapillis vel prope vel intra glandu-
lam pinealem sitis, s. de acervulo cerebri.
Mogunt. 1785. 8vo.

r.
[Seite 196]

The prerogative of this part was ably refuted by Zinn, Exp. circa corpus
callosum, cerebellum, duram meningem, in vivis animalibus instit.
Gott. 1749.
4to.

s.
[Seite 196]

Le Gallois, Sur le Principe de la Vie. Paris, 1812. 8vo.

B. C. Brodie, Ev. Home, A. P. Wilson Philip, and W. Clift, Phil. Trans.
1811. sq. and 1814. sq.

G. R. Treviranus, Verm. Schr. t. i. p. 99.

t.
[Seite 196]

Dupuytren, l. c. Ducr. de Blainville, Propositions sur la Respiration, &c.
Paris, 1808. 4to.

u.
[Seite 196]

Treviranus, Biol. t. v. p. 107.

w.
[Seite 197]

See Michelitz, Scrutinium Hypotheseos Spirituum Animalium. Prag. 1782.
8vo.

x.
[Seite 197]

G. Th. Sömmerring über den saft, welcher aus den Nerven wieder ausge-
saught wird.
Landsh. 1811. 8vo.

y.
[Seite 198]

Fr. Al. Von Humboldt, über die gereizte Muskel – und Nervenfaser. Posen.
1797. vol. ii. 8vo.

J. W. Ritter, Beweis, dass ein beständiger Galvanismus den Lebensprocess im
Thierreiche begleite.
Vinar. 1798. 8vo.

z.
[Seite 198]

J. Heineken, Ideen u. Beobachtungen den thierischen Magnetismus betref-
fend.
Brem. 1800. 8vo.

a.
[Seite 198]

v. Humboldt and Heineken, ll. cc.

G. C. Berendt, De atmosphaera nervorum sensitiva. Gott. 1813. 4to.

b.
[Seite 198]

Consult, on the other hand, a weighty and acute review of those arguments
n Stieglit’s work already mentioned, über den thierischen Magnetismus, p. 75.
sqq. and elsewhere.

c.
[Seite 198]

Dav. Hartley, Observat. on Man, his Frame, his Duty, and his Expectations.
Lond. 1749. 8vo. vol. i. p. 44.

d.
[Seite 198]

Queries at the end of his Optics. Qu. 23. p. 355. Lond. 1719. 8vo.

e.
[Seite 198]

Er. Darwin has carried these opinions of Hartley still farther, Zoonomia, t. i.

f.
[Seite 199]

Transactions of a Society for the Improvement of Medical and Chirurgical
Knowledge,
vol. i. p. 212. sqq.

g.
[Seite 199]

Bichat, Traité des Membranes.

h.
[Seite 200]

Journal de Physiologie, t. v.

i.
[Seite 200]

Dissertatio de Ischiade Nervosa. Published in Sandefort’s Thesaurus.

k.
[Seite 200]

Journal de Physiologie, t. vii. p. 21.

l.
[Seite 200]

Phil. Trans. 1818.

m.
[Seite 200]

Philos. Magazine. August, 1827. See also Magendie’s Précis de Physiologie,
t. i. p. 162.

n.
[Seite 201]

Gall, Sur les Fonctions du Cerveau, t. ii. p. 77. sq.

o.
[Seite 202]

Report made to the Academy of Sciences upon some Experiments relative to the
Nervous System.
Gall, l. c. t.iii. 386. sqq.

p.
[Seite 203]

See Gall’s answer to Tiedemann, who declares the fibrous matter of the
spinal marrow to be first formed, after stating that the whole is originally fluid
and gradually acquires consistence, and that at length, about the beginning of
the fourth month, fibres are seen. l. c. t. vi. p. 65. sqq.

q.
[Seite 203]

Anatomie et Physiologie du Systeme nerveux par F. J. Gall et G. Spurzheim.
4 vols. every line of all which Dr. Gall assured me was written by himself; the two
last volumes bear his name only: and Physiognomical System and Anatomy of the
Brain,
by Dr. Spurzheim.

r.
[Seite 204]

l. c. t. vi. p. 318.

s.
[Seite 204]

Gall, l. c. t.vi. p. 490. sqq.

t.
[Seite 204]

l. c. t. vi. p. 493. In this volume will be found copious answers to Tiede-
man, Rudolphi, Serres, &c. and a refutation of many of their anatomical asser-
tions.

u.
[Seite 205]

Anatomy of Melancholy, P. 1. S. 1. Mem. 2. Subs. 7.

x.
[Seite 205]
xxx

In the Tesoretto of Brunetto Latini,
the preceptor of Dante, published in that
century, the doctrine is taught in rhime:

Nel capo son tre celle,
Ed io dirò di quelle,
Davanti è lo intelletto
E la forza d’apprendere
Quello che puote intendere.
In mezzo è la ragione
E la discrezione
Che scherne buono e male.
E lo terno e l’iguale
Dirietro sta con gloria
La valente memoria,
Che ricorda e retiene
Quello ch’in essa viene.
y.
[Seite 205]

Gall, l. c. t. ii. p. 354. sq.

z.
[Seite 205]

Edinb. Phrenol. Transact. p. 1.

a.
[Seite 206]

‘“The brain is a very complicated organ,”’ says Bonnet, ‘“or rather an
assemblage of very different organs.”’ (Palingénésie, t. i. p. 334.) Tissot contends
that every perception has different fibres. (Oeuvres, t. iii. p. 33.) Cuvier says,
that ‘“certain parts of the brain in all classes of animals are large or small ac-
cording to certain qualities of the animals.”’ Anatomie Comparée, t. ii. Söm-
merring trusts that we shall one day find the particular seats of the different
orders of ideas. ‘“Let the timid, therefore, take courage,”’ says Dr. Georget,
in his admirable work upon the nervous system, ‘“and after the example of such
high authorities, fear not to commit the unpardonable crime of innovation, of
passing for cranioscopists, by admitting the plurality of the faculties and mental
organs of the brain, or at least by daring to examine the subject.”’ De la Phy-
siologie du Système Nerveux et specialement du Cerveau,
t. i. p. 126. Gall’s
successful reply to some very unjust observations made in this work, will be
found in the Fonct. du Cerveau. t. v. p. 488. sqq.

b.
[Seite 206]

Although Professor Dugald Stewart declares, that in his own inquiries he has
‘“aimed at nothing more than to ascertain, in the first place, the laws of our consti-
tution, as far as they can be discovered by attention to the subjects of our own con-
sciousness;”’ (Essays, Preliminary Dissertation, p. 2.) that ‘“the whole of philoso-
pher’s life, if he spends it to any purpose, is one continued series of experiments
on his own faculties and powers;”’ (p. 40.) and that ‘“the structure of the mind
(whatever collateral aids may be derived from observing the varieties of genius
in our fellow-creatures) is accessible to those only who can retire into the deepest
recesses of their own internal frame;”’ yet he adds, ‘“even to those, presenting,
along with the generic attributes of the race, many of the specific peculiarities of
the individual,”’ (Elements, vol. ii. p. 513.) and has really the following pas-
sages in the forty-second and forty-third pages of the Essays. – ‘“To counter-
balance the disadvantages which this science of mind lies under, in consequence
of its slender stock of experiments, made directly and intentionally on the minds
of our fellow-creatures, human life exhibits to our observation a boundless variety,
both of intellectual and moral phenomena, by a diligent study of which, we may
[Seite 207] ascertain almost every point that we could wish to investigate, if we had expe-
riments at our command.”’ ‘“Savage society, and all the different modes of
civilization; the different callings of individuals, whether liberal or mechanical;
the prejudiced clown, the factitious man of fashion; the varying phases of cha-
racter, from infancy to old age; the prodigies effected by human art, in all the
objects around us, laws, government, commerce, religion; but above all, the
records of thought preserved in those volumes which fill our libraries, what are
they but experiments, by which nature illustrates, for our instruction, on her own
grand scale, the varied range of many intellectual faculties, and the omnipotence
of education, in fashioning the mind.”’

c.
[Seite 208]

Annals of Medicine and Surgery, vol. ii. March 1817.

d.
[Seite 208]

These must be consulted for the peculiar opinions of the writers, – opinions
not admitted by Dr. Gall, nor in every instance by each other. The System
of Mr. Combe is copious and elegant.

d.
[Seite 209]

Gall, l. c. t. iii. p. 208. sqq.

e.
[Seite 210]

l. c. t. iii. p. 210. sq.

f.
[Seite 210]

l. c. t. iii. p. 137. sqq. 206. sq.

g.
[Seite 211]

‘“The followers of the different schools of philosophy among the Greeks,
accused each other of impiety and perjury. The people, in their turn, detested
the philosophers, and accused those who investigated principles, with presump-
tuously encroaching upon the rights of the deity. The novelty of the opinions
of Pythagoras caused his banishment from Athens; those of Anaxagoras threw
him into prison; the Abderites treated Democritus as a madman, because he
dissected dead bodies to discover the cause of insanity; and Socrates, for demon-
strating the unity of God, was condemned to drink hemlock.’

‘“The same scandal has been renewed at all times and in all nations. Many of
those who distinguished themselves in the fourteenth century by their knowledge
of natural things, were put to death as magicians. Galileo, for proving the
earth’s motion, was imprisoned at the age of seventy. Those who first main-
tained the influence of climate upon the intellectual character of nations were
suspected of materialism.’

‘“Universally, nature treats new truths and their discoverers, in a singular, but
uniform manner. With what indignation and animosity have not the greatest
benefits been rejected? For instance, potatoes, Peruvian bark, vaccination, &c. As
soon as Varolius made his anatomical discoveries, he was decried by Sylvius as
the most infamous and ignorant madman. Vesanum, litterarum imperitissimum,
arrogantissimum, calumniatorem maledicentissimum, rerum omnium ignarissimum,
transfugam, impium, ingratum, monstrum ignorantiae, impietatis exemplar perni-
ciosissimum, quod pestilentiali halitu Europam venenat,
&c. Varolius was reproached
with dazzling his auditors by a seductive eloquence, and artificially effecting the
prolongation of the optic nerves as far as the thalami. Harvey, for maintaining
the circulation of the blood, was treated as a visionary; and depravity went so
far as to attempt his ruin with James and Charles the First. When it was no
longer possible to shorten the optic nerve, or arrest the course of the blood in its
vessels, the honour of these discoveries was all at once given to Hippocrates.
The physical truths announced by Linnaeus, Buffon, the pious philosopher Bon-
net, by George Le Roy, were represented as impieties likely to ruin religion
and morality. Even the virtuous and generous Lavater was treated as a fatalist
and materialist. Every where do fatalism and materialism, placed before the
sanctuary of truth, make the world retire. Every where do those, upon whose
judgment the public relies, not merely ascribe to the author of a discovery the
absurdities of their own prejudices, but even renounce established truths if
contrary to their purposes, and revive ancient errors, if calculated to ruin the
man who is in their way.’

‘“This is a faithful picture of what has happened to me. I have, therefore, some
reason to be proud of having experienced the same lot as men to whom the world
is indebted for so great a mass of knowledge. It seems that nature has subjected
all truths to persecution, in order to establish them the more firmly; for he who
[Seite 212] can snatch one from her, always presents a front of brass to the darts hurled
against him, and has always force enough to defend and establish it. History
shows us that all the efforts and sophisms which are directed against a truth once
drawn from darkness, fall like dust blown by the winds against a rock.’

‘“The instance of Aristotle and Descartes should particularly be quoted, when
we wish to display the influence of prejudice upon the good or bad fortune of
new doctrines. The opponents of Aristotle burnt his books: afterwards, the
books of Ramus, who had written against Aristotle, were burnt, and the oppo-
nents of the philosopher of Stagira declared heretics; and it was even forbidden
by law to dispute his doctrines, under pain of being sent to the galleys. Now
there is no longer any discussion about the philosophy of Aristotle. Descartes
was persecuted because he taught the innateness of ideas, and the University of
Paris burnt his books. He had written the most sublime thoughts upon the
existence of God; Voët, his enemy, accused him of atheism. Afterwards, this
same university declares itself in favour of innate ideas; and when Locke and
Condillac attacked innate ideas, the cry of materialism and fatalism resounded
on all sides.’

‘“Thus, the same opinions have at one time been regarded as dangerous because
they were new, and at another as useful because they were ancient. We must,
therefore, pity mankind, and conclude that the opinions of cotemporaries as to
the truth or error, and dangerous or innocent tendencies of a doctrine, are very
suspicious, and that the author of a discovery should be anxious only to ascertain
whether he has really discovered a truth or not.”’ l. c. t. i. p. 221. sq.

h.
[Seite 213]

All know that sexual desires are so connected with the genital organs as
generally to commence when these become mature, and be prevented by their
removal during childhood; but the world does not, therefore, exculpate ravishers
and adulterers. The circumstances are precisely the same with all the cerebral
organs of propensity.

i.
[Seite 213]

‘“All theory is against the freedom of the will; all experience for it.”’ ‘“We
know that we are free, and there’s an end on’t,”’ said Dr. Johnson in conversa-
tion. Boswell’s Life of Johnson, vol. iii. 294. vol. ii. 74.

Consult Gall on Free Will and Liberty, l. c. t. i. p. 266. sqq., especially on
Illusory Liberty.

k.
[Seite 214]

A man of determined bad principle may in like manner be shunned by the
most benevolent, on account of being odious and dangerous, though they wish
him so well as ardently to long for his reformation, and pity his organisation, his
education, and the circumstances under which he has been placed.

l.
[Seite 215]

See Phrenological Journal, and Mr. Combe’s System, and Essay on the Con-
stitution of Man,
passim, as well as Gall and Dr. Spurzheim.

m.
[Seite 215]

No part of the body but the brain can have sensation. The different parts
may be so affected, that, by the intervention of nerves between them and the brain,
the latter perceives the impressions made upon them; but the sensation is in the
brain, although instinctively referred to the spot which is its source.

n.
[Seite 215]

These facts are too frequently proved to be doubted; and, consequently, four
cases, in which the spinal marrow is said to have been divided without the effect
[Seite 216] of paralysis, must be suspected of error. (See Metzer’s Principes de Médicine
légale,
translated, with notes, by Ballard, p. 357. sq.) Another has been quoted
from Dr. Magendie’s Journal de Physiologie, t. iii.; but here the anterior portion
of the medulla was continuous (p. 184.), though the posterior was destroyed; and
the description is confused.

o.
[Seite 216]

Thus, after the loss of the glans penis, the extremities of the nerves are sen-
sible to venereal pleasure; and I once had an out-patient at St. Thomas’s hospital
with gonorrhoea, and only an inch of a remnant of penis.

p.
[Seite 216]

See Dr. Magendie’s Précis de Physiol. t. i. p. 166. sq.

q.
[Seite 216]

The Exposition of the Natural System of the Nerves. By Charles Bell. Jour-
nal de Physiologie,
t. ii. Mr. C. Bell also proved, in a similar manner, that the
fifth pair, except probably the branch not coming from the ganglion of Meckel, gives
sensation to the face, &c., and the portio dura, and probably the branch not coming
from Gasser’s ganglion, convey volition. See Mr. Mayo also, l. c. p. 24. sq.

The opinion that there are distinct nerves for sensation and for motion, had
been entertained since the time of Erasistratus by many writers, from the fact
of paralytic limbs being sometimes deprived of sensation only, sometimes of mo-
[Seite 217] tion only, or even, in the latter case, becoming more sensible than previously.
In Pouteau’s Oeuvres Posthumes, published in 1783. vol. ii. p. 532., it is main-
tained, but the author remarks that it had long been abandoned by anatomists.
He erred in supposing that the nerves of sensation came from the cerebrum, and
of volition from the cerebellum.

r.
[Seite 217]

Magendie, Journal de Physiol. t. iii. p. 153. sq. The subject is still rather
obscure, for Magendie saw some signs of sensation on irritating the anterior
bundles, as well as muscular contraction on irritating the posterior. l. c. t. ii.
p. 368. sq. See also Dr. Bellingeri’s experiments, in the Bulletin des Sciences
Médicales.
June, 1825.

s.
[Seite 217]

It is thus that animals are every day killed by pitting; a blow on the back
of the neck is sufficient to destroy rabbits. Livy informs us, that at the sug-
gestion of Asdrubal, in the battle in which he was slain, when the Carthaginian
forces were routed, and their elephants became unmanageable, the drivers de-
stroyed them in a moment by one blow of a hammer upon a knife fixed between
the junction of the head and spine. Histor. l. xxvii. c. 49. The division of the
phrenic nerve only, does not put a stop to respiration. See Outlines of Human
Physiology,
by H. Mayo, p. 96.

t.
[Seite 217]

Select Dissertations on several Subjects of Medical Science. By Sir Gilbert
Blane, Bart. London, 1822. p. 262.

u.
[Seite 217]

Mr. H. Mayo, l. c. p. 234.

x.
[Seite 218]

Journal de Physiologie, t. iii. p. 154.

y.
[Seite 218]

Medico-Chirurgical Trans. vol. v. p. 166. sqq. Some children so circum-
stanced have even cried. Gall, l. c. t. vi. p. 231.

z.
[Seite 218]

Anatomie du Syst. Nerv. par MM. Magendie and Desmoulins, p. 560.
Dr. Magendie, for whose head the dogs, cats, and rabbits of France would offer
a reward, if they knew their own interest, says, ‘“It is droll to see animals skip
and jump about of their own accord, after you have taken out all their brains a
little before the optic tubercles.”’ And as to ‘“new-born kittens,”’ he says, they
‘“tumble over in all directions, and walk so nimbly, if you cut out their hemispheres,
that it is quite astonishing.”’ Journal de Physiologie, t. iii. p. 155.

a.
[Seite 218]

Gall, l. c. t. i. p. 25. sqq.

b.
[Seite 218]

See Gall, l. c. t. ii. p. 153. sqq. 365. sqq., t. vi. p. 298. sqq.

c.
[Seite 219]

See Gall, l. c. t. vi. p. 210. From page 178 to 288. are excellent remarks
upon the unsatisfactory nature of such experiments as have been made by Fleu-
rens, Rolando, &c. &c. See also t. iii, p. 379. sqq. The first three quarters
of the sixth volume should be read by all who are acquainted with the writings
of these experimenters, or of Tiedemann, Rudolphi, Serres, &c., upon the brain.

d.
[Seite 219]

‘“Where is the anatomist or physiologist who precisely knows all the origins,
the whole extent, all the ramifications, all the connections of an organ? You
remove the cerebellum, at the same moment you severely injure the medulla
oblongata and spinalis, you injure the tuber annulare, you injure the tubercula
quadrigemina, consequently, your results relate not merely to all these parts, but
to all those which communicate with them, either directly or indirectly. You
think you have insulated the tubercles, but these tubercles have connections with
the corpora olivaria, the medulla oblongata, the cerebellum, the sense of vision,
and many convolutions; the thalami optici, the corpora striata, are connected
below with the crura cerebri, the tuber annulare, the medulla oblongata, the
pyramids, and the spinal marrow; above, with all the cerebral membrane, all
the convolutions, the non-fibrous, grey substance of their surface, with the dif-
[Seite 220] ferent commissures, as the anterior commissure, the great commissure or corpus
callosum; with the fornix, the septum lucidum. Thus there does not exist a
cerebral part which we do not know to have numerous connections with other
parts. I do not except even the corpora mammilaria, the pineal gland, the in-
fundibulum, &c. The connections yet unknown are unquestionably still
more numerous.”’ Gall, l. c. p. 240. sqq.

e.
[Seite 220]

See Gall, l. c. t. iii. p. 409. sqq., where examples are given.

f.
[Seite 220]

See many cases in Mr. Wardrop’s work, On the Morbid Anatomy of the Eye,
vol. ii. p. 179. sqq. The fact is even mentioned by Hippocrates; and, what is sin-
gular, the blindness generally arises from an imperfect division of the nerve, and has
been cured by making the division complete. The blindness has sometimes taken
place instantly, sometimes come on very gradually.

g.
[Seite 220]

‘“The tubercula quadrigemina are a continuation of the bands of the me-
dulla oblongata and medulla spinalis. They are also formed by ganglia, one
portion of which gives origin to the fibres of the optic nerve.’

‘In the same manner, the medulla oblongata is in a great measure a continua-
tion of the spinal marrow, besides containing many collections of non-fibrous
substances, which, like so many ganglions, are the origins of many nerves of the
highest importance, and relating to very different functions.’

‘The tuber annulare is not only composed of the nervous bundles of the two
hemispheres of the cerebellum, or of the commissure of the cerebellum, but is
also a continuation of several bundles of the medulla oblongata and spinalis, of
the anterior and posterior, or inferior and superior, pyramids, and contains a
considerable quantity of non-fibrous substance interposed between the transverse
and longitudinal bundles, and giving rise to fresh filaments for the crura cerebri,
the tubercules,”’ &c. Gall, l. c. t. vi. p. 243. sq.

h.
[Seite 220]

‘“You cannot insulate even the nerves of sensation before they are com-
plete. The origin of the nerves of taste is confused with the masses of the origin
[Seite 221] of many other nerves; the auditory is confused with the nervous and non-fibrous
masses of the fourth ventricle; the optic nerves at first with all the mass of the
tubercles, with the corpora geniculata and their attachments, with the crura ce-
rebri, with the grey layer situated immediately behind their junction. The
olfactory nerves are at first intimately connected with the grey substance placed
upon the interior and inferior convolutions of the middle lobes, with the anterior
cerebral cavities,”’ &c. l. c. t. vi. p. 245.

i.
[Seite 221]

Fontana says, that after removing the brain of a turtle, and entirely emptying
the cranium, the animal lived six months, and walked as before. M. Rolando
attempted the experiment repeatedly, but the animal always died as soon as a
cut was made behind the cerebellum.

M. Rolando says, he ‘“made innumerable experiments upon goats, lambs, pigs,
deer, dogs, cats, and guinea-pigs, to ascertain the results of lesion of the tu-
bercles, and parts near the optic thalami, but rarely obtained the same results.”’
M. Rolando says, that lesion of the thalami optici causes convulsions; M. Fleurens
denies it. (Gall, l. c. t. vi. p. 191.) M. Rolando found an unsteadiness like that of
intoxication follow the removal of two thirds of the lobes of the cerebrum in
a chicken. M. Fleurens declares he must have wounded the cerebellum. M.
Fleurens protests that the experiments of M. Rolando are contradictory to each
other, (p. 215.) And after finding a chicken walk, fly, and swallow, shake its
wings, and clean them with its beak, subsequently to losing the hemispheres of its
brain, infers, that these are the residence of the understanding and feelings: the
cerebellum, according to him, is destined to balance, to regulate motion; yet
birds, after losing these parts, pecked and clawed their enemies, and perched.
(p. 266.) M. Rolando considers muscular action to depend upon the cerebellum,
yet Magendie found animals perform regular motions after losing.

k.
[Seite 221]

l. c. t. vi. p. 249.

l.
[Seite 222]

l. c. t. vi. p. 385. sq.

m.
[Seite 222]

l. c. t. iii. p. 392

n.
[Seite 223]

See Med. Chir. Trans. vol. v. p. 1. sqq., also vol. vii. p. 237. sqq.

o.
[Seite 223]

Précis de Physiologie.

p.
[Seite 223]

See Hist. de l’Acad. des Sciences, 1711. p. 26. 586., for an instance of
the absence of spinal marrow: brainless foetuses are not uncommon.

Also, Phil. Trans. 1775.

Also, Dr. Philip, Exp. Inquiry into the Laws of the Vital Functions, p. 49.

q.
[Seite 223]

Imperfect foetuses have been seen, with some organs evolved, though not
even nerves could be discovered. See Phil. Trans. 1793. See on this subject
the excellent remarks of Dr. Marshall, in his works edited by Mr. Sawrey, in 1814,
and already quoted at p. 68.

r.
[Seite 224]

Dr. Whytt, Essays and Obs. Phys. and Literary, vol. ii. Edin. 1756.

Experiments, &c., by A. P. Wilson Philip, M. D. and Wm. Clift, Philos.
Trans.
1815.

Also, Experimental Inquiry, by the former. London 1826. 3d edit.

s.
[Seite 224]

Le Gallois, Sur le Principe de la Vie; and Wilson Philip, l. c. Probably
by excessive stimulus, as the voluntary muscles are afterwards insensible to sti-
muli, although, after a mere division of their nerves, they retain their excitability.

t.
[Seite 224]

Dr. Philip, l. c. He conceives this influence of the brain and spinal mar-
row to be galvanic, as he prevented the ill effects of the removal of a piece of
the par vagum upon the lungs and stomach, by supplying these organs with gal-
vanic influence. p. 210. sqq.

Division of the nerve had no effect if the divided ends lay opposite each other,
although distant a quarter of an inch from each other. p. 226. sqq.

u.
[Seite 224]

Le Gallois, l. c. and many former writers.

x.
[Seite 224]

A mechanical stimulus, or a substance in its nature stimulating, applied to
the brain about the origin of the nerves, excites contractions in the voluntary
muscles; a substance in its own nature stimulating, excites the heart and capil-
laries, when applied to any part of the brain or spinal marrow, but requires to
be applied to a considerable portion. Dr. Philip, l. c.

y.
[Seite 225]

Phil. Trans. 1826.

z.
[Seite 225]

Journal de Physiologie, t. iv. I have frequently witnessed the experiment.
The removal of the deer’s horns causes the genitals in like manner to waste; and
v. v.; yet this is not thought to show dependence, but merely connection.

a.
[Seite 225]

Gall, l. c. t. i. p. 191.

b.
[Seite 226]

Recherches Physiologiques, p. 72. sq. 1805.

See also Gall, l. c. t. vi. p. 312.

Magendie, Précis Elément. t. i. p. 171. sq.

c.
[Seite 226]

Magendie, l. c. says he has made these experiments repeatedly.

d.
[Seite 226]

l. c. 334. sqq. 360. sqq.

e.
[Seite 226]

Dr. Le Gallois, Expériences sur la Vie.

f.
[Seite 226]

The voluntary muscles contract for some time after death, when their nerves
are galvanised; the involuntary will not, although for twenty-four hours after
death the heart is excited on the contact of a mechanical or chemical irritant,
v. c. Wilson, Lectures on the Blood, &c. p. 139.

a.
[Seite 227]

J. De Gorter, Exercitationes Medicae, iv. Amst. 1737. 4to.

b.
[Seite 227]

Consult Rol. Martin, Schwed. Abhandl. vol. xxxix. 1777.

G. Bew, Memoirs of the Society of Manchester, vol. i. p. 159.

Ch. Hutton, Mathematical Dictionary, vol. i. p. 214.

c.
[Seite 228]

F. de Riet, De Organo Tactus. LB. 1743. 4to. reprinted in Haller’s
Anatomical Collection, t. iv.

d.
[Seite 228]

Dav. Corn. de Courcelles, Icones Musculor. Capitis. Tab. i. fig. 2, 3.

e.
[Seite 228]

B. S. Albinus, Annotat. Academ. 1. iii. tab. iv. fig. 1, 2.

f.
[Seite 228]

Ruysch, Thesaur. Anat. iii. tab. iv. fig. 1. Thes. vii. tab. ii. fig. 5.

B. S. Albinus, l. c. L. vi. tab. ii. fig. 3, 4.

g.
[Seite 228]

Grew, Phil. Trans. n. 159.

h.
[Seite 228]

B. S. Albinus, Annotat. Acad. l. ii. tab. vii. fig. 4, 5, 6.

i.
[Seite 228]

Namely, simiae, papiones, cercopitheci, and lemures, the apices of whose
fingers in their four hands are very soft, and marked, as in the human subject,
with spiral lines.

Physiologists have disputed whether the sense of touch is bestowed on any
besides man and the quadrumana. In determining this controversy, we must
recollect what was formerly said (81) concerning the difference of constitution
according to mode of life. On one side, I would grant to both parties that the
snowy hands of a delicate girl must enjoy a much more exquisite sense of touch
than what I called the fingers of brutes. But, on the other, I have frequently
seen simiae and papiones possessing much softer fingers, and using these fingers
to explore surfaces much more dexterously, than many barbarous nations and
innumerable persons among the lower orders of Europeans, whose hands have
been hardened by labour.

k.
[Seite 229]

B. S. Albinus, De Habitu et Colore Aethiopum. fig. 3.

l.
[Seite 229]

Phrenology, p. 247.

m.
[Seite 229]

Lectures on the Philosophy of the Human Mind. 2d edit. 1824. p. 480.

n.
[Seite 231]

Essays, 1818. p. 70.

a.
[Seite 232]

Grew, Anatomy of Plants, p. 284. sq.

Petr. Luchtmans, De Saporibus et Gustu. L B. 1758. 4to. p. 58. sqq.

J. Gottl. Leidenfrost, De sensu qui in faucibus est, ab eo qui in lingua exercetur,
diverso.
Duisb. 1771. 4to.

b.
[Seite 232]

Sömmerring, Icones Organorum Humanorum Gustus. Francof. 1808. fol.

c.
[Seite 232]

This fact, contrary to the opinion of others, I have proved by dissection
of living animals, and by pathological observation. Specimen historiae naturalis ex
auctoribus classicis illustratae.
Gotting. 1816. 4to. p. 4. sqq.

d.
[Seite 232]

In dogs and sheep with variegated skin, I have commonly found the reti-
culum of the tongue and fauces also variegated.

e.
[Seite 232]

Consult Just. Schrader, Observat. et Histor. from Harvey’s book De Gene-
ratione Animalium.
p. 186.

f.
[Seite 232]

Morgagni, Adversar. Anat. Prima. Tab. 1.

g.
[Seite 233]

Ruysch, Thesaur. Anat. l. tab. iv. fig. 6.

B. S. Albinus, Annotat. Acad. l. i. tab. i. fig. 6–11.

h.
[Seite 233]

Consult Haller’s excellent description of the tongue of a living man, in the
Dictionn. Encyclopédique. Yverdon, vol. xxii. p. 28.

i.
[Seite 233]

J. Fr. Meckel, De Quinto pare Nervorum Cerebri. Gotting. 1748. 4to.
p. 97. fig. 1. n. 80.

k.
[Seite 233]

J. F. W. Böhmer, De Nono pare Nervorum Cerebri. Gotting. 1777. 4to.

l.
[Seite 233]

See Haller, Icon. Anatom. fasc. ii. tab. 1. letter g.

Monro, On the Nervous System. Tab. xxvi.

m.
[Seite 233]

Bellini, Gustus Organum novissime deprehensum. Bonon. 1665. 12mo.

n.
[Seite 234]

Dr. Reid, Inquiry into the Human Mind, c. 3.

a.
[Seite 235]

Conr. Vict. Schneider, De Osse Cribriformi et Sensu ac Organo Odoratus.
Witteb. 1655. 12mo.

This classical work forms an epoch in physiological history, not only because
it was the first accurate treatise on the function of smell, but because it put an
end to the visionary doctrine of the organ of smell being the emunctory of the
brain.

b.
[Seite 235]

Sömmerring, Icones Organorum Humanorum Olfactus. Francof. 1810.
fol.

c.
[Seite 235]

Haller, Icones Anat. fasc. iv. tab. ii.

Duverney, Oeuvres Anatom. vol. i. tab. xiv.

Santorini, Tab. Posthum. iv.

C. J. M. Langenbeck, Neue Bibl. für Chirurgie, vol. ii. P. ii. p. 318. tab. ii.

d.
[Seite 236]

In my Prolus. de Sinibus Frontal., Gotting. 1779., 4to., I have brought
forward many arguments from osteogeny, comparative anatomy, and pathological
phenomena, to prove that these sinuses contribute indeed to the smell, but little
or nothing to voice and speech, as was believed by many physiologists.

e.
[Seite 236]

Metzger, Nervorum Primi Paris Historia. Argent. 1766. 4to. reprinted in
Sandifort’s Thesaurus, vol. iii.

Scarpa, Anatomic. Annotat. l. ii. tab. i, ii.

f.
[Seite 236]

This is shown by pathological dissection and comparative anatomy. Thus
in Loder’s Observ. Tumoris Scirrhosi in basi cranii reperti, Jen. 1779., 4to. is a
case of anosmia, following a compression of the first pair by a scirrhus. We
learn, from comparative anatomy, that in the most sagacious mammalia, v. c.
elephants, bears, dogs, bisulcous ruminants, hedgehogs, &c., the horizontal plate
of the cribriform bone is very large, and perforated by an infinity of small canals,
each of which contains a filament of the olfactory nerve.

g.
[Seite 237]

While animals of the most acute smell, as those just mentioned, have the
nasal organs most extensively evolved, precisely the same holds in regard to some
barbarous nations.

For instance, in the head of the North American Indian (a leader of his nation,
and executed at Philadelphia about fifty years ago), which I have given in my
Decas prima Collectionis Craniorum diversarum gentium illustratae, tab. ix., the
internal nares are of an extraordinary size, so that the middle of the ossa spon-
giosa, for instance, are inflated into immense bullae, and the sinuses, first described
by Santorini, which are contained in them, larger than I have found them in any
other instance.

The nearest to these, in point of magnitude, are the internal nares of the
Ethiopians, from among whom I have eight heads, now before me, very different
from each other, but each possessing a nasal organ much larger than we find it
described to be in that nation by Sömmerring, über die körperl. Verschiedenh.
des Negers,
&c. p. 22.

These anatomical observations accord with the accounts given by most respect-
able travellers concerning the wonderful acuteness of smell possessed by those
savages.

Respecting, v. c. the North American Indians, consult, among others, Urls-
perger, Nachr. von der Grossbritann. Colonie Salzburg. Emigranten in America,
vol. i. p. 862.

Respecting the Ethiopians, Journal des Sçavans. 1667. p. 60.

h.
[Seite 237]

See Alibert on the medical power of odours, Mém. de la Soc. Médicale, t. i.
p. 44.

i.
[Seite 237]

Emile, t. i. p. 367.

k.
[Seite 237]

Respecting the power of smell over morals and propensities, consult Benj.
Rush, Medical Inquiries and Observations, vol. ii. p. 34.

l.
[Seite 238]

De anima brutorum, 1680.

l.
[Seite 239]

London Med. and Physical Journal. 1812.

a.
[Seite 240]

Sömmerring, Icones organor. humanor. auditus. Francof. 1806. fol.

b.
[Seite 240]

B. S. Albinus, Annotat. Academ. l. vi. tab. iv.

c.
[Seite 240]

V. J. Rhodius ad Scribon. Largum. p. 44. sq.

J. Alb. Fabricius, De Hominibus ortu non differentibus. Opuscul. p. 441.

Ch. Collignon, Miscellaneous Works. Cambridge. 1786. 4to. p. 25. sq.

d.
[Seite 240]

Consult J. Haygarth, Med. Obs. and Inquiries, vol. iv. p. 198. sq.

e.
[Seite 240]

See the distinguished Himly’s acute comparison of the organs of hearing and
vision, Bibliothek für Ophthalmologie, vol. i. p. 6. sqq.

f.
[Seite 240]

The existence of a fourth bone (called lenticular), commonly admitted since
the time of Franc. Sylvius, I have disproved at large in my Osteology, p. 155.
sq. edit. 2. It is wanting in the greater number of perfect examples from
adults.

g.
[Seite 241]

Saunders, Anatomy of the Human Ear. Lond. 1806. fol. vol. i. ii.

h.
[Seite 241]

Scarpa, De Structura Fenestrae Rotundae, &c. Mutin. 1772. 8vo.

i.
[Seite 241]

Comparative anatomy renders it most probable that the Eustachian tube is
subservient to the action of the membrana tympani. It is found in all red-
blooded animals which possess a membrana tympani, but is wanting in fishes
which are destitute of this membrane. The different opinions of the moderns
respecting its use, may be found in Reil’s Archiv. für die Physiol. t. ii. p. 18.
iii. p. 165. iv. p. 105. viii. p. 67. ix. p. 320.

k.
[Seite 241]

Scarpa, Disquisitiones Anatomicae de Auditu et Olfactu, tab. iv. fig. 5. tab.vii.
fig. 3.

l.
[Seite 241]

Cotunni, De Aquaeductibus auris humanae. Neap. 1761. 4to.

m.
[Seite 241]

Ph. Fr. Meckel, De Labyrinthi auris contentis. Argent 1777. 4to.

n.
[Seite 242]

Fallopius, Observ. Anat. p. 27. b. sq. Venet. 1561. 8vo.

o.
[Seite 242]

Consult Brendel, Analecta de Concha auris humanae. Gotting. 1747. 4to.

The same, De Auditu in apice conchae, Ib. eod, 4to.

p.
[Seite 242]

Consult Zinn, Observ. Botan. Gotting. 1753. 4to. p. 31. sq.

Scarpa, l. c. tab. viii. fig. 1, 2.

q.
[Seite 242]

B. S. Albinus, Tabulae Muscul. tab. xi. fig. 29.

r.
[Seite 242]

Eustachius, De Auditus Organ. p. 157.

Caldani, Insitut. Physiol. 245. sq.

s.
[Seite 242]

J. Fr. Meckel, De Quinto pare Nervorum Cerebri, fig. 1. x. 71.

Leop. M. A. Caldani on the office of the chorda tympani, Saggi dellAcad.
di Padova,
t. ii.

t.
[Seite 242]

Cotunni, l. c. § lxxxviii.

Marherr, Praelect. in Boerhaavii Inst. vol. iii. p. 343.

u.
[Seite 243]

C. Wheatstone, Experiments on Sound. Annals of Philosophy. New Series.
vol. vi. p. 81.

x.
[Seite 244]

De Natura Deorum. l. ii.

y.
[Seite 244]

Savart, Recherches sur les Usages de la Membrane du Tympan et de l’oreille
externe. Annales de Chimie,
t. xxvi. p. 5.

z.
[Seite 245]

Phil. Trans. 1820.

a.
[Seite 245]

Journal of Science. New Series, vol. ii. p. 67. sqq.

a.
[Seite 246]

San. Th. Sömmerring, (the father) Icones oculi humani. Francof. 1801.
fol.

Detm. W. Sömmerring, (the son) De oculorum sectione horizontali Comment-
arius.
Gotting. 1818. fol.

b.
[Seite 246]

G. H. Gerson, De Forma Corneae deque singulari Visus Phaenomeno. Got-
ting. 1810. 4to.

Al. Clemens, Tunicae Corneae et Humoris Aquei Monographia. Gotting. 1816.
4to.

M. J. Chelius, über die durchsichtige Hornhaut. Carlsr. 1818. 8vo.

c.
[Seite 246]

Sam. Th. Von Sömmerring, in the Denkschr. der Akad. der Wiss. zu München.
1817, tab. 1.

d.
[Seite 247]

C. Mundini, in the Comm. Instit. Bononiens. t. vii. p. 29.

H. F. Elsaesser (praes. G. C. Ch. Storr), De pigmento oculi Nigro. Tubing.
1800. 8vo.

e.
[Seite 247]

B. S. Albinus, Annotat. Academ. l. iii. p. 59. sq. l. iv. p. 75. sq. l. v.
p. 66. sq.

f.
[Seite 247]

Walter, De Venis Oculi, &c. Berol. 1778. 4to. tab. i. fig. 2. tab. ii. fig. 2.

g.
[Seite 247]

The extremely beautiful blood-vessels of the retina were first discovered by
J. Mery to be visible in a living cat plunged under water, Mém. de l’Acad. des
Sc. de Paris. avant
1699. t. x. p. 650; and 1704. p. 265.

The most beautifully radiated surface of the retina in the hare was displayed
by Zinn in an admirable engraving. Comm. Soc. Scient. Gotting. t. iv. 1754.
tab. viii. fig. 3.

By Fontana, in the rabbit, Sur le vénin de la vipère, vol. ii. tab. v. fig. 12.

h.
[Seite 247]

A plate accurately representing the course of these branches will be found
in the Oeuvres de Mariotte, p. 527. fig. 1.

i.
[Seite 247]

Sömmerring, De Foramine centrali limbo luteo cincto retinae humanae: in the
Comment. Soc. Reg. Scient. Gottingens. t. xiii.

Ph. Michaelis, Journal der Erfindungen in der Natur-und Arzneywiss, P. xv.

k.
[Seite 247]

As I have discovered this central aperture in the eye of no animal besides
man, except the quadrumana, the axes of whose eyes are, like the human, parallel
to each other, I think its use connected with this parallel direction of the eyes,
and have endeavoured to explain the connection at large, in my Handbuch der
vergleichenden Anatomie,
p. 402. sq. 2d edit.

As, on the one hand, this direction of the eyes renders one object visible to
both at the same time, and therefore more distinctly visible; so, on the other,
this foramen prevents the inconvenience of too intense a light, if there is a pro-
bability that it expands and dilates a little under this circumstance, and thus
removes the principal focus from the very sensible centre of the retina.

l.
[Seite 248]

Comment. Soc. Scient. Gotting. tom. iv. p. 199.

m.
[Seite 248]

On the remarkable mutual relation of the arteries and nerves of the internal
parts of the eye, and especially of the iris, see Diet. G. Kieser, De Anamorphosi
Oculi.
Gotting. 1804. 4to.

n.
[Seite 248]

This beautiful membrane was first discovered by Francis Sandys – a cele-
brated maker of anatomical preparations: it was first described and exhibited in
an engraving by Ever. J. Wachendorf, Commerc. Litter. Nor. 1740. hebd. 18.

o.
[Seite 248]

The ciliary canal, discovered by Fel. Fontana, (Sur le vénin de la vipère,
vol. ii. tab. vii. fig. 8, 9,10.) and afterwards described more accurately by Adolp.
Murray (nov. act. Upsaliens, vol. iii.), runs, in bisulcous animals, along this
thick edge.

p.
[Seite 248]

Doellinger, Nov. Act. Ac. N. C. t. ix. p. 267. sqq. tab. vii.

C. J. M. Langenbeck, Neue Bibl. für die Chirurgie, iii. B. 1. St. tab. 1. 11.

q.
[Seite 249]

Consult, among others, Brandis, Pathologie, p. 253.

And J. Aug. Hegar, De Oculi partibus quibusdam. Gotting. 1818. 8vo.
p. 25. sqq.

r.
[Seite 249]

Th. Young, Phil. Trans. 1795. tab. xx. fig. 2, 3.

Dav. Hosack, ib. 1794. tab. xvii. fig. 4.

J. C. Reil, De lentis crystallinae structura fibrosa. Hal. 1794, 8vo.

s.
[Seite 250]

H. Meibomius, De vasis Palpebrarum novis ep. Helmst. 1666. 4to.

t.
[Seite 250]

B. S. Albinus, Annotat. Academ. l. iii. tab. iii. fig. 4.

u.
[Seite 250]

J. Chr. Rosenmüller, Organor. Lachrymalium Partiumque Externarum Oculi
Humani Descriptio Anatomica.
Lips. 1797. 4to.

x.
[Seite 251]

Nev. Maskelyne, Attempt to explain a Difficulty in the Theory of Vision,
depending on the different Refrangibility of Light,
in the Philosophical Transactions,
vol. lxxix. p. 256.

y.
[Seite 251]

J. H. Voight, Magazin für Physik und Naturgeschichte, t. v. P. iii. p. 143.

z.
[Seite 252]

Zinn, De Motu Uveae, 1757. in the Comment. Societ. Scient. Gotting. t. i.

Fel. Fontana, Dei Moti dell’ Iride. Lucca. 1765. 8vo.

a.
[Seite 252]

For other explanations consult Troxler in Himly’s Ophthalmol. Biblioth. t. i.
P. ii. p. 21.

b.
[Seite 252]

I have spoken of Albinos at large in my work, De Generis Humani Varie-
tate Nativa,
ed. 3. p. 274; and in my dissertation, De Oculis Leucoethiopum.

c.
[Seite 253]

H. W. Math. Olbers, De Oculi Mutationibus Internis. Gotting. 1780. 4to.

Ever. Home, Phil. Trans. 1795. P. 1.

d.
[Seite 253]

Comment. Societ. Scient. Gottingens. t. vii. p. 62. fig. ii. f. g. h.

e.
[Seite 253]

I say the human eye; for in some animals now before me, the seal and
porcupine, for instance, the true and imaginary axis are the same, the optic nerve
lying exactly opposite the centre of the cornea and pupil.

f.
[Seite 253]

Troxler speaks of this at large, l. c. t. ii. P. ii. p. 1.

g.
[Seite 253]

In Optica Quaedam Boerhaavii et Halleri Commentatur Abr. Gotth. Kaest-
ner. Lips. 1785. 8vo. p. 7.

h.
[Seite 254]

See Giov. Bortolazzi, Sopra una cieca nata guarita. Verona, 1781. 8vo.
p. 99. sq.

i.
[Seite 254]

W. C. Wells, Essay upon Single Vision with Two Eyes. Lond. 1792. 8vo.

k.
[Seite 254]

Consult Lambert, Sur la partie photométrique de l’art du peintre in the Mém.
de l’Acad. des Sciences de Berlin,
1768. p. 80. sq.

l.
[Seite 254]

Tob. Mayer, Experimenta circa visus aciem, in the Commentar. Soc. Scient.
Gottingens,
t. iv.

m.
[Seite 254]

De la Hire, Accidens de la Vue, p. 375.

n.
[Seite 254]

Gassendi, Vita Peireskii. p. 175. sq. Hague, 1655. 4to.

Franklin, Letters on Philosophical Subjects, at the end of his Expts. on Elec-
tricity.
Lond. 1769. 4to. p. 469. sq.

[Seite 255]

Rob. War. Darwin, Experimenta nova de spectris s. imaginibus ocularibus, quae
objectis lucidioribus antea visis, in oculo clauso vel averso percipiuntur.
Lugd. Bat.
1785. 4to.

Er. Darwin, Zoonomia, t. i.

C. Himly, Biblioth. Ophthalmolog, t. i. P. ii. p. 1.

o.
[Seite 255]

Phil. Trans. 1819. Also, on various other points in the anatomy of the eye,
Med. Chirurg. Trans. vol. xii. P. 2.

p.
[Seite 255]

The object of this firm application of the tarsi to the eye must be the exclu-
sion of foreign matters from the orbit.

q.
[Seite 256]

A beautiful fact, witnessed by Sir James Hall, is mentioned by Sir George
Mackenzie, Phrenological Essays, p. 38. He had been engaged in making ex-
periments on hatching eggs by means of artificial heat, and, on one occasion,
observed, in one of his boxes, a chicken in the act of breaking from its confine-
ment. It happened, that, just as the creature got out of the shell, a spider began
to run along the box, when the chicken darted forward, seized, and swallowed it.
In this case it was not merely the eye that was perfect, but innate powers of
knowing instantaneously what was proper for it as food, of judging of distance,
and of putting its limbs into action. Garin, a young man twenty-four years of
age, when recovered from original blindness by an operation, saw objects in their
natural position and not reversed. Expérience Métaphysique, ou Dévelopement de
la Lumière et des Sensations,
par Jauffret. 1810.

r.
[Seite 257]

Med. Chir. Trans. vol. vii.

s.
[Seite 257]

l. c. vol. ix. A case communicated to Dr. Priestley will bo found in the
Phil. Trans. 1777. The man had three brothers with the same defect. In the
Phrenol. Trans. is another by Dr. Butter. In the Manchester Memoirs, vol. v.,
are others. One such person painted a man’s head with a green beard and blue
cheeks. In Mr. G. Combe’s System of Phrenology, and the Phrenological Trans-
actions,
are mentioned one of three brothers and a cousin, who inherited it
from their maternal grandfather, the intervening generation not having it.

t.
[Seite 257]

Elements of the Philosophy of the Human Mind, ch. iii.

u.
[Seite 258]

De la cause qui dispose l’oeil pour voir distinctement les objets placés à différentes
distances:
par Jean Mile (traduit du Polonois). Magendie, Journal de Physio-
logie,
tom. vi. p. 166.

x.
[Seite 259]

Essay upon Single Vision with Two Eyes. Phil. Trans. 1792.

Experiments and Observations on several Subjects in Optics. Phil. Trans. 1811.

y.
[Seite 259]

On the Motions of the Eye in Illustration of the Uses of the Muscles and Nerves
of the Orbit. Phil. Trans.
1823.

z.
[Seite 260]

Phil. Trans. 1824.

a.
[Seite 261]

Anatomie des systèmes nerveaux des animaux à vertébres, t. ii. p. 673.

b.
[Seite 261]

Magendie, Précis de Physiologie, t. i. p. 63. sq.

c.
[Seite 261]

On the optic nerve consult Gall, Anatomie et Physiologie, &c. t. i. p. 113. sqq.

d.
[Seite 262]

Magendie, l. c.

e.
[Seite 262]

Magendie, l. c. Mr. Mayo says, that, after death, in the cat and pigeon the
pupil is always dilated, and in the rabbit contracted. Outlines, &c. p. 296.

f.
[Seite 262]

Mayo, l. c. p. 294.

a.
[Seite 264]

Consult Winslow, Mém. de l’Acad. des Sciences de Paris, 1739.

b.
[Seite 264]

That the action of even the uterus in delivery is partly voluntary in some
warm-blooded animals, is shown in birds when sitting, which, if deprived of their
eggs, are well known to lay others in succession.

c.
[Seite 264]

Cheyne, Treatise on Nervous Diseases, p. 307. sq.

d.
[Seite 264]

See Sam. Lath. Mitchill, On the Gaseous Oxyd of Azote, &c. New York,
1795. 12mo. p. 26.

Also Leop. Caldani, Memorie della Accademia di Mantova, t. i. 1795. p. 118.

e.
[Seite 265]

See the Rapport des Commissaires chargés par le Roi de l’examen du Mag-
nétisme Animal, written by J. Sylv. Bailly, a man worthy of a better fate. Paris,
1784. 4to. p. 16.

f.
[Seite 265]

See v. c. T. Bartholin, Act. Hafniens. 1676. vol. iv. p. 191.

g.
[Seite 265]

A person playing on the harp, dancing, and singing, at the same time,
exercises about three hundred muscles at once. G. Ent, Animadv. in Thrustoni
diatribam, p. 130.

h.
[Seite 268]

This is the opinion of Haller, and ably defended by him, El. Physiol. t. iii.
lib. viii. § 18.

i.
[Seite 268]

‘“Servus barbarus, cum vehementi ira concitatus, mortem sibi consciscere
decrevisset, prostratus humi, respirationeque cohibitâ, longo tempore immobilis
[Seite 269] erat; postea vero paululum volutatus, hoc pacto mortuus est.”’ Galen, De Nat.
Musc.
lib. ii. c. 6.

A robber named Coma, when taken before the consul Rupilius, is said by
Valerius Maximus to have so destroyed himself. ‘“Let others, says the his-
torian, sharpen the sword, mix the poison, take the rope, look for precipices,”’ –
‘“nihil horum Coma, sed intra pectus inclusa anima, finem sui reperit.”’ Lib. ix.
cap. xii. externa. 1.

Few can have so much determination; and, indeed, success can rarely follow
this attempt at suicide, because, as soon as the brain begins to suffer, the effort
must decline, and the effects cease. Still, from general or partial tenuity of the
vessels of the head, such congestion may readily occur as may occasion rupture;
and suicide of this kind is therefore by no means impossible. I have known the
sinuses rupture under strong muscular exertions.

Dr. Georget mentions that a M. Bourdon has lately made some experiments
upon himself, from which it appears that a person may commit this kind of
suicide. De la Physiologie du Système Nerveux, &c., t. i. p. 387.

a.
[Seite 269]

Sass, Dissertation quoted already at parag. 206.

b.
[Seite 269]

For instance, in Elephantiasis. Consult Ph. Gabr. Hensler, Vom abend-
ländischen Aussatze in Mittelalter,
p. 316.

Accurately described examples of similar changes in other affections may be
found in Hedendaagsche Letter-Oefeningen, t. iv. P. ii. p. 45.

And in the Mémoires de Mathématique, &c. presentés à l’Acad. des Sciences de
Paris,
t. vii. p. 301.

c.
[Seite 269]

See Thouret, Journal de Physique, t. xxxviii. p. 255.

G. Sm. Gibbes, Phil. Trans. 1794. p. 169.

d.
[Seite 269]

See Ad. Murray, De Fascia Lata. Upsal. 1777. 4to.

e.
[Seite 271]

See Fourcroy, Mémoires de l’Academie des Sciences de Paris, 1785. p. 392.;
and 1786. p. 38.

f.
[Seite 271]

Albinus, Annotat. Academ. l. iv. tab. v. fig. 2.

g.
[Seite 271]

I thus distinguish it, not because the luminary of the Gottingen school first
discovered it, for he repeatedly bestowed praises upon the opinions entertained
with regard to it by his predecessors from the time of Glisson, but because he
first investigated it as it deserved, illustrated it, enlarged the knowledge of it by
numerous living dissections, and demonstrated the great power and influence of
the doctrine, thus remodelled, upon the animal economy. I have also another
reason, viz. to distinguish it from the irritability of the truly meritorious Gaubius,
who applied the same term to the morbid sensibility of the living solid.

h.
[Seite 271]

See Haller on the irritable parts of the human body, Commentar. Soc. Sc.
Gotting.
t. ii.

And Nov. Commentar. Gotting. t. iv.

Among innumerable other writers on the same subject, suffice it to quote the
following: –

Zimmerman, De irritabilitate. Gott. 1751. 4to.

Oeder, on the same. Copenhagen, 1752. 4to.

[Seite 272]

J. Eberh. Andreae, on the same. (Praes. Ph. Fr. Gmelin.) Tubing. 1758.
4to.

Some others have been already mentioned.

As well as three entire Collections of Writers, parag. 210.

i.
[Seite 273]

To this point chiefly relate the celebrated disputes respecting the influence
of nerves upon the motion of the heart, and the modus operandi of opium upon
the heart and nerves.

Consult, besides other distinguished authors already quoted,

Rob. Whytt, Essay on the Vital and other Involuntary Motions of Animals.
Edinb. 1751. 8vo.; and more at large in his Works. ib. 1768. 4to.

J. Aug. Unzer, Erste Gründe einer Physiologie der eigentlichen thierischen Natur
thierischer Körper.
Leipzig. 1771. 8vo.

k.
[Seite 274]

J. H. v. Brunn, Experimenta circa Ligaturas Nervorum in vivis Animalibus
instituta.
Gotting. 1753. 4to.

l.
[Seite 274]

v. J. Stewart, De Systematis Nervosi Officiis. Edinb. 8vo.

m.
[Seite 274]

C. H. Pfaff, über Thierische Elektricität und Reizbarkeit. Leipzig. 1795.
8vo. p. 263.

n.
[Seite 274]

Stenonis, Elementor. Myologiae spec. Florent. 1667. 4to. p. 86.

o.
[Seite 274]

W. Courten, Phil. Trans. No. 335. p. 500.

Haller, Comment. Soc. Sc. Gotting. t. iv. p. 293.

p.
[Seite 276]

Mém. de l’Acad. des Sc. de Paris. 1720.

q.
[Seite 276]

P. J. Barthez, Nouvelle Méchanique des Mouvemens de l’Homme et des Ani-
maux.
Carcass. 1798. 4to.

r.
[Seite 277]

Hence, of all animals which I have dissected, the mole is supplied with the
most remarkable apparatus of sesamoid bones; its anterior palmated feet, with
which it digs, have many of these bones, which greatly facilitate the action of the
brachial muscles.

s.
[Seite 277]

Gilb. Blane, On Muscular Motion, p. 51.

t.
[Seite 277]

I have treated on this point at large, in the Medic. Biblioth. vol. ii. p. 407.

u.
[Seite 278]

Thomas Hare, A View of the Structure, Functions, and Disorders of the
Stomach,
&c. p. 28. sq. 1821.

x.
[Seite 278]

Phil. Trans. 1818. J. F. Meckel has made careful microscopical observ-
ations, and finds the muscular no less than the nervous fibre, and the substance
of the liver, kidney, spleen, &c., to be globular.

y.
[Seite 278]

Annales de Chimie. t. xviii.

z.
[Seite 278]

Prodromo. p. 97.

a.
[Seite 278]

Hare, l. c. p. 36.

b.
[Seite 278]

Sur les Poisons. t. ii. p. 230. sq.

c.
[Seite 279]

Journal de Physiologie, t. iii.

d.
[Seite 279]

On Muscular Motion. Select Dissertations, p. 281.

e.
[Seite 279]

l. c. Haller, El. Physiol. L. ix. S. ii.

f.
[Seite 280]

Mr. Shaw has written a paper against the muscularity of the urethra. Med.
Chir. Trans.
vol. x.

g.
[Seite 280]

Le Gallois, Sur le Principe de la Vie.

h.
[Seite 280]

Bichat, Recherches Physiologiques.

a.
[Seite 281]

Consult, besides authors hereafter to be recommended, Er. Darwin, Zoo-
nomia.
t. i. Sect. xviii.

And Wienholt, Heilkraft des thierischen Magnetismus. vol. ii. p. 437. sqq.

Fr. Aug. Ammon, Commentatio proemio regio ornata de somni vigiliarumque
statu morboso.
Gott. 1820. 4to.

C. Fr. Heusinger, De variis somni vigiliarumque conditionibus morbosis. Isenac.
1820. 8vo.

b.
[Seite 281]

De Pauw has some singular observations upon it in his Recherches sur les
Egyptiens et les Chinois.
t. ii. p. 159.

c.
[Seite 282]

Although the lethargic winter torpor of the Alpine marmot, the cricetum,
and many other mammalia brutes, differs importantly from the periodical noc-
turnal sleep now spoken of, modern observations respecting this wonderful torpor
have shown, that, in their phenomena and remote causes, both correspond and
mutually elucidate each other.

Consult, for instance, Sulzer, Naturgeschichte des Hamsters. p. 162.

Spallanzani, Sur la Respiration. Geneva. 1803. 8vo.

Mangili, and C. Ul. Von Salis in the latter’s and Steinmüller’s Alpina. t. iv.
1809.

Cuvier, Analyse des Travaux de la Classe Physique de l’Institut. 1807.

d.
[Seite 282]

Those who wish to know and compare other opinions upon the causes of
sleep, may consult

M. de Grimaud, Mémoire sur la Nutrition. Petersb. 1789. 4to. p. 194.

H. Nudow, Versuch einer Theorie des Schlafs. Köningsberg. 1791. 8vo.

Steph. Gallini at the end of his Saggio d’Osservazioni sui nuovi progressi della
Fisica del Corpo Umano.
Padua. 1792. 8vo.

Mauduit, in Fourcroy, in the Mèdecine Eclairée, &c. t. iv. p. 273.

T. Chr. Reil, Functiones Organo Animae Peculiares. Hal. 1794. 8vo. p. 108.

L. H. Chr. Niemeyer, Materialien zur Erregungstheorie. Getting. 1800. 8vo.
p. 71.

Troxler, Versuche in der Organischen Physik. p. 435.

Brandis, Pathologie, p. 534.

e.
[Seite 283]

Observ. on Man, vol. i. p. 48.

f.
[Seite 283]

v. c. Of the alpine marmot, of which Mangili treats in Reil’s Archiv. vol. viii.
p. 466. sqq.

g.
[Seite 284]

Schulze, Psychische Anthropologie, vol. i. p. 277. 2d edit.

h.
[Seite 284]

Consult Kant, Critik der Urtheilskraft. p. 298. and Anthropologie. p. 80.

i.
[Seite 284]

See F. Xav. Mezler, Von der Schwarzgallichten Constitution, p. 80.

k.
[Seite 284]

Consult Locke, Essay concerning Human Understanding, vol. i. p. 74.
Lond. 1726. 8vo.

l.
[Seite 284]

See for instance what Hollman has related of himself in this particular,
Pneumatolog. Psycholog. et Theol. Natural. Gotting. 1780. 8vo. p. 196.

m.
[Seite 284]

Beattie, Dissertations Moral and Critical. Lond. 1783. 4to. p. 217.

n.
[Seite 284]

G. Gottl. Richter, De Statu Mixto somni et vigiliae quo Dormientes multa
Vigilantium munera obeunt.
Gotting. 1756. 4to.

Wienholt, l. c. vol. iii. P. i. p. 10.

o.
[Seite 285]

As arterial blood when at rest acquires the venous character, and the slower
its motion the greater is its tendency to assume this character, it is evident that in
congestion of blood, by which is meant simply an unusual quantity of blood in
the vessels of a part, not flowing with its usual freedom, the part affected has not
its proper supply of perfectly arterial blood. Hence congestion in the head
must, even from this cause alone, produce drowsiness, to say nothing of the effect
of pressure on the cerebral fibres.

p.
[Seite 285]

The phenomena of hybernating animals, which grow dull on the approach
of winter, and at length fall asleep, continuing so till the return of mild wea-
ther, and generally endeavouring to lose as little heat during the approaching cold
as possible, by coiling themselves up and getting into holes and warm situations,
covering themselves with leaves, &c. (and all the classes of animals, except birds,
contain species that have the faculty of living in this state), are precisely analogous,
though very different in degree, to those of common sleep. The sensibility and
all the functions are lessened, the temperature becomes nearly as low as that of
the surrounding medium, the circulation slow, respiration almost or quite im-
perceptible, and digestion suspended. This torpidity is produced by a deficiency
of external excitants, usually by cold and want of food, and, in the language of
[Seite 286] Brown, is a state of direct debility, while our ordinary sleep is one of indirect
debility, – exhaustion. No structural peculiarity is discoverable, which enables
certain animals to exist in the torpid state.

Such animals at all times produce less heat, and vary more with the sur-
rounding medium, than others, so that Dr. Edwards in an hour cooled a
dormouse 36° by surrounding it with a freezing mixture, which caused a re-
duction of not more than 5° or 6° in adult birds and guinea-pigs exposed to it
for even a longer time. (l. c. p. 154. sq.) Some which do not hybernate re-
semble them in this inferior power; mice, for example, which, therefore, at all
ages and seasons make for themselves nests, (p. 259.) On the other hand, hyber-
nating animals are not all equally deficient in the power of resisting the influence
of surrounding low temperatures; dormice are the most so, marmots the least;
so that animals which preserve their own temperature in low media, and those
which readily follow the surrounding temperature, are not widely separated, but
insensibly run into each other, (l. c. p. 257. sq.) to say nothing of the inferior
power of the newly-born among many of the former, and among all if born
before full time, and of the various degrees of this power in different adults, and
in all at different seasons of the year. (See note on animal heat.) Cold produces
sleep in all, and, if the sleep is indulged, death is the result in those which cannot
hybernate. Those which can, become more and more torpid, by the mere con-
tinuance of the same degree of cold. A very intense degree of cold has been
found actually to arouse animals in a state of torpidity, but the excitement of the
functions could not continue long, and death ensued. (p. 398.) It appeared
necessary that respiration should be suspended in an experiment of M. De Saissy,
who, by mere cold, could not produce torpor in a marmot till he closed the lid
of the vessel in which it was placed. (p. 154.) Hence, exposure to carbonic
acid, hydrogen, &c., in this state, was found by Spallanzani to have no ill effect
upon a torpid marmot. (Rapports de l’Air, t. ii. p. 207.) Yet respiration has
often seemed not to cease entirely. (See Dr. Reeve, Essay on the Torpidity of
Animals.
) The blood has been found in a certain degree coagulated in torpid
bats. (Hunter, On the Blood, p. 25.) Cold, at any time of the year, will produce
the torpid state, but want of food must greatly assist in lessening the power of
maintaining temperature. On the other hand, a continual good supply of food
and warm temperature increases their power of evolving heat, and enables them
to resist the power of cold, so that by domestication, some cease to hybernate in the
winter. (l. c. p. 472.) Dr. Edwards found that the temperature of hybernating
animals sinks considerably during sleep, even in summer. (p. 473.)

Fish, and other cold-blooded animals, will survive an intense torpidity. ‘“The
fish froze,”’ says Captain Franklin, ‘“as fast as they were taken out of the nets,
and in a short time became a solid mass of ice, and by a blow or two of the
hatchet were easily split open, when the intestines might be removed in one
lump. If in this completely frozen state, they were thawed before the fire, they
recovered their animation.”’ ‘“We have seen a carp recover so far as to leap
[Seite 287] about with much vigour, after it had been frozen for six-and-thirty hours.”’
(Journey to the Polar Sea, p. 248.) Izaak Walton (The Complete Angler, p. 257.)
quotes Gesner for some large breams being put into a pond which was frozen the
next winter into one mass of ice so that not one could be found, and all swimming
about again when the pond thawed in the spring, – a thing ‘“almost as incredible,”’
says the sentimental sinner, as Lord Byron calls him, ‘“as the resurrection to an
atheist.”’

Insects easily bear torpidity from cold. In Newfoundland, for example,
Captain Buchan saw a frozen lake, which in the evening was all still and frozen
over, but, as soon as the sun had dissolved the surface in the morning, was in a
state of animation, owing, as appeared by close inspection, to myriads of flies
let loose, while many still remained ‘“infixed and frozen round.”’ Ellis also
mentions, that a large black mass, like coal or peat upon the hearth, dissolved,
when thrown upon the fire, into a cloud of musquitoes. (Quarterly Review,
1821. April. p. 200.) Those insects which hybernate are not thought by Kirby
and Spence (Entom. vol. ii. 460. sqq.) to prepare for and enter into that state
solely from cold, &c., as they do so when the season comes round, although the
weather be as warm as previously, and do not before this period, though the tem-
perature chance to be as low as it usually is in the season of hybernation.

Some animals become torpid on being deprived of moisture. A common
garden snail falls torpid if put in a dry place, and may be revived at any time
by the application of a little water. Moisture has revived some animalcules after
a torpidity of twenty-seven years. Spallanzani, Opuscoli di Fisica animale e ve-
getable.

q.
[Seite 288]

Medical Logic, p. 83. 2d edit.

r.
[Seite 289]

Medical Observations and Inquiries, vol. i.

s.
[Seite 289]

Plott’s Natural History of Staffordshire.

t.
[Seite 289]

Phil. Trans. 1694.

u.
[Seite 289]

S [...]all, l. c. t. ii. p. 503. sqq.

x.
[Seite 290]

See examples in Dr. Pritchard’s work on Diseases of the Nervous System.

y.
[Seite 290]

A remarkable example is given in the Psychological Magazine of a young
lady thus taken for dead, and after the funeral hymns were sung, &c. dis-
covered to be alive by a sweat breaking forth at the moment she found the lid of
the coffin was about to be nailed down. See Chrichton on Mental Derangement.

z.
[Seite 290]

Paradise Lost, book v.

a.
[Seite 290]

Elements of the Philosophy of the Human Mind. vol. i.

b.
[Seite 291]

This reminds one

‘“Of Rosicrusian virtuosis,’
‘Who see with ears and hear with noses.”’
c.
[Seite 293]

Such ecstasies, &c. and miracles were worked at his tomb, that the govern-
ment closed it, and forhad any more!

‘“De par le Roi, défense à Dieu’
‘De faire miracle en ce lieu.”’
d.
[Seite 293]

Amphitryo, act 1.

Consult Lettres Physiologiques et Morales sur le Magnétisme Animale. Par
J. Amedée Dupeau. Paris, 1826.

e.
[Seite 293]

A short and luminous account and defence of animal magnetism will be
found in Dr. Georget’s Physiologie du Système Nerveux, t. i. from p. 268 to 301.
1821. Drs. Hufeland, Treviranus, Oken, Kieser, Carus, &c., believe in it.

For a good and entertaining history of the magnetic phenomena as they ap-
peared in a patient at the Hotel Dieu in 1820, see Expériences Publiques sur
le Magnétisme Animal, faites à l’Hotel Dieu de Paris.
Par J. Dupotet, 3d edit.
1826. The woman had gastritis and aortic aneurism, and is said to have de-
scribed the inner surface of her stomach as raw with red pimples, and perceived a
little pouch full of blood!

For a complete history, see the Diction. des Sc. Méd. article Magnétisme
Animale.
The writer remarks, that in some Egyptian monuments, Anubis is
represented near the patient as a magnetiser, with one hand raised above the head,
the other on the breast, while behind the patient another figure stands with the
right hand elevated. See also Dr. Bertrand’s excellent treatise Du Magnétisme
Animal,
&c. Paris, 1826. Though partly a believer, he ascribes all to imagination.

a.
[Seite 295]

Consult, among innumerable writers on long fasting, James Barthol. Bec-
carius, Commentar. instituti Bononiens. t. ii. P. 1.

And Flor. J. Voltelen, Memorab. apositiae septennis hist. LB. 1777. 8vo.

b.
[Seite 295]

See G. Baker, Med. Transact. published by the Coll. of Physicians in London,
vol. ii. p. 265. sq.

c.
[Seite 295]

J. W. Neergaard, Vergleichende Anatomie und Physiologie der Verdauungs-
werkzeuge der Saügethiere und Vögel.
Berlin. 1806. P. 244.

d.
[Seite 295]

Gassendi, Letter to J. Bapt. v. Helmont. Opera. Florence. 1727. fol.

e.
[Seite 295]

J. Wallis, Phil. Trans. No. 269.

f.
[Seite 295]

Sur l’Origine de l’Inégalité parmi les Hommes. p. 196. sq.

g.
[Seite 295]

De l’Homme. t. ii. p. 17.

h.
[Seite 296]

The opinion of Broussonet is singular. He thinks the human molares
closely resemble the teeth of herbivorous animals, and at the same time regards
the incisores and canini as allied to those of the carnivorous tribes: and, after
comparing the number of the molares with that of the other teeth, concludes that
the quantity of vegetable food intended for man is to the quantity of animal food
as 20 to 12.

But on this calculation it follows, that infants, who have four molares only
in each jaw, are destined to consume a larger portion of animal food than adults,
since the proportion of the molares to the other teeth is in them as 8 to 12.

i.
[Seite 296]

Consult my very dear friend Heyne, Opuscula Academ. vol. i. p. 366. sq.

k.
[Seite 296]

Adanson, Mém. de l’Acad. des Sc. de Paris. 1778. p. 26.

l.
[Seite 297]

Fil. Salv. Gily, Saggio di Storia Americana. vol. iv. p. 120.

m.
[Seite 297]

Gius. Ant. Pujati, Reflessioni sul vitto Pitagorico. Feltri. 1751. 4to.

n.
[Seite 297]

(De Klingstaedt) Mém. sur les Samojedes et les Lappons. 1762. 8vo.

o.
[Seite 297]

Curtis, Phil. Trans. vol. lxiv. P. ii. p. 381. 383.

p.
[Seite 297]

J. Winter in Hakluyt’s Principal Navigations of the English Nation, vol. iii.
p. 751.

q.
[Seite 299]

Humboldt, Tableaux de la Nature, t. i. They become so fond of it, even
when well provided with sustenance, that they take a little, and are compelled
to tie their children’s hands to prevent them from devouring it.

r.
[Seite 301]

De carnibus.

s.
[Seite 301]

Phil. Trans. vol. lxxiii. p. 191. sq.

t.
[Seite 301]

Medical Communications, vol. ii.

u.
[Seite 301]

Osservaz. intorno agli anim. viventi.

x.
[Seite 301]

Fodéré, Médécine Legale t. ii. p. 285.

y.
[Seite 301]

Linnaean Transact. vol. xi. See London Med. Journ. vol. xxxv. 1816.

z.
[Seite 301]

Among many other accounts of starvation, some of these facts may be seen in
Captain Franklin’s Narrative of a Journey to the Polar Sea, p. 465. sq. 427.
London, 1823; where the dreadful force of hunger is too truly illustrated. Our
[Seite 302] countrymen devoured their old shoes, and any scraps of leather they possessed,
(pp. 418. 429. 438. 479.) The putrid spinal marrow left in bones, picked clean
by wolves and birds of prey, was esteemed a prize, though its acrimony excoriated
the lips; the bones were also eaten up after being burnt (p. 426.); great part of
a putrid deer was devoured on the spot (p. 421.); and to destroy, skin, and cut
up a cow, was the work of a few minutes, after which the contents of the stomach
and the raw intestines, were at once devoured and thought excellent. (p. 407.)
In the siege of Jerusalem and other ancient cities, we read of women driven by
hunger to devour their offspring; and Captain Franklin was assured near the
Saskatchawan, that men and women were then living, who had destroyed, and
fed upon the bodies of their own families, to prevent starvation in very severe
seasons. (p. 51.)

a.
[Seite 302]

See Sir George Baker’s account of two women, in the Transact. of the College
of Physicians,
vol. ii.

b.
[Seite 302]

A horrid description of raging thirst will be found in the account of the
black-hole of Calcutta. See Annual Register, 1758.

c.
[Seite 302]

I omitted to give an illustration of the impunity with which a long exclusion
of air may be borne, when the system is in a morbid nervous state; but an example
may appear to advantage by the side of similar illustrations of the deprivation of
food. ‘“The story of Ann Green,”’ says the Rev. Mr. Derham, ‘“executed at
Oxford, Dec. 14. 1650, is still well remembered among the seniors there; she
was hung by the neck near half an hour, some of her friends thumping her on
the breast, others hanging with all their weight upon her legs, sometimes lifting
her up, and then pulling her down again with a sudden jerk, thereby the sooner
to dispatch her out of her pain, as the printed account of her informs us. After
she was in her coffin, being observed to breathe, a lusty fellow stamped with all
his force on her breast and stomach, to put her out of pain. But by the assist-
ance of Dr. Peity, Dr. Willis, Dr. Bathurst, and Dr. Clark, she was again
brought to life. I myself saw her, many years after, between which time, and the
date of her execution, she had, as I am informed, borne several children.”’ (Physico-
Theology,
p. 156.) Her nervous insensibility appears from another writer, who
states, that ‘“she neither remembered how the fetters were knocked off, how she
went out of prison, when she was turned off the ladder, whether any psalm was
sung or not, nor was she sensible of any pain that she could remember. What
[Seite 303] is most remarkable is, that she came to herself as if she had awakened out of a
sleep, not recovering the use of her speech by slow degrees, but in a manner
altogether, beginning to speak just where she left off on the gallows.”’ (Plott’s
History of Oxford.)

d.
[Seite 303]

Phil. Trans. vol. lxvii. In a remarkable instance of imperfect abstinence
during fifty years, the woman voided a little feculent matter like a piece of roll-
tobacco, or a globule of sheep’s dung, but once a year, and that always in March,
for sixteen years. Edinb. Med. and Phys. Essays, vol. vi. It would be inter-
esting to examine the changes induced in the air by the lungs and skin of such
patients.

Pouteau mentions the case of one of his patients, a young lady thirteen years
of age, who was affected with convulsions and insensibility at a certain period,
generally every day, sometimes not quite so often, and great irritability of stomach,
lived eighteen months, and grew more than two inches and a half, on syrup of
capillaire and cold water. Here, the abstinence was not part of the disease, but
the extraordinary state of the system enabled it to bear the abstinence. Oeuvres
Posthumes,
t. i. p. 27.

Still, many cases of abstinence have been impostures and exaggerations, and I
cannot illustrate this better, than by quoting the case of Eve Heigen, the Dutch
prototype of our own Anne Moore of Tutbury. She contrived to deceive the
world for fourteen years (from 1597 to 1611), pretending that she took no
nourishment but the scent of flowers. She had no nervous derangement to
render food unnecessary, yet the minister and magistrates of Meurs made trial
of her for thirteen successive days without detecting her imposture. Over her
picture in the Dutch original, are these lines: –

Meurne haec quem cernis, decies ter sexque peregit
Annos, bis septem prorsus non vescitur annis
Nec potat, sed sola sedit, sic pallida vitam
Ducit, et exigui se delectat floribus horti.

Thus beautifully rendered in the English translation.

This maid of Meurs thirty-six yeares spent,
Fourteen of which she tooke no nourishment;
Thus pale and wan she sits sad and alone,
A garden’s all she loves to looke upon.

Respecting Anne Moore, see Dr. Henderson’s Examination, &c.

e.
[Seite 304]

Dictionnaire des Sciences Médicales, art. Homophage; where the dissection
of another polyphagus is given, whose stomach was found to have been made
neither more nor less than a collection of marine stores. See also Percy’s Mé-
moire sur le Polyphage
in the Journal de Médecine. Brumaire. An. xii.

f.
[Seite 306]

Several pieces of the knives are preserved in the Museum of Guy’s Hospital,
and an account of the case may be found in the Med. Chir. Trans. vol. xii.

There is a collection of cases of extraordinary swallowing from Galen, Ve-
salius, Paré, &c., in Shenkius, Observationes Medicae, lib. iii.

A polyphagus at the Jardin des Plantes, who once ate a lion which had died
there of some disease, and at last died himself of eating 8lbs of new bread, most
originally conceived, being all for the belly, that animals might be classed ac-
cording to their excrement, and actually made a collection of such stores, upon
which he would descant most eloquently. Dict. des Sc. Med. Cas Rares. p. 199.

g.
[Seite 307]

Ovid’s account of Erisichthon is verified in many histories of voracity.

‘“Ipse suos artus lacero divellere morsu’
‘Coepit; et infelix minuendo corpus alebat.’
h.
[Seite 307]

Transactions of the Royal College of Physicians. London. vol. v.

See also Phil. Trans. Papers read 1745. and Abridgment, vol. iii. p. 112.

i.
[Seite 307]

Kirby and Spence, Entomology, p. 398. sq.

k.
[Seite 307]

Nosol. Method. t. i. p. 770.

See also Eph. Nat. Cur. C. v. and vi. p. 30.

l.
[Seite 307]

Phil. Trans. Abridgment, vol. iii. p. 111.

m.
[Seite 308]

Comparative Anatomy. By Lawrence and Coulson. 2d edit. p. 88.

n.
[Seite 308]

Hasselquist, Voyages and Travels in the Levant, p. 298.

o.
[Seite 308]

Annales de Chimie et de Physique, vol.iii. p. 66. 1816.

p.
[Seite 309]

Expériences sur la Digestion, c. Ixxiv. c. lxxv.

q.
[Seite 309]

Annales de Chimie et de Physique, vol. ii. p. 32. 1816.

r.
[Seite 309]

Thomson’s Annals of Philosophy, vol. xii. p. 454.

s.
[Seite 309]

See also Dr. John Hunter, Diseases of the Army in Jamaica, p. 248 sqq.

t.
[Seite 310]

Full information on this subject will be found in Dr. Thomson’s System of
Chemistry,
book iv. c. 3. sect. 2.

u.
[Seite 310]

Phil. Trans. 1827.

a.
[Seite 313]

I say generally: for, omitting particular examples of their obtuseness, I may
remark that, in the skulls of most mummies, I have found the crown of the inci-
sores thick and obtuse. And since the more remarkable for this variety have
resembled, in their general figure and appearance, the singular and never-to-be
mistaken physiognomy of the ancient Egyptians, observable in the idols, sarco-
phagi, and statues of ancient Egypt, it is probable that this peculiar form of the
teeth, whether owing to diet or whatever else, was peculiar to the ancient Egyp-
tians, so that it may be regarded as a national mark, or even as a characteristic by
which true ancient mummies may be distinguished from those of late formation.

I have written at large on this subject in the Philos. Trans. 1794. P. 11.
p. 184.

b.
[Seite 314]

J. Barth. Siebold, Historia Systematis Salivalis. Jen. 1797. 4to.

c.
[Seite 314]

Pringle, On the Diseases of the Army. Append, p. xlviii. l. lxi. sq.
Lond. 1765. 4to.

d.
[Seite 314]

See De Courcelles, Icones Musculorum Capitis, tab. i. g. h.

e.
[Seite 314]

Stenonis, Observationes Anatomicae, p. 20.

f.
[Seite 314]

De Courcelles, l. c. tab. ii. t. t.

g.
[Seite 314]

Wharton, Adenographia, p. 120.

h.
[Seite 315]

De Courcelles, tab. v. g. g. g.

i.
[Seite 315]

Rivinus, De Dyspepsia. Lips. 1678. 4to.

Aug. Fr. Walther, De Lingua Humana, ib. 1724. 4to.

k.
[Seite 315]

Nuck, Sialographia, p. 29. sq.

l.
[Seite 315]

De Courcelles, l. c. tab. iv. e. e. e.

m.
[Seite 315]

Fr. Bern. Albinus, De Deglutitione. LB. 1740. 4to.

P. J. Sandifort, Deglutitionis Mechanismus. Lugd. Batav. 1805. 4to.

n.
[Seite 316]

Eustachius, tab. xlii. fig. 4. 6.

Santorini, Tab. Posthum. vi. fig. 1.

B. S. Albinus, Tab. Musculor. xii. fig. 23, 24.

o.
[Seite 316]

J. C. Rosenmüller, Icones Chirurgico-Anatomicae. Fasc. 1. Vinar. 1805. fol.

p.
[Seite 316]

Littre, Mém. de l’Acad. des Sc. de Paris, 1718. tab. xv.

q.
[Seite 316]

Santorini, Tab. Posthum. iv–vi. fig. 2. – and vii.

B. S. Albinus, Tab. Musculor. xii. fig. 11. 27, 28.

r.
[Seite 316]

B. S. Albinus, Annotat. Acad. l. iii. tab. iii. fig. 1. n.

s.
[Seite 316]

See Math. Van. Geuns, Verhandelingen van de Maatschappye te Haarlem,
t. xi. p. 9. sq.

Jan. Bleuland, Observ. de structura oesophagi. L B. 1785. 4to.

t.
[Seite 317]

J. Berzelius, Medico-Chirurgical Transactions, vol. iii. p. 242.

u.
[Seite 318]

Die Verdauung nach Versuchen, &c. By Fred. Tiedemann and Leopold
Gmelin, Professors in the University of Heidelberg.

x.
[Seite 318]

Précis Elémentaire, t. ii. p. 63.

y.
[Seite 318]

Morgagni, xxviii. 13.

z.
[Seite 318]

Magendie, Précis Elément.

a.
[Seite 318]

Berzelius.

a.
[Seite 319]

Eustachius, tab. x. fig. 1, 2, 3.

Ruysch, Thes. Anat. ii. tab. v. fig. 1.

Santorini, Tab. Posth. xi.

b.
[Seite 319]

Vesalius, De c. h. Fabrica. L. v. fig. 14, 15.

c.
[Seite 319]

Id. l. c. fig. 2.

d.
[Seite 320]

Besides Haller, consult Bertin, Mém. de l’Acad. des Sc. de Paris, 1761.

e.
[Seite 320]

Ruysch, Thes. Anat. ii. tab. v. fig. 2, 3, 4*.

f.
[Seite 320]

See G. Fordyce, On the Digestion of Food, p. 12. 59. 191.

g.
[Seite 320]

Walter, Tab. Nervor. Thorac. et Abdom. tab. iv.

h.
[Seite 321]

J. H. Rahn, Mirum inter Caput et Viscera Abdominis Commercium. Got-
ting. 1771. 4to.

Dit. Vegens, De Sympaihia inter Ventriculum et Caput. L B. 1784. 4to.

Wrisberg, Commentat. Societ. Scientiar. Gotting. t. xvi.

i.
[Seite 321]

Ever. Home, Phil. Trans. 1817. p. 347. tab. xviii, xix.

k.
[Seite 321]

Ed. Stevens, De Alimentorum Concoctione. Edinb. 1777. 8vo.

Laz. Spailanzani, Dissertazioni di Fisica Animale e Vegetabile. Modena,
1780. 8vo. vol. i.

l.
[Seite 321]

Consult Veratti, Comment. Instituti Bononiens, tom. vi.

m.
[Seite 321]

Even the stomach itself, when deprived of vitality, has been found acted
upon, and, as it were, digested, by it. See John Hunter, On the Digestion of
the Stomach after Death. Phil. Trans.
vol. lxii.

n.
[Seite 321]

Consult Ign. Doellinger, Grundriss der Naturlehre des menschlichen Orga-
nismus,
p. 88.

o.
[Seite 322]

Consult Wepfer, Cicutae Aquaticae Historia et Noxae, in innumerable places.

p.
[Seite 322]

Consult J. Walaeus, De motu Chyli, p. 534. LB. 1651. 8vo.

q.
[Seite 322]

H. Palm. Leveling, Dissert. sistens Pylorum, &c. Argent. 1764. 4to.
Reprinted in Sandifort’s Thes. vol. iii.

r.
[Seite 323]

Thomson’s System of Chemistry, vol. iv. p. 596. ed. 6. and Fordyce On Diges-
tion,
p. 58.

s.
[Seite 323]

The Abbé Spallanzani and Dr. Stevens made such experiments upon brutes:
but the latter experimented upon a man also, who was in the habit of swallowing
stones and rejecting them, and who of course found no difficulty in doing the same
with metallic balls.

t.
[Seite 323]

Experiments of this kind were made by Spallanzani, who procured the
gastric juice by causing hungry animals to vomit, or by introducing a sponge
into the stomach. But still more marked results were lately obtained in the case
of a lad who had a fistulous opening from the stomach, in consequence of a wound,
through which, by means of a hollow bougie and elastic bottle, gastric juice was
procured at pleasure. A portion of beef was introduced into the stomach on a
thread and withdrawn for comparison, at the same time that a similar portion was
plunged into a phial of gastric juice, the temperature of which was kept steadily
in a sand-bath at 100°, – the degree of the stomach’s temperature, ascertained by
the introduction of a thermometer. The portion in the phial became completely
dissolved, though more slowly than that in the stomach, probably from the latter
being supplied with a succession of fresh gastric juice, and freely exposed to it by
motion; for the action of the fluid is only on the surface, and a portion of chicken
placed in a phial of gastric juice, for a similar experiment, was more quickly acted
upon if agitated. The gastric juice, when first obtained, was almost as clear as
water, and its antiseptic power was shown by the solutions of beef and chicken
remaining a whole autumnal month without foetor or sour taste. American Me-
dical Recorder,
January, 1826. Spallanzani and others found, that if gastric juice
is applied to putrescent matter, it removes the foetor and suspends putrefaction.

u.
[Seite 324]

Dr. Prout, in Thomson’s Annals of Philosophy, 1819.

Dr. Wilson Philip, An Experimental Inquiry into the Laws of the Vital Func-
tions, &c.
1826. p. 121. sqq. 3d. edit.

x.
[Seite 324]

See Dr. Munro (Tertius), Outlines of the Anatomy of the Human Body in
its sound and diseased State,
vol. ii. p. 111. 1813.

y.
[Seite 324]

Phil. Trans. 1808.

z.
[Seite 324]

Transactions of the Medical Society of London, vol. ii. 1788. In the lion,
bear, &c., the stomach is usually found divided by a slight contraction at its
middle, and in some animals of the mouse kind by a slight elevation of its inner
coat.

a.
[Seite 325]

Transactions of a Society for the Improvement of Medical and Surgical Know-
ledge,
vol. ii. p. 138. sq.

b.
[Seite 325]

Phil. Trans. 1824.

c.
[Seite 325]

Recherches Physiologiques et Chimiques pour servir à l’Histoire de la Digestion.
Paris, 1825.

d.
[Seite 327]

J. Hunter, Observations on certain Parts of the Animal Economy.

e.
[Seite 327]

Phil. Trans. 1814.

a.
[Seite 328]

Laur. Claussen, De Intestini Duodeni situ et nexu. Lips. 1757. 4to. Re-
printed in Sandifort’s Thes. vol. iii.

And his Tabulae Intestini Duodeni. LB. 1780. 4to.

b.
[Seite 328]

De Chyli a faecibus alvinis secretione. LB. 1659. 4to.

c.
[Seite 328]

De succi Pancreatici Natura et Usu. ib. 1664. 12mo.

d.
[Seite 328]

Pro Veteri Medicina. ib. 1670. 12mo.

e.
[Seite 328]

De Purgantium Medicamentorum Facultatibus. ib. 1672. 8vo.

f.
[Seite 328]

Observationum Anatomic. Collegii privati Amstelodamens. P. ii. in quibus
praecipue de piscium pancreate ejusque succo agitur,
Amst. 1673. 12mo.

g.
[Seite 328]

Experimenta nova circa pancreas. Amst. 1683. 8vo.

h.
[Seite 329]

Santorini, Tab. Post. xiii. fig. 1.

i.
[Seite 330]

Consult Marherr, Praelectiones in Her. Boerhaave, Instit. Med. t. i. § ci.

a.
[Seite 331]

Eustachius, tab. xi. fig. 3, 4.

Ruysch, Thes. Anat. ix. tab. iv.

Santorini, Tab. Posth. xi.

b.
[Seite 331]

J. Bleuland, Icon hepatis foetus octimestris. Traj. ad Rhen. 1789. 4to.

F. L. D. Ebeling, De Pulmonum cum hepate antagonismo. Gott. 1806. 8vo.

c.
[Seite 331]

See Nic. Mulder’s Diss. de functione hepatis, in Disquisitione zootomica illius
visceris nixa.
Lugd. Bat. 1818. 8vo.

d.
[Seite 331]

In which, however, Autenreith discovers two substances, the one medullary
and the other cortical. Archiv. für die Physiol. t. vii. p. 299.

Consult also J. M. Mappes’s Dissertation, De penitiori hepatis humani structura,
Tub. 1817. 8vo.

e.
[Seite 331]

Walter, tab. iv.

f.
[Seite 331]

Maur. v. Reverhorst, De motu bilis circulari ejusque morbis, tab. i. fig. 1, 2.

Ruysch, Ep. Problemat. v. tab. vi.

Werner and Feller, Descriptio vasor. lacteor. atque lymphaticor. Fascic. i.
tab. iii. et iv.; although Fr. Aug. Walter finds fault with these plates, Annot.
Academic.
p. 191. sq.

Mascagni, tab. xvii, xviii.

g.
[Seite 332]

See Haller, Icones Anat. Fascic. ii. tab. ii.

h.
[Seite 332]

Glisson, Anatomia Hepatis. p. 305. sq. 1659.

i.
[Seite 332]

De Venarum Arteriarumque dissectione, p. 109. Opera. Basil. 1562. Cl. i.

k.
[Seite 332]

Nest. Maximeow. Ambodick, De Hepate. Argent. 1775. 4to.

l.
[Seite 332]

De viscerum structura, p. 11. Lond. 1669.

m.
[Seite 333]

This has lately found an advocate in Rich. Powel, On the Bile and its
Diseases.
Lond. 1801. 8vo.

n.
[Seite 333]

In the ox and other brutes there are peculiar hepato-cystic ducts, which con-
vey the bile directly from the liver to the gall-bladder.

See Observat. Anatom. Collegii privati Amstelodamens. P. i. Ams. 1667. 12mo.
p. 16. fig. 7.

Also, Perrault, Essays de Physique, t. i. p. 339. tab. ii.

Some have inconsiderately allowed them also in the human subject: v. c. De
Haen, Ratio medendi contin. P. ii. p. 46. sq. tab. x. fig. 1.

Also Pitschel, Anat. und chirurg. Anmerk. Dresd. 1784. 8vo. tab. i.

Consult more at large, R. Forsten, Quaestiones selectae physiologicae. Lugd.
Batav. 1774. 4to. p. 22.

o.
[Seite 334]

Ruysch, Epist. problem. quinta. Tab. v. fig. 3.

p.
[Seite 334]

Vicq-d’Azyr, Oeuvres, t. v. p. 343.

q.
[Seite 334]

Casp. Fr. Wolff, Act. Acad. Scient. Petropol. 1779. P. ii.

r.
[Seite 334]

Caldesi, Osservaz. intorno alle Tartarughe. Tab. ii. fig. 10.

But especially Wolff, lately commended, l. c. P. i. tab. vi.

Also Fr. Aug. Walter, l. c. tab. i.

s.
[Seite 334]

Caldani, Institut. Physiolog. p. 364. sq. Patav. 1778. 8vo.

t.
[Seite 334]

See Reverhorst, l. c. tab. ii. fig. 3.

Ruysch, l. c. tab. v. fig. 4.

Werner and Feller, l. c. tab. ii. fig. 5.

Mascagni, tab. xviii.

u.
[Seite 335]

On the variety of colour in the bile, consult Bordenave, Analyse de la Bile,
in the Mém. Présentés, &c. t. vii. p. 611. 617.

x.
[Seite 335]

Joachim Ramm, De alcalina bilis natura. Jen. 1786. 4to.

J. Fr. Straehl, De bilis natura. Gotting. 1787. 8vo.

W. M. Richter, Experimenta circa bilis naturam. Erlang. 1788. 4to.

y.
[Seite 335]

Thenard, Mémoires de la Société d’Arcueil. t. i.

z.
[Seite 335]

His Experimenta ad veriorem cysticae bilis indolem explorandam capta. Sect. i.
Gotting. 1764. 4to.

a.
[Seite 335]

It will be sufficient to quote a few of a large number: –

Spielmann, De natura bilis. Argent. 1767. 4to.

Jer. Gysb. ten. Haaf, De bile cystica. L B. 1772. 4to.

G. Chr. Utendörfer, Experim. de bile. Argent. 1774. 4to.

Dav. Willink, Consideratio bilis. L B. 1778. 8vo.

Seb. Goldwitz, Neue Vers. zu einer wahren Physiol. der Galle. Bamberg.
1785. 8vo.

b.
[Seite 335]

Marherr, Praelect. in Boerhavii institut. 1785. vol. i. p. 463. 479.

c.
[Seite 336]

Chr. L. Werner, (Praes. Autenreith) Experimenta circa modum, quo chymus
in chylum mutatur.
Tubing. 1800. 8vo.

d.
[Seite 336]

See G. Fordyce, On the Digestion of Food, p. 70.

f.
[Seite 337]

Phil. Trans. vol. lxxxiii.

g.
[Seite 337]

Medico-Chirurgic. Trans. vol. iv. p. 174.

h.
[Seite 337]

Edinburgh Journal of Medical Science, No. 1. p. 229. This effect of tying
the vena portae was long ago observed. See Sömmering, De c. h. Fabrica, t. vi.
p. 182.

i.
[Seite 337]

Perspiratio dicta Hippocrat. 563.

k.
[Seite 337]

Phil. Trans. 1749. The subject was a woman sixty years of age. Also
l. c. 1813. Transact. of the Coll. of Phys. vol. vi. Mr. Cooke’s edition of
Morgagni, and Gazette de France, 1826.

l.
[Seite 337]

Animal Chemistry, p. 65.

m.
[Seite 338]

Med. Chirurg. Trans. vol. iii. p. 241.

n.
[Seite 338]

Système des Connoissances Chimiques, t. x. p. 49.

o.
[Seite 338]

Dr. Prout, Thomson’s Annals of Philosophy. 1819. p. 273.

p.
[Seite 339]

In the year 1817, Dr. James Blundell tied the choledochus several times,
in the dog and rabbit, and has ever since mentioned the results in his physiologi-
cal lectures. Generally the animal died of peritoneal inflammation, the bile
forcing its way into the cavity among the viscera, when the ligature had produced
ulceration; but when the animal did not die, the jaundice disappeared after a
time, and the animal was nourished as before: the bile had found some outlet.
On opening the animals, about a fortnight after the experiment, he discovered
that coagulable lymph had been effused round the tied portion of the duct, so
as to re-establish the canal, and the ligatures had disappeared. Dr. Blundell’s
well known accuracy renders all confirmation unnecessary, but I may mention, that
Mr. Brodie and others have since made the same experiment with the same results.

Dr. Blundell has on record the cases of two infants, four or five months old,
in whom the hepatic ducts terminated blindly; so that no bile entered the intes-
tines, and the stools were white, like spermaceti, and the skin jaundiced. But
the infants grew rapidly, and throve tolerably notwithstanding. He therefore
saw that nourishment could be accomplished without the mixture of bile and
chyme. Of these cases, one was examined by Mr. Luke, of the London Hospital,
the other by Mr. Gaunt, of Falcon Square.

Dr. Blundell has for many years been in the habit of displaying the precipitating
agency of the bile upon the chyme, by varying the mode of admixture: 1. By
working chyme and bile together, when the white chyle appears in the mass, like
veins in marble: 2. By enclosing chyme in black silk, and wetting a part of the
external surface of this printer’s ball, as it may be called, with bile; when, on
rendering it tense, the liquid portion of the chyme oozes through the texture, and
renders it generally blacker, but whitens it conspicuously in those spots where it
meets with bile: 3. By filtering the chyme repeatedly, and then dipping into
the thin strained fluid a rod with a drop of bile at its extremity, white chyle
appears at the point of contact.

He found the same results in the curious hybrid experiment, of employing
the bile of a dog and the chyme of a rabbit.

a.
[Seite 342]

Ch. Drelincourt, the younger, has carefully collected and concisely related
whatever was known up to his time, respecting the spleen; De lienosis, at the end
of his father’s Opuscula. Boerhaave’s edition, p. 710. sq.

Consult, also, Chr. Lud. Roloff, De fabrica functione lienis. Frf. ad Viadr.
1750. 4to.

But among more recent writers, see L. J. P. Assolant, Recherches sur la
Rate,
Par. 10. 8vo.

C. F. Heussinger, über den Bau und die Verrichtung der Milz. Isen. 1817.
8vo.

And Chr. Hellw. Schmidt, Commentatio (which gained the royal prize) de pa-
thologia lienis,
&c. Gott. 1816. 4to.

b.
[Seite 342]

Walter, tab. iii. G.

Mascagni, tab. xiv. P.

c.
[Seite 342]

See Sandifort, Natuur en genees-kundige Bibl. vol. ii. p. 345. sq.

d.
[Seite 343]

See Lobstein’s Dissertation, Nonnulla de Liene sistens. Argent. 1773. 4to.

e.
[Seite 343]

The singular and rather paradoxical opinions of Hewson, without doubt, a
very superior man, respecting the functions of the spleen, may be found in his
posthumous work, entitled Experimental Inquiries. Part III. London. 1777.
8vo. C. ii. S. xlv. sq. xcv. sq.

f.
[Seite 344]

J. H. Schulze, De splene canibus exciso. Hal. 1735. 4to.

g.
[Seite 344]

Vinc. Malacarne, Memorie della Soc. Italiana, t. viii. P. 1. p. 233.

A. Moreschi, Del vero e primario uso della milza. Milan, 1803. 8vo.

h.
[Seite 344]

Ever. Home, Phil. Trans. 1808. More lately, however, in the same Trans-
actions, for 1811, this very acute author regards the spleen rather as a secreting
organ, and its large and numerous lymphatic vessels, running to the thoracic
duct, as supplying the place of an excretory canal.

i.
[Seite 344]

For instance, the size of the spleen in those warm-blooded animals which
never drink; or in bisulcous animals, whose spleen adheres to the paunch, re-
ceiving the crude food only, but never the drink, which is prevented from entering
it by the well-known mechanism of a semicanal running from the oesophagus to
the omasum.

k.
[Seite 345]

Of the Spleen, its description and history, uses and diseases, particularly the
vapors, with their remedy. Being a lecture read at the Royal College of Physicians.

By Wm. Stukely, M. D. C. M. L. and S. R. S. London, 1722. folio.

l.
[Seite 345]

Cox’s Medical Museum, Philad. 1807.

m.
[Seite 346]

Natural Theology, c. xi.

a.
[Seite 348]

Eustachius, tab. ix.

Haller, Icones anat. fasc. i. tab. iv. K. M., and the Appendix Colica, which
he himself investigated at Göttingen in 1740. ib. R.

Rob. Steph. Henry, Descript. omenti c. icone nova. Hafn. 1748. 4to.

b.
[Seite 348]

Eustachius, tab. x. fig. 1. G. H.

Haller, l. c. Q.

c.
[Seite 348]

C. J. M. Langenbeck, Commentarius de structura peritonaei, &c. Gott. 1817.
4to. with copper-plates.

d.
[Seite 349]

I have lately seen similar appendices on the peritonaeal covering of an uterus
unimpregnated, but which had formerly been pregnant.

e.
[Seite 349]

Walter, tab. ii. m. m. m.

f.
[Seite 349]

Bidloo, Anatomia hum. corporis, tab. xxxix. fig. 6. C. C. C. D. D. D.

g.
[Seite 349]

v. Chaussier, Mémoires de l’Acad. de Dijon. 1784. Semestr. iii. p. 95.

a.
[Seite 350]

Chr. Bernh. Albinus, Specimen anat. exhibens novam tenuium hominis intes-
tinor. descriptionem.
L B. 1724. 8vo.

b.
[Seite 350]

B. S. Albinus, Annotat. Academ. L. ii. tab. iv. fig. 1, 2.

c.
[Seite 351]

Eustachius, tab. xxvii. fig. 2. 4.

d.
[Seite 351]

B. S. Albinus, Dissert. de arteriis et venis intestin. hominis, with coloured
plates. L B. 1736. 4to.

Also his Annotat. Acad. L. iii. tab. i, ii.

e.
[Seite 351]

Kerkring, Spicilegium anatomicum, tab. xiv. fig. 1, 2.

f.
[Seite 351]

He estimated their number, in the small intestines of an adult, to be about
500,000.

g.
[Seite 351]

De fabrica et actione villorum intestinor. tenuium hominis. L B. 1745. 4to.

J. Bleuland, Descriptio vasculorum in intestinorum tenuium tunicis. Ultraj.
1797. 4to.

R. A. Hedwig, Disquisitio ampullarum Lieburkühnii. Lips. 1797. 4to.

C. A. Rudolphi, Anatomisch-physiologische Abhandlungen. Berlin. 1802. 8vo.
p. 39.

h.
[Seite 351]

J. Conr. a Brunn, Glandulae duodeni s. pancreas secundarium. Francof.
1715. 4to. fig. 1.

i.
[Seite 352]

J. Conr. Peyer, De Glandulis intestinorum. Scafhus. 1677. 8vo. especially
fig. 3.

k.
[Seite 352]

Lieberkühn, l. c. p. 17. tab. iii.

l.
[Seite 352]

The eminent Rudolphi thinks differently, l. c. p. 212.

m.
[Seite 352]

These intestinal aphthae exactly resemble those tubercles which Sheldon, in
a work which we shall presently quote, exhibits (Tab. 1.) as small ampullae full
of chyle.

n.
[Seite 352]

De purgantium medicamentor. facultat. p. 509. – tab. iv.

o.
[Seite 352]

Benj. Schwartz, Be vomitu et motu intestinorum. L B. 1745. 4to.

J. Foelix, De motu peristaltico intestinorum. Trevir. 1750. 4to.

p.
[Seite 353]

Consult the excellent observations and experiments of A. E. Ferd. Emmert,
Archiv. für die Physiologie, t. viii. p. 145.

q.
[Seite 353]

We formerly (387) remarked, that the bilious colour of the faeces arose from
the excrementitious part of the bile. In the jejunum, the bile being undecom-
posed and mixed with the equable pulp of the intestines, and consequently dif-
fused and diluted, cannot exhibit its true colour. But after its separation into
two parts, the excrementitious portion, mixed with the precipitated faeces, and,
as it were, again concentrated, now discovers its original colour, and imparts it
to the faeces.

C. F. Wolff (Act. Petropolit. 1779. P. ii. p. 245.) entertains a different opi-
nion in regard to the cause of the bilious colour of the faeces contained in the
ileum. He conceives that an addition of bile occurs near the extremity of the
jejunum, by exhaling from the gall-bladder and penetrating this part of the intestine
and its contents,
and that this bile differing, perhaps, in its nature, from the bile
of the choledochus, and not being mixed with the faeces as the latter is with the
chyme, retains its colour through all the remaining tract of the intestines, and
continues pure bile.

But, besides our being able easily to explain why this colour is not observable
before the decomposition of the chyme and bile, it is extremely doubtful whether,
during life and health, any exhalation can occur from the gall-bladder and pe-
netrate the intestine. For in subjects recent and scarcely cold, we have seen the
intestines but slightly tinged with bile, although dyed with it very deeply and
extensively after a lapse of some hours or days, i. e. after the coats of the gall-
bladder had lost their tone and become incapable of preventing the transudation
of their contents.

r.
[Seite 354]

Haller, De valvula coli. Gotting. 1742. 4 to., reprinted in his Oper. minor.
t. i. p. 580. sq.

T. Mich. Röderer, De valvula coli. Argent. 1768. 4to.

s.
[Seite 354]

The various opinions respecting the discoverer of this remarkable valve are
well known. Haller’s Elementa, t. vii. P. 1. p. 142., may be consulted on this
point.

In the mean time I am certain that, long before the period at which its disco-
very is in general dated, it was accurately known to that immortal anatomist
Gabr. Fallopius. In the library of our university there is a manuscript of Fal-
lopius, containing, among other things, his anatomy of the monkey, in which is an
account of the structure and use of the valve of the colon, delivered in a public
demonstration at Padua, Feb. 2. 1553, in the following words: ‘“The use of the
caecum in the monkey, is to prevent the regurgitation of the food during progression
on all fours. This is proved by the circumstance of water or air, thrown into the
rectum, reaching the caecum, but not passing beyond the large intestines. But, if
impelled from above, it passes into them. The reason is this,
at the insertion of
the ileum are two folds, which are compressed by inflation and repletion, as occurs
in the heart, and prevent retrogression; wherefore, in man, clysters cannot pass and
be rejected through the mouth, unless in a weak and diseased state of the intestines.
”’

t.
[Seite 354]

A view of a recent and entire valve is exhibited by B. S. Albinus in his
Annotat. Acad. L. iii. tab. v. fig. 1.

And overcharged by inflation and drying, in Santorini’s Posthumous Tables,
xiv. fig. 1, 2.

u.
[Seite 354]

Lieberkühn, De valvula coli et usu processus vermiularis. L B. 1739. 4to.

Joach. Vosse, De intestino caeco ejusque appendice vermiformi. Gotting. 1749.
4 to.

x.
[Seite 355]

Eustachius, tab. x. fig. 2. 4, 5.

y.
[Seite 355]

All these parts may be seen as they exist in each sex, in Santorini’s Posth.
Tables, xvi, and xvii.

z.
[Seite 356]

Dr. Prout, Thomson’s Annals of Philosophy. 1819.

a.
[Seite 356]

See Abernethy, Surgical Observations, Part II. p. 34.

b.
[Seite 358]

Observations on certain parts of the Animal Economy.

c.
[Seite 358]

See Dr. Baillie in Transact. of Society for Improvement of Med. and Surg.
Knowledge,
vol. i.

c.
[Seite 359]

Commentarii, p. 14.

a.
[Seite 360]

A very copious list of writers upon the absorbents will be found in Söm-
mering’s work, De morbis vasorum absorbentium corporis humani. Francof.
1795. 8vo.

b.
[Seite 360]

Ant. Müller, Experimenta circa chylum. Heidelb. 1819. 8vo.

c.
[Seite 361]

Phil. Trans. No. 143., compared with No. 275.

d.
[Seite 361]

This experiment, which was repeated with the same result by Haller, Foelix,
J. Hunter, and others, has not succeeded in the hands of the distinguished Tiede-
mann and Gmelin, who have therefore expressed doubts respecting it in their ex-
cellent work, über die Wege auf welchen Substanzen aus dem Magen und Darm-
kanal im Blut gelangen,
&c. Heidelb. 1821. 8vo. p. 61. sq.

e.
[Seite 361]

Boerhaave and Ruysch, De fabrica glandularum opusculum. L B. 1722.
4to. p. 81.

f.
[Seite 361]

Mascagni, tab. xvi.

g.
[Seite 362]

See Nuck, De inventis novis ep. Anatomica, p. 146. sq.

h.
[Seite 362]

T. Gothofr. Brendel, De chyli ad sanguinem publico privatoque potissimum
commeatu per venas mesaraicas non improbabili.
Gott. 1738. 4to.

i.
[Seite 362]

v. J. Rezia, Specim. Observat. Anatomicar. et Pathologicar. Ticini. 1784.
8vo. p. 18.

k.
[Seite 362]

The circumstance of life continuing, although in a weak state, for many
months after the rupture of the thoracic duct (an instance of which is related by
Lentin, Beytr. zur ausüb. Arzneywissensch. vol. i. p. 277. and 294.), would be a
stronger argument, if extraordinary and unnatural phenomena of this kind could
render the regular functions of the healthy human body doubtful, since, in ex-
plaining physiological phenomena, we look for natural, to use the words of
Seneca, and not rare and fortuitous causes. Who, for example, would entertain a
doubt of the functions of the uropoietic organs, because some poor creatures
whose urethra was closed from a badly managed wound, have for many years
discharged urine by vomiting nearly every day and in proper quantity. A
remarkable case of this kind is carefully described by Zeviani, Memorie di Ma-
temat. e Fisica della Soc. Italiana,
t. vi. p. 93.

l.
[Seite 363]

Werner and Feller, l. c. p. 12. sq.

m.
[Seite 363]

For that the passage of the yolk into the incubated chicken, takes place dif-
ferently, at least as far as I can judge, I have mentioned in the Handb. der ver-
gleichend. Anat.
p. 542. ed. 2.

n.
[Seite 363]

There have been various disputes of late respecting the terminations of both
lacteals and lymphatics (viz. whether they belong ultimately and solely to the
principal trunks presently (437) to be mentioned, or whether they are in a great
measure inserted at once into neighbouring veins), and against absorption being a
function peculiar to them, it being ascribed not only to the mesenteric but to other
veins by some of the latest physiologists; respecting the different opinions of whom
consult, among others,

B. Nath. Gottl. Schreger, Fragmenta anatomica et physiologica. Fas. I. Lips.
1791. 4to. p. 26.

Flor. Caldani, Riflessioni sopra alcuni punti di un nuovo sistema devasi assor-
benti,
&c. Padua, 1792. 8vo. p. 58.

And his uncle Leop. M. A. Caldani’s Commentary in the Memorie lette nell’
Accad. di Padova.
1804. 4to.

Fr. L. Kreysig, Handb. der pract. Krankheitslehre, ii. Th. 1. Abth. p. 436.

F. Magendie, Précis de Physiologie, t. ii. p. 222. of the German translation, by
C. F. Heusinger.

Mayer and Ribes, in Meckel’s Promptuarium of Physiology, vol. iii. and v.

Also C. W. L. Jaeckel, de Absorptione venosa. Berol. 1819. 8vo.

And Westrumb’s Commentary, which is quoted below in Sect. XXXIV.

o.
[Seite 363]

Sheldon, l. c. tab. v.

p.
[Seite 363]

See Haller, Observationes de ductu thoracico in theatro Gottingensi factae.
Gotting. 1741. 4to.

B. S. Albinus, Tabula vasis chyliferi. L B. 1757. large folio.

Mascagni, tab. xix.

q.
[Seite 363]

See v. c. J. C. Bohl, Viae lacteae. c. h. historia naturalis. Regiom. 1741. 4to.

Sömmering, Commentat. Soc. Scient. Gottingens. t. xiii. p. 111.

r.
[Seite 364]

v. Haller, Opera Minora, vol. i. tab. xii.

s.
[Seite 364]

Consult, among others already and hereafter quoted, J. F. Meckel, De vasis
lymphaticis glandulisque conglobatis.
Berol. 1757. 4to.

And Al. Monro, filius, De venis lymphaticis valvulosis. ib. same year. 8vo.

t.
[Seite 364]

W. Hunter, Medical Commentaries, P. i. p. 5. sq.

u.
[Seite 364]

J. Elliotson has adduced new arguments showing that cutaneous absorption
has been doubted of late without good reason, in his notes to the English trans-
lation of these Institutions, p. 129. 3d edit. 1820.

x.
[Seite 364]

Mascagni, tab. i, ii, iii.

T. Gottl. Haase, De vasis cutis et intestinorum absorbentibus, &c. Lips. 1786.
fol. tab. i.

y.
[Seite 365]

On this remarkable difference consult T. Fr. Lucr. Albrecht, Commentatio
(honoured with the Royal Prize) in qua proponitur recensus eorum alimentor. et
medicaminum, quibus, sive tubo alimentario sint ingesta, sive communibus corporis
integumentis applicata, ingressus in systema vasor. sanguifer. aut concessus a na-
tura, aut negatus sit.
Gotting. 1806. 4to.

z.
[Seite 365]

Conr. Jer. Ontyd (Praesidente Seb. Just. Brugmans), De Causa absorp-
tionis per vasa lymphatica.
Lugd. Bat. 1795. 8vo. p. 45.

v. Al. Van Hees, De causa functionis absorbentis systematis lymphatici. ib.
1817. 4to. p. 38.

a.
[Seite 366]

Consult, among others, Valer. Lud. Brera, Anatripsologia; fourth edition.
Pavia, 1799. 2 vols. 8vo.

A. J. Chrestien, De la méthode iatroliptice. Montpell. 1803. 8vo. In German,
Gotting. 1813. 8vo.

b.
[Seite 366]

Decade 1. Collection of the crania of different nations, p. 27.

c.
[Seite 366]

If we consider the winding course which nature has provided for the pur-
pose of changing and assimilating the absorbed fluids before their admixture with
[Seite 367] the blood; and, on the other hand, the dreadful symptoms, such as palpitation,
convulsions, &c., which ensue upon the artificial infusion of a minute portion of any
mild fluid into the blood, we shall be inclined to believe that those absorptions
which Haller endeavours to prove are accomplished by the veins, do really take
place by means of the lymphatic system. De c. h. Funct. vol. i. p. 281. sq.

d.
[Seite 367]

Nuck, Adenographia Curiosa. L B. 1696. 8vo.

e.
[Seite 367]

Wilson, Lectures on the Blood, &c. p. 198.

f.
[Seite 367]

Wilson, l. c. p. 203. Mr. Abernethy has described them in the whale as
well as in the horse. Phil. Trans. 1796.

g.
[Seite 368]

Précis Elémentaire, &c. t. ii. p. 178. sq.

h.
[Seite 368]

On the Digestion of the Food, p. 122.

i.
[Seite 368]

Medical Commentaries.

k.
[Seite 368]

l. c. p. 185. sq.

l.
[Seite 369]

l. c. t. ii. p. 200. sqq. 257. sqq.

m.
[Seite 370]

Phil. Trans. 1811.

n.
[Seite 370]

Rees’s Cyclopaedia: Anatomy, Veterinary.

o.
[Seite 370]

On the Absorbents, p. 50.

p.
[Seite 370]

Mr. Coulson’s edition of Mr. Lawrence’s translation of Blumenbach’s
Manual of Comparative Anatomy, p. 172.

q.
[Seite 371]

Hence, especially in a hot atmosphere, if the examination of a dead subject
is long delayed, parts may become so dyed with imbibed blood, that their redness
may be, and often is, mistaken for inflammation. See an important paper by
Dr. John Davy, Med. Chir. Trans. vol. x.

r.
[Seite 371]

A. Kaau, Perspiratio dicta Hippocrati. 563.

s.
[Seite 371]

Med. Commentaries.

t.
[Seite 371]

Journal de Physiologie, t. iii.

u.
[Seite 371]

See Hewson’s arguments against transudation, Experimental Inquiry, P. ii.

x.
[Seite 372]

In this I fully agree with Dr. Bostock, l. c. vol. ii. p. 587. sqq.

y.
[Seite 372]

Précis de Physiol. t. ii. p. 202. sq.

z.
[Seite 372]

l. c. t. ii. p. 267.

a.
[Seite 373]

Sir Astley Cooper, Med. Records and Researches. A ligature of the tho-
racic duct does not necessarily deprive the body of nourishment, because there
are sometimes two ducts, and sometimes one or more small trunks, which unite
with it, or have a different termination in the venous system.

Dr. Magendie observed in the dog, that the contents of the thoracic duct flow
but slowly, though more quickly during compression of the abdominal viscera.

On wounding it after a meal, he obtained half an ounce in five minutes, and
they flowed for some time.

b.
[Seite 373]

Dr. Prout, in Thomson’s Annals of Philosophy. 1819. p. 274.

c.
[Seite 373]

Blumenbach, l. c. p. 174.

d.
[Seite 374]

Experimental Researches, p. 102. The application of a vacuum in poisonous
wounds has been recommended from the days of Hippocrates to those of Dr.
Parry (Cases of Tetanus and Canine Hydrophobia), but its effects never shown
so beautifully as by Dr. Barry. He recommends that the cupping-glasses should
be first applied for an hour; that the suppression of absorption for some hours
being thus insured, the part should be excised, and then the glasses re-applied to
remove any portion of the poison that may remain, for the vacuum was found
to extract some of the poison.

e.
[Seite 374]

Dissertatio Anatomica de circulatione sanguinis et chyli motu, p. 76. Paris, 1651.

f.
[Seite 376]

See an interesting history of these discoveries, by Dr. Meigs, Philadelphia
Journal,
1825. No. 2. New series. Haller gives the discovery to Rudbeck.

Rudbeck says he first happened to see them while examining the hemorrhoidal
vessels of a dog, Jan. 27. 1651. He published in 1653. Bartholin, that he
first chanced to see them while dissecting a dog, Dec. 15. 1651., but did not
notice them particularly till Feb. 28. 1652. He published in 1653. As to
Joliff, we only read in Glisson, that, at the beginning of June 1652, going to
Cambridge for his doctor’s degree, he showed them to Glisson, who was then
professor of medicine. Glisson published in 1654; Joliff never published,
and probably had learnt the continental discovery while travelling. Bartholin
is thought to have received a hint of Rudbeck’s discovery.

a.
[Seite 378]

Especially, according to the opinion of Cuvier, in the conversion of the
chyle into the lymphatic or fibrous part of the blood. Leçons d’Anatomie Com-
parée,
t. i. p. 91. t. iv. p. 304.

Consult Thomson, System of Chemistry, vol. iv. p. 497.

Also Bostock’s work, recommended above in the chapter On Respiration.

b.
[Seite 379]

Dr. Marcet, Med. Chir. Trans. vol. vi. His observations were of course
made upon the fluid obtained from brutes.

c.
[Seite 379]

Emmert, Annales de Chimie, t. lxxx.

d.
[Seite 379]

Dr. Prout, in Thomson’s Annals. 1819. p. 275.

e.
[Seite 380]

Observat. Med. rariores, lib. iii. Obs. 27. Dr. Charles Smith, of New
Jersey, relates an example of ascites in a boy twelve years of age, where the fluid
accumulated was of a chalky white colour, had pretty nearly the smell, taste, and
appearance of milk, and threw up good cream after standing a night. Between
seven and eight quarts of this were twice removed by tapping. Philos. Mag.
vol. ix. p. 168.

f.
[Seite 380]

Vol. xii.

g.
[Seite 381]

See also Vauquelin, Annales de Chimie, t. lxxxi. 181.

a.
[Seite 382]

‘“Nutrition, in fact, appears to be a continued generation,”’ according to
the old observation of the very ingenious Ent. See his work, already (290. g.)
recommended.

b.
[Seite 382]

Th. Young, De corporis humani viribus conservatricibus. Gotting. 1796. 8vo.

Fl. J. Van Maanen, De natura humana sui ipsius conservatrice ac medicatrice.
Harderv. 1801. 8vo.

c.
[Seite 382]

See the great J. Bernouilli’s Diss. de nutrit. Groning. 1669. 4to. He
estimates the continual, though insensible, loss and reparation of the solids so
high, that the whole body may be said to be destroyed and renewed every three
years.

d.
[Seite 383]

See J. Chr. Kemme, Beurtheilung eines Beweises vor die Immaterialität der
Seele aus der Medecin.
Halle. 1776. 8vo.

And his, Zweifel und Erinnerungen wider die Lehre der Aerzte von der Ernäh-
rung der festen Theile.
Ibid. 1778. 8vo.

e.
[Seite 383]

Respecting this mutability of the bones, I have spoken at some length in my
osteological work, ed. 2. p. 26. and elsewhere.

f.
[Seite 383]

Consult among others G. L. Koeler, Experimenta circa regenerationem ossium.
Gotting. 1786. 8vo.

Alex. Herm. Macdonald, De necrosi ac callo. Edinb. 1799. 8vo.

g.
[Seite 383]

That the corium is not really reproduced, is probable, not only from its per-
petual cicatrices (for some contend that the matter of these does not continue,
but their form only, which is preserved by a perpetual apposition of fresh particles
in the room of the decayed and absorbed), but much more by the lines and figures
which are made upon the skin by the singular art of pricking it with a needle
(a process denominated in the barbarous language of the Otaheiteans tatooing),
and imparting to the corium a blue or red colour, as permanent as the cicatriculae,
by means of charcoal powder, ashes, soot, the juices of plants, or ox-gall; while
on the other hand, the red hue imparted to the bones, by means of madder,
quickly disappears, as these parts undergo a continual renovation.

h.
[Seite 384]

Zwo Abhandlungen über die Nutritionskraft welche von der Acad. der Wiss.
in St. Petersburg den Preiss getheilt erhalten haben.
Petersberg. 1789. 4to.

De Grimaud, Mémoire sur la nutrition qui a obtenu l’accessit. Ib. same
year. 4to.

Steph. J. P. Housset, on the same subject (in the same school) in his Mémoires
physiologiques et d’hist. naturelle.
Auxerre. 1787. 8vo. t. i. p. 98.

i.
[Seite 385]

J. Robertson, On the specific gravity of living men. Philos. Trans. vol. l.
P. i. p. 30. sq.

k.
[Seite 385]

Manchester Memoirs, vol. i.

l.
m.
[Seite 386]

Observationes Medicae, iv. 56.

n.
[Seite 386]

Edinburgh Med. and Physical Essays, vol. v.

o.
[Seite 386]

Mr. Bauer thinks he has observed vegetable tubes to be constructed by the
extrication of carbonic acid gas into a slimy matter prepared for nutrition. Some
such opinion was held by Borelli, Tabor, and Hales. He explains the form-
ation of blood-vessels in coagulated fibrin and pus in an analogous manner, but
his experiments have not yet advanced far enough for me to dwell upon them.
Phil. Trans. 1818, and 1819.

Not only divided parts re-unite, but even portions completely separated and
cold, and parts of different bodies. A soldier’s arm was struck off at the battle
of Arlon, with the exception of a piece of skin and the subjacent vessels and
nerves, and yet the muscles, bones, &c., completely re-united in about eight
months. Dictionnaire des Sciences Médicales, t. xii. Garengeot saw a nose
unite after being bitten off, trampled upon, and allowed to lie in the dirt till it
was cold. Traité des Operations de Chirurgerie, t. iii. Dr. Balfour saw a si-
milar occurrence in the instance of a finger. Edinburgh Med. and Surgical
Journal.
1815. Others might be quoted. See Dr. Thomson’s Lectures on In-
flammation,
p. 243.

Transplantation, for instance, of the cock’s testes to the hen’s abdomen, as well
as of the spur to the head, is very common, and the latter was mentioned nearly
two centuries ago in Bartholin, Epist. Cent. i. p. 174.; and by Duhamel, in the
Mém. de l’Acad. Royale des Sciences, 1746., as very common in poultry-
yards.

p.
[Seite 386]

An Experimental Inquiry, &c. See also Dr. Charles Parry’s work, in
which similar experiments are related.

q.
[Seite 387]

Dr. Thomson, Lectures on Inflammation, p. 417.

r.
[Seite 387]

Feathers which are not cast off, have been discovered to receive an increase
of colour at the moulting season. Linnaean Transactions. 1818.

s.
[Seite 387]

This corroborates the propriety of the view taken by Dr. Prout in an un-
published paper written many years ago, in which he contends that the teeth are
to be arranged with the integuments. A similar opinion has been lately pub-
lished in France.

t.
[Seite 387]

M. M. Cocteau and Le Roy d’Etiolle. Magendie’s Journal de Physiologie.
Janvier, 1827.

u.
[Seite 387]

Göttingen Literary Notices. 1787. p. 28. 30.

a.
[Seite 389]

[...]. Fouquet on Secretion, in the Encyclopedical Dictionary of Paris, t. xiv.

Fr. L. Kreysig, De secretionibus. Sp. i, ii. Lips. 1794. sq. 4to.

Ignat. Döllinger, Was ist Absonderung, und wie Geschieht sie? Herbipol.
1819. 8vo.

b.
[Seite 390]

Physiologists have lately given different explanations of this mode of secre-
tion. Some assert that every fluid is formed by passing merely through inorganic
pores from the blood: others altogether deny the existence of these pores. I
think much of this is a verbal dispute. Because, on the one hand, I cannot
imagine how inorganic pores can be supposed to exist in an organised body, for
we are not speaking here of the common interstices of matter, in physics deno-
minated pores; and I am persuaded that every opening in organised bodies is of
an organic nature, and possesses vital powers exactly correspondent. On the
other hand, these openings or pores, which indisputably exist in the coats of
vessels, I think but little different in function at least from the cylindrical ducts
through which fluids are said to percolate in conglomerate glands and secreting
viscera: for this percolation depends less on the form of the organ than on its
vital powers.

Consult, among others, Schreger, Fragmenta, p, 37. sq. already recommended.

[Seite 391]

P. Lupi, Nova per poros inorganicos secretionum theoria refutata, &c. Romae.
1793. 2 vols. 8vo.

Kreysig, Specimen Secundum; formerly recommended.

Also C. Le Gallois, Le sang est-il identique dans tous les vaisseaux qu’il parcourt?
Paris, 1802. 8vo.

c.
[Seite 391]

Sam. Hendy, On Glandular Secretion. Lond. 1775. 8vo.

d.
[Seite 391]

In works repeatedly quoted, and also in his Diss. de glandulis conglobatis.
Lond. 1689. 4to.

But consult especially his Opera Posthuma. ib. 1697. fol.; and published
likewise elsewhere.

e.
[Seite 392]

Al. Schumlansky, De structura renum. Argent. 1782. 4to. tab. ii.

f.
[Seite 392]

Compare, for instance, the form of the kidneys in mammalia with the true
conglomerate glands which supply their place in birds; or the pancreas of warm-
blooded animals with the pyloric appendices which, although varying in appear-
ance in different fish, secrete a fluid very similar to the pancreatic.

h.
[Seite 394]

An Elementary System of Physiology, vol. ii. p. 329. sq.

i.
[Seite 395]

This appellation Berzelius gives to the fibrin, albumen, and colouring mat-
ter of the blood.

k.
[Seite 397]

General Views of the Composition of Animal Fluids, by J. Berzelius, M. D.
Medico-Chirurgic. Trans. vol. iii. p. 234.

l.
[Seite 397]

A Treatise on the Diseases of Arteries and Veins, &c.

m.
[Seite 398]

See examples in Haller’s El. Physiol. l. vii. S. i. § ix. Several such have
come to my own knowledge. Mr. Howship attended a lady who discharged
many quarts of urine alternately from the bladder and rectum, after intervals of
several weeks of suppression, and this for four years without serious injury. Prac-
tical Treatise on Diseases of the Urinary Organs.
1823.

n.
[Seite 398]

See Dr. Hennen’s Military Surgery.

o.
[Seite 398]

Prevost and Dumas found that the removal of one kidney has no particular
effect; but that the removal of both occasions copious vomiting and purging of
brown liquid, and death; and 5oz. of blood, yielded ?i of urea. Annales de
Chimie,
t. xxii.

p.
[Seite 399]

Phil. Trans. 1822.

q.
[Seite 399]

Annales de Chimie, t. xxix.

r.
[Seite 399]

See Dr. Bostock’s l. c. vol. ii. p. 387. sq. Braconnet concludes that
earths, alkalies, metals, sulphur, phosphorus, carbon, and perhaps azote, are
thus produced. The immense quantities of calcareous strata, which appear
to be the remains of marine animals, are thought referable to organic production
only.

s.
[Seite 400]

A View of the Structure, &c. of the Stomach, &c. By Thomas Hare, F. L. S.
1821. p. 77.

a.
[Seite 401]

W. Xav. Jansen, Pinguedinis Animalis Consideratio Physiologica et Patholo-
gica.
Lugd. Bat. 1784. 8vo.

b.
[Seite 401]

J. D. Brandis, Comm. (rewarded with the Royal Prize) de oleor. unguinosor.
natura.
Gotting. 1785. 4to. p. 13.

c.
[Seite 401]

Joach. J. Rhades, De ferro sanguinis hum. aliisque liquidis animalium. Ibid.
1753. 4to. ch. 4.

Dav. H. Knape (Praeside Segnero) De acido pinguedinis animalis. Ibid.
1754. 4to.

Laur. Crell, Chemisches Journal. 1778. P. i. p. 102.

d.
[Seite 402]

Hence it is clear how many exceptions must be made to the assertion of the
celebrated Fourcroy, – that fat is an oily matter, formed at the extremities of
arteries, and at the greatest distance from the centre of motion and animal heat.
See his Philosophie Chimique, p. 112.

e.
[Seite 402]

I found this still more distinct in the body of a female of the species simia
cynomolgus,
from which, by means of cold, I was able to remove it with its sym-
metrical form entire.

f.
[Seite 402]

The singular opinion of the distinguished Home, respecting the origin and
use of the fat, viz. that it is formed in the large intestines, chiefly by the instru-
[Seite 403] mentality of the bile, and that it supplies a kind of secondary nourishment to the
body, will be found fully described in the Phil. Trans. 1813. p. 146.

g.
[Seite 403]

P. Lyonet conjectures with probability, that insects destitute of blood derive
their chief nourishment from the fat in which they abound. Tr. anat. de la
Chenille qui ronge le bois de Saule,
p. 428. 483. sq. and the Preface, p. xiii.

h.
[Seite 403]

See Fourcroy, l. c.

i.
[Seite 403]

As some biliary concretions are evidently fatty, and the liver is much disposed
to become fatty, it has been thought that these may be of hepatic origin. Abundant
references will be found in Dr. Good’s Study of Medicine, vol. i. p. 304.

Yet ambergris is a fatty matter found in the intestines of the spermaceti whale,
but never higher than six or seven feet from the anus. Its quantity has ex-
ceeded a hundred pounds, and though so frequently discharged as to be found on
the shore, and floating on the waves, accumulation, or the state which occasions it,
sometimes appears to destroy life. It is more abundant in proportion as the
animal is costive and sickly. l. c.

k.
[Seite 404]

Dr. Good says, that some German Journals mention cases of eight hundred
pounds weight, but he gives no references.

l.
[Seite 404]

Hudibras, P. ii. Canto i.

m.
[Seite 404]

Semper vero et certissime debellanda, (obesitas) si modo bona volantas et vis
animi fuerit, valida corporis exercitatione, brevi somno, parca et sicca diaeta. Nec
facile miles gregarius repertus fuerit, qui tali morbo laborat. Gregory, Con-
spectus Med. Theor.
lxxxix. Iodine is the best medicine against it.

See the instructive case of the Miller of Billericay, in the Transactions of the
Royal College of Physicians, London,
vol. ii.

A large collection of cases of obesity will be found in Mr. Wadd’s Cursory
Remarks on Corpulence.

n.
[Seite 404]

Julius Caesar, act i. scene 2.

a.
[Seite 405]

See Al. Schumlansky, l. c.

b.
[Seite 405]

See Jer. Blasius, Renum monstrosorum exempla, at the end of Bellini, de
structura et usu renum.
Amstel. 1665. 12mo.

c.
[Seite 405]

Eustachius, tabulae, i.–v. which belong to his classical work De renibus,
published with this great man’s other Opusc. anatom. Venet. 1564. 4to. also
tab. xii.

d.
[Seite 405]

C. W. Eysenhardt, De structura renum Observationes Microscopicae. Berol.
1818. 4to.

e.
[Seite 406]

These secreting ducts appear to have imposed upon Ferrein as a new descrip-
tion of vessels, which he called neuro-lymphatics or white tubes, and of which he
imagined the whole parenchyma of the viscera to be composed. He affirmed
that they were of such tenuity, that their length in each kidney of an adult man
was equal to 1000 orgyiae (60,000 feet) or 5 leagues.

f.
[Seite 406]

Eustachius, tab. xi. fig. 10.

g.
[Seite 406]

See Nuck, Adenographia, fig. 32. 34, 35. Leop. M. Ant. Caldani, Saggi dell
Accad. di Padova, t. ii. p. 2.

h.
[Seite 406]

Duverney, Oeuvres anatomiques, vol. ii. tab. i.–iv.

i.
[Seite 407]

Santorini’s posthumous tables, xv.

k.
[Seite 407]

Flor. Caldani, Opus. anat. Patav. 1803. 4to. p. 4.

l.
[Seite 407]

See Hallé, Mém. de la Soc. de Médecine, vol. iii. p. 469. sq.

m.
[Seite 407]

The specific quality of some ingesta manifest themselves in the urine so
suddenly, even while blood drawn from a vein discovers no sign of their presence,
that physiologists have thought there must be some secret ways leading directly
from the alimentary canal to the kidneys, besides the common channels. An ex-
amination of them will be found in Aug. H. L. Westrumb’s Commentary (ho-
noured with the royal prize) de phaenomenis, quae ad vias sic dictas lotii clandestinas
[Seite 408] demonstrandas referuntur. Gotting. 1819. 4to., and P. G. C. E. Barkhausen’s
Dissertation (which gained the second prize) de viis clandestinis urinae. Berol.
1820. 8vo.

n.
[Seite 408]

See Fr. Stromeyer, Theoret. chimie, t. ii. p. 609.

o.
[Seite 408]

Consult on the analysis of the urine, among others, Berthollet, Mém. de
l’Acad. des Sc. de Paris,
1780. p. 10.

Th. Lauth (praes. Spielmann), De analysi urinae et acido phosphoreo. Argent.
1781. 4to.

H. F. Link, Commentatio (honoured with the royal prize) de analysi urinae et
origine calculi.
Gotting. 1788. 4to.

Fourcroy, Annales de Chimie, t. vii. p. 180. and t. xvi. p. 113.

C. Fr. Gaertner, Observata quaedam circa urinae naturam. Tubing. 1796. 4to.

p.
[Seite 408]

Med. Chir. Trans. vol. iii.

q.
[Seite 409]

Med. Chir. Trans. vol. iii.

r.
[Seite 409]

Vogel, Annales de Chimie, t. xciii.

s.
[Seite 409]

Mr. Brande, Phil. Trans. 1810.

t.
[Seite 409]

Med. Chir. Trans. vol. viii. p. 535.

u.
[Seite 410]

Phil. Trans. 1818.

x.
[Seite 410]

Dr. Prout, Thomson’s Annals of Philosophy. Dr. Davy, Phil. Trans. 1818.

y.
[Seite 410]

Haller, Biblioth. Medic. vol. ii. p. 200.

z.
[Seite 410]

Phil. Trans. 1713.

a.
[Seite 411]

Melch. Sebiz, De differentiis corporis virilis et muliebris. Argent. 1629. 4to.

F. Thierry E. praeter genitalia sexus inter se discrepant. Paris. 1750. 4to.

Dictionn. Encyclopéd. (Yverdon edit.) vol. xviii. art. Femme, and vol. xlii.
art. Viril.

J. Fidel Ackermann, De discrimine sexuum praeter genitalia. Mogunt. 1788.
8vo.

The same writer’s Historia et ichnographia infantis androgyni. Jen. 1805.
fol. p. 61. sq.

P. Roussel, Système physique et moral de la Femme. 2d edit. Paris. 1803. 8vo.

Ad. F. Nolte, Dissertat. sistens momenta quaedam circa sexus differentiam.
Gotting. 1788. 8vo.

J. Louis Moreau de la Sarthe, Histoire naturelle de la Femme. Paris. 1802.
3 vols. 8vo.

Autenreith, Archiv. fur die Physiol. t. vii. p. 3. sq.

b.
[Seite 411]

Langguth, Embryo 3 1/2 mensium qua faciem externam. Viteb. 1751. 4to.

James Parsons, Phil. Trans. vol. xlvii. p. 143.

Morgagni, De sedibus et causis morborum. xlviii. 10.

c.
[Seite 411]

This I lately found confirmed in twin abortions of different sexes and of
about sixteen weeks’ formation, in which, although they were most beautifully
and correctly made, the difference of the genitals was not at first discoverable.
In every other respect, – in the general figure, physiognomy, the dimensions of
the loins, &c., they were perfectly similar.

d.
[Seite 412]

Consult, besides our great countryman Alb. Dürer, Vier Bücher von mensch-
licher Proportion.
Nurenb. 1528. fol. the two celebrated male and female
figures, painted by Titian, or one of his school, in Vesalius’s Epitome suor. libror.
d. c. h. anatome.
Basil. 1542. fol.

Also the three delineated by that excellent artist, Jer. Laidresse, in Bidloo,
tab. i, ii, iii.

And Girardet’s figures in the Cours complet d’Anatomie gravé par A. E.
Gautier, et expliqué par M. Jadelot. Nantes. 1773. large fol.

e.
[Seite 412]

I have described these differences more fully throughout the skeleton, in my
Osteological work, p. 87. sq. 2d edit.

Compare Sömmerring’s Tabula sceleti foeminei. Francof. 1796. fol. with the
male figure in B. S. Albinus’s Tabulae sceleti, tab. 1.

f.
[Seite 413]

Hence genuine and indubitable cases of long abstinence from food have
generally occurred in females. (F) See, among many others, Fl. James Vol-
telen, Diatr. memorabilem septennis apositiae historiam exhibens. Lugd. Bat.
1777. 8vo.

g.
[Seite 413]

Phil. Trans. vol. lxxxix.

h.
[Seite 414]

J. Hunter, Observations on Certain Parts of the Animal Economy, p. 55.

i.
[Seite 414]

Natural Theology, c. 25. p. 472.

k.
[Seite 414]

‘“It shows in the function of generation an union of the teleological and
mechanical principles, which were formerly thought to be incompatible with each
other.”’ In one sex we have ‘“a clear instance of the teleological principle, i. e.
a peculiar part formed for a certain purpose.”’ In the other sex, ‘“where the
end and purpose of the part do not exist, we have the mechanical principle; as
if the part had been merely framed in compliance with some general model for
the structure of the species,”’ Blumenbach, Comparative Anatomy, c. ii. § 38.
[Seite 415] Such parts are peculiarly called vestiges; some consider the os coceygis the vestige
of a tail; the odorous glands of the human genitals are vestiges of what are really
useful in brutes.

l.
[Seite 415]

This writer’s hypothesis reminds me of one that prevailed among the Greek
and Arabian physicians (Galen, Avicenna, Aegineta, Rhases), who asserted
that the male and female organs differed in situation only; that the structure was
originally the same, but that when the constitution had a good degree of heat,
the parts protruded, and a male was formed; whereas when the temperature was
low, they were not excited, and remained within, giving the female sex.

m.
[Seite 415]

Phil. Trans. vol. xcix.

n.
[Seite 416]

Journal de Physiologique, t. vii.

o.
[Seite 416]

Mémoire sur le beau Physique.

q.
[Seite 417]

Anatomie descriptive, par Xav. Bichat, t. v.

r.
[Seite 417]

See a delightful paper upon tho female character by Mr. W. Scott, in the
Phrenological Journal, No. vi. art. 17.

s.
[Seite 418]

Hermaphroditus was the son of Mercury and Venus, – Hermes and Aph-
rodite, who, while bathing in a fountain of Caria, smote the heart of its presiding
nymph, Salmacis. He rejected her intreaties, and she, endeavouring to obtain
her wishes by force, closely embraced him, and implored the gods to make them
one body; her prayers were heard, and the characteristics of each sex were pre-
served.

Mercurio puerum diva Cithereïde natum,
Naïdes Idaeis enutrivere sub antris.
Cujus erat facies, in qua materque paterque
Cognosci possent: nomen quoque traxit ab illis.

Formerly, the existence of true hermaphrodites was not doubted. In Winrich
(de ortu monst. c. 20.), Riolan (de hermaphr. c. 8.), and Shenkius (Obs. Med. 575.),
we read of a maid servant who, in 1461, was condemned to be buried alive for
having got her master’s daughter with child. Montuus declares that he knew
an hermaphrodite, supposed to be a female, who had brought her husband several
children, and was in the habit also of intriguing with females. Sanchez, the ce-
lebrated Jesuit casuist of Cordova, in the 17th century (Disput. de sancti Matri-
monii Sacramento,
cvi.), determines that an hermaphrodite should adopt the
predominant sex, or, in case of equality, choose one and adhere to it, nor be al-
lowed to marry till this is done. The Jewish and Canon law treat of hermaph-
rodites, and Lord Coke says (lib. 1. § 1. fol. 8. of fee simple), every heir is
male, female, or hermaphrodite, i. e. both male and female, and ‘“an hermaph-
rodite, which is also called an androgynus, shall be heir as male or female, ac-
cording to the kind of sex which doth prevail, and accordingly ought to be
baptized.”’ The ancients thought them ill omens (Cicero, de divinatione),
and drowned them. Eusebius says, that the Christian emperor, Constantine,
once ordered them for destruction, because the Nile did not overflow so much as
usual. For much learned information, see Dr. Parsons On Hermaphrodites.

When there is no combination of the organs of both sexes, a little variety has
frequently given rise to a mistake in the sex. If the septum of the scrotum is
narrow, each half may so closely surround the testis as to give an appearance
of labia. If, at the same time, the urethra terminates before it reaches the ex-
tremity of the penis, and especially if the testes are ill developed, – a circumstance
very common in this malformation, the feminine appearance is much augmented.
As smallness of the testes is often accompanied by want of the constitutional
male characters, – beard, prominent larynx, grave voice, and broad shoulders, and
in these circumstances the female character of broad hips, breasts, &c., more or
less appear, a superficial observer may easily mistake the sex of such persons.
A deficient development, or total absence, of the testes, may be attended by all
these general effects, without malformation of the scrotum or urethra. The
malformation of the scrotum just mentioned, together with smallness of the penis,
has sometimes occasioned a mistake of the sex till the period of puberty, when
the true sex has become evident, and the individual been imagined to have changed
[Seite 419] his sex. Ambrose Paré mentions a Marie Germain, who had been always thought
a girl; but, while she was leaping over a ditch one day at puberty, a penis suddenly
disclosed itself and proved her to be a lad. Montaigne also mentions him (Essais,
1. 20.), and another to whom the same fortune happened while playing in bed
with a female. Livy and Shenkius have recorded many such. In the Journal
de Med. Chir. et Pharm.
1816, a young man is said to have passed for a female
all his life, and was on the point of marrying with another young man, when
his parents, being aware of something wrong in his construction, and that he had
never menstruated, determined on a previous medical examination. The doctors
pronounced him (Mary) a male; he instantly burst into tears (so much had
friendship all along taken the place of love), and exclaimed, that then she should
lose her bon ami. His dress and register were changed by order of the authorities,
and he was very nearly made a soldier.

On the other hand, with a bulky clitoris, which is common in the Mandingo and
Ibbo nations, especially if accompanied by coherent labia, or by no labia, an
opening at the same time existing under it and leading to the urethra and vagina,
a female may be carelessly mistaken for a male: but the clitoris is imperforate, and
has no preputium at the lower part, and, consequently, no fraenum; and a probe
passes at once into the bladder, whereas in ambiguous males, it has far to go.
(Dr. Baillie, Morb. Anat.)

We thus see the origin of the stories in Virgil and Ovid of Coeneus (Aeneis VI.),
and Scytha (Metam. II.), whom Ausonius Gallus knew to be quite unnecessary
to establish the fact:

Nolo tamen veteris documenta accersere famae;
Ecce Ego sum factus foemina de puero.

On a person so metamorphosed, Bauhin made the verse –

Mas, mulier, monachus, mundi mirabile monstrum.
t.
[Seite 419]

In the Phil. Trans. 1799, Sir Everard Home describes a bull which had
begot five calves, and possessed ordinary male organs, and had the general ap-
pearance of the male, except in the flanks and hind quarters, but which had an
udder and teats affording milk, and a small vagina, incapable of admitting the
male organ.

u.
[Seite 419]

See a human instance in Dr. Baillie’s Morbid Anatomy. The general aspect
was masculine, except that no beard existed. There were breasts, a clitoris, and
meatus urinarius of the natural female appearance; but a vagina only two inches
long, and terminating blindly, and no nymphae; labia very long, and each contain-
ing a body feeling like a testicle. Menstruation had not occurred. In the Medical
Repository
an adult is said to be described of general masculine aspect, having
in the left groin a small scrotum containing a testicle, and on the other side a
[Seite 420] labium; a vagina and hymen, or at least a small opening existed, and the urethra
resembled the female; but the clitoris was 2 1/2 inches long, when not erect, and
had a groove below as if for a male urethra: menstruation had not occurred, nor
sexual desires been experienced.

M. Petit (Mém. de l’Acad. des Sciences, 1729, p. 29.) has described the ge-
nerative organs of a soldier, who died of his wounds. The penis is not men-
tioned, and therefore probably was normal, but the scrotum was destitute of testes,
and there was a blind vagina communicating with the urethra. Two testes were
discovered in the usual situation of the ovaria, possessing vasa deferentia, which
passed as usual to vesiculae seminales. There was also a prostate gland. This
person might have performed the part of a male bedfellow, but unfruitfully from
the termination of the urethra in the vagina, unless such means could be suc-
cessfully employed as are mentioned in John Hunter’s Treatise on the Venereal
Disease.

Analogous cases of spurious hermaphrodism among brutes are the free martins
of black cattle already mentioned. (p. 414.) In two, John Hunter found imperfect
testes in the situation of the ovaria, and in a third were both testes and ovaria
lying together. In an hemaphrodite ass he also discovered substances resembling
both testes and ovaria. Sir Everard Home has described a similar dog, which
had long been a favourite in Lord Besborough’s family, and had never been in
heat. ‘“There was not the smallest appearance of teats on the skin of the belly;
so that in this particular it differed both from the male and female; nor was there
the least trace of any thing like the gland of the breast under the skin. The cli-
toris was very large, being one-third of an inch long, and one-half of an inch
broad; the orifice of the meatus urinarius was uncommonly large, as if it was
intended for a common passage to the bladder and vagina, so that the external
parts were only the clitoris, meatus urinarius, and rectum. Internally, in the
situation of the ovaria, were two imperfectly-formed small testicles, distinguished
to be such by the convolution of the spermatic artery; from these passed down an
impervious chord, or vas deferens, not thicker than a thread, to the posterior part
of the bladder, where they united into one substance, which was nearly two
inches long, and terminated behind the meatus urinarius. The other parts of the
animal were naturally formed. When the testicles were cut into they appeared
to have no regular glandular structure.”’ Phil. Trans. 1799.

Haller describes a very similar kid: the imperfect testes were in the same situ-
ation. There was likewise a canal or vagina, which divided like the uterus into
two horns, extending to the testes. There were also vesiculae seminales.

x.
[Seite 420]

Mém. de l’Acad. de Dijon, t. ii. See also a remarkable case in the New
York Medical Repository,
vol. xii. p. 86.

y.
[Seite 421]

Dictionnaire des Sciences Médicales, Art. Hermaphrodisme.

z.
[Seite 423]

I saw an instance of this in the museum at Edinburgh; it occurred also at
the Hotel Dieu. (Winslow, Mém. de l’Acad. 1743.) See three cases in Shen-
kius, p. 310.

a.
[Seite 423]

Eccentric Mirror, vol. ii.

b.
[Seite 424]

I think I saw an additional head at the side of the other in a human foetus,
both at Edinburgh and Vienna, and once I witnessed this in a living calf. In
the Hunterian museum are the two skulls of a child, that was the son of a native
farmer in the East Indies, and lived to be four years old. The additional one
was placed upside down on the top of the other. Each contained a brain, in-
vested by its own dura mater, and the upper received its blood from the lower.
The features of the upper head were sometimes unaffected, when the lower head
cried, and were never affected when it smiled. The gums of both were cut by
front teeth. When the nipple was presented to the upper head, it made a slight
attempt to suck. The tears of the upper head constantly ran over, but especially
when the lower head cried. The eyes of the upper head would open on a sudden
impression, but even then, as well as at all other times, were directed to no object.
They remained open during sleep. The mouth of the upper head showed signs
of gratification when the lower sucked. The upper head had much less sen-
sibility. (Phil. Trans. vol. lxxx. and lxxxix.)

Winslow saw in 1698, an Italian with an additional little head, attached by
the lower half of the right side of the face and cranium, to the thorax, below the
cartilage of the third rib; it had been separately baptized, and the man felt if it
was touched. Mem. de l’Acad. des Sc. 1733.

c.
[Seite 424]

l. c. De monstris.

d.
[Seite 424]

Three cases will be found in M. Paletta’s Exercit. Patholog.

e.
[Seite 424]

Ostendere, portendere, praedicere.

f.
[Seite 424]

De monstris.

g.
h.
[Seite 425]

Histoire Naturelle. Supplement. t. iv. p. 578.

i.
[Seite 425]

Although these arrangements are intended only for monsters by Buffon,
and the more striking malformations by Blumenbach, they may be applied to all
deviations.

k.
[Seite 425]

Handbuch der naturgeschichte, s. ii. The arrangement is followed by Mr.
Lawrence, Med. Chirurg. Trans. vol. v.

l.
[Seite 426]

Shenkius, Obs. Med. 691.

m.
[Seite 426]

Roederer, Dissertation couronnée à Petersbourg.

Licetus, De Monstris, with plenty of plates, shows what can be done in the
way of incredible cases.

n.
[Seite 426]

After many learned examples of women loved by brutes and devils, to which
monsters were formerly ascribed, Burton gravely declares, ‘“Many divines stiffly
contradict this, but I will conclude with Lipsius, that since examples, testimonies,
and confessions of those unhappy women are so manifest in this our town of
Lovan, it is likely to be so. One thing I will add, that I suppose in no age past
(I know not by what destiny of this unhappy time) have there ever appeared
or showed themselves, so many lecherous divels, satyrs, and genii, as in this of
ours, as appears by the daily narrations and judicial sentences upon record.”’

Anatomy of Melancholy, 3. 2. 1. 1.

o.
[Seite 426]

Mr. Lawrence refers to five examples of this, and some of the subjects were
adults, and one lady died at 72 years of age.

p.
[Seite 427]

The poor people very consistently thought he must have a soul as well as
Lazarus, and so baptized him. Zacchias disapproves of this, and very reasonably,
as the brain showed no intelligence; being compelled to measure mind solely by
cerebral power, and, seeing none, to conclude that John Baptist had no soul. Yet
though this was reasonable, it was very inconsistent with his belief in soul, since,
according to it, John Baptist’s case was exactly like that of all idiots: – A soul
existed, but merely because the brain – the instrument it had to play upon, was
bad, its operation was prevented. Zacchias, who was chief physician at Rome
to the ecclesiastical states, extricates himself from the difficulty as cunningly as
the Jesuits did when publishing Newton’s doctrine as a mere hypothesis. ‘“Latis
a summis pontificibus contra telluris motum, decretis nos obsequi profitemur,”’
said they. ‘“Ecclesiae Catholicae, in hoc et in caeteris omnibus, humiliter me sub-
jicio,”’ says Zacchias. (l. c. vii. 1. 4–17.) The manifestation of mind must de-
termine whether a monster should have the rights of a human being, and its
parents those of fruitful spouses. Without some mind, it cannot live at all after
separation from the mother, unless attached to another; but should it have no
more sense and volition than is sufficient for breathing, it ought not to be destroyed.
Two women, one a midwife, were prosecuted at York for drowning a child with
deficient cranium, that would probably have lived but a few hours or days. The
judge expressed a hope that the prosecution would prove the erroneousness of
the vulgar opinion, that the law allows the life of any human being to be taken
away by another. In catholic times, all monsters were destroyed without cere-
mony, as the offspring of the devil.

Montaigne saw a boy exactly fourteen years old, who had a headless brother
fixed front to front, looking ‘“as if a small child was endeavouring to embrace
a bigger.”’ The place of union was below the breasts, and about the extent of
four fingers, so that ‘“if you lifted up the imperfect child, you saw the other’s
navel.”’ (Essais, ii. 30.) Winslow saw attached to the body of a well-formed
girl, twelve years of age, the abdomen and lower extremities of another smaller
than herself. It discharged faeces, and she felt when it was touched. Winslow
was consulted upon the propriety of administering extreme unction to it as well
as its sister. (Mém. de l’Acad. des Sciences, 1733.) If it had a soul, Van Hel-
mont was right in placing the soul in the abdomen. A male pelvis with lower
extremities attached to the pubes of a well formed Gentoo boy, are described in
the Phil. Trans. lxxix. The lad had no power over his burthensome piece of a
brother, but felt if it was touched. In the medical journals for 1821, is an au-
thentic case of a lad in China, sixteen years of age, named Ake, who had a brother
growing to the pit of his stomach, without a head, so that this attached brother
seemed as if he had run his head into Ake’s body. Whatever part of this was
[Seite 428] touched, Ake said he felt as if the same in his own body was touched, and really,
on the narrator pinching the little one’s hip while Ake was looking the other
way, Ake instantly turned about and clapped his hand upon his own hip. When
Ake made water the little one always did the same. A similar case was lately pub-
lished in the second volume of the Medico Chirurg. Trans. of Edinburgh, in which
the perfect brother could discharge urine at pleasure from his pendulous brother.
Many other such cases are recorded.

q.
[Seite 428]

The following epigram, related by Petrarch, was inscribed on stone figures of
a similar pair, christened Peter and Paul.

Non vero nobis unus somnusque cibusque
Nec risus nobis, fletus et unus erat.
Unus membra dabat somno ridebat et alter,
Surgebatque unus, flens quoque et alter erat.
r.
[Seite 428]

Med. Chir. Trans. vol. vii.

s.
[Seite 428]

Phil. Trans. vol. xlv. p. 325.

t.
[Seite 429]

Said to be related in the Thesaurus Med. Chir. Observat. curios. Leipsiae, 1715.

u.
[Seite 429]

Said to be related in Lieutaud’s Observ. Med. fasc. 1. 1760.

x.
[Seite 429]

1809 and 1815.

y.
[Seite 429]

Case of a foetus, &c. 1815.

z.
[Seite 429]

Corvisart’s Journal, t. ix. Gazette de Santé, No. 1. 1804. Saltz. Med.
Chirurg. Zeitung,
1804. 4. B. 290.; all referred to by Plouquet as for three differ-
ent cases.

a.
[Seite 429]

Journ. de Med. 1755.

b.
[Seite 429]

Dict. des Sciences Méd. Cas rares.

c.
[Seite 429]

Phil. Trans. xix. p. 316.

d.
[Seite 429]

Grew, Rarities, p. 18. Phil. Trans. xix. p. 632. Gentleman’s Magazine,
xvii. p. 573.

e.
[Seite 430]

Med. Chir. Trans. London, 1825. vol. xiii.

f.
[Seite 430]

Baillie’s Morbid Anatomy.

a.
[Seite 431]

Haller’s Program. de herniis congenitis, reprinted in his opusc. patholog.
p. 311. sq. vol. iii. Opera minora.

b.
[Seite 431]

C. J. M. Langenbeck, Commentatio de structura peritonaei, testiculorum tu-
nicis eorumque in scrotum descensu.
Gotting. 1817. fol.

B. W. Seiler, Observationes de testiculorum ex abdomine in scrotum descensu.
Lips. same year. 4to.

c.
[Seite 434]

Besides the assertion that the scrotum differs strikingly from the rest of the
integuments in being reproduced after its destruction by gangrene; although
many careful observers declare this reproduction, as it is termed, to be very im-
perfect, and even imaginary. See v. c. Stalp. v. d. Wiel. cent. 1. p. 364.
Quirot, Mém. de l’Acad. de Chirurg. t. iv. p. 97.

d.
[Seite 434]

J. E. Neubauer, De tunicis vaginalibus testis et funiculi spermatici. Giess.
1767. 4to.

F. L. Eichhorn, De hydrocele. Gott. 1809. 4to.

e.
[Seite 435]

Alex. Monro, fil. De testibus et de semine in variis animalibus. Edinb. 1755.
8vo.

f.
[Seite 435]

B. S. Albinus, Annotat. Acad. l. ii. tab. vii. fig. 1, 2, 3.

g.
[Seite 435]

Vide Grew, Museum Regalis Societatis, p. 7.

h.
[Seite 435]

The celebrated Sömmerring was so successful as to inject all the vessels
composing the testis, and the entire head of the epididymis, with mercury. Ueber
die körperl. Versch. des negers vom Europäer,
p. 38.

i.
[Seite 435]

Haller, De viis seminis in the Phil. Trans. No. 494. fig. 1. g. g.

k.
[Seite 435]

De Graaf, De Viror. organis generationi inservientibus. tab. iv. fig. 1, 2.

l.
[Seite 435]

Vide Alex. Monro, fil. Observations, Anatomical and Physiological. Edinb.
1758. 8vo. tab. i. E. E. E. F. G. H.

m.
[Seite 435]

B. S. Albinus, Annotat. Acad. l. ii. tab. iii. fig. 1.

n.
[Seite 435]

B. S. Albinus, l. c. l. iv. tab. iii. fig. 1, 2, 3.

o.
[Seite 436]

See, besides, the figures by Graaf, Haller, Albinus, and Monro, ll. cc. es-
pecially the beautiful one by Fl. Caldani, in his Opusc. Anat. p. 17.

p.
[Seite 436]

The opinion of Herodotus respecting the black semen of Ethiopians, refuted
in ancient times by Aristotle, has, to my surprise, been taken up in modern times
by Le Cat, de Pauw, Wagler, &c.

q.
[Seite 436]

F. B. Osiander asserts, ‘“that fresh semen emitted under certain circum-
stances, is occasionally phosphorescent.”’ De causa insertionis placentae in uteri
orificium.
Gotting. 1792. 4to. p. 16.

r.
[Seite 436]

Vide Fr. Schrader, De microscopior. usu in nat. sc. et Anatome. Gotting.
1681. 8vo. p. 34.

s.
[Seite 436]

Handbuch der Naturgesch. p. 506. 10th edit. tab. i. fig. 13.

t.
[Seite 436]

W. Fr. v. Gleichen, Uber die Saamen-und Infusionsthierchen. Nurenb.
1778. 4to. tab. i. fig. 1.

u.
[Seite 436]

Consult especially Laz. Spallanzani, both in his Opuscoli di fisica animale e
vegetabile,
Milan. 1776. 8vo. vol. ii., and in his Dissertazioni, &c. Ibid. 1780.
8vo. vol. ii.

x.
[Seite 437]

A paradoxical opinion was formerly entertained by some, – that the semen
is not discharged from the vesiculae seminales but from the vasa deferentia, and
that the fluid of the vesicles is not truly spermatic and derived from the testis,
but of quite another kind, and secreted in peculiar glands belonging to the
vesicles. This has gained some advocates among the moderns. J. Hunter, On
certain parts of the Animal Economy,
p. 27.

J. A. Chaptal, Journal de Physique. Febr. 1787. p. 101.

But it has been refuted by Sömmerring, in the Bibliotheca Medica, which I
edited, vol. iii. p. 87. (H)

Add the remarkable instances of men and other male animals possessed of
vesiculae seminales, that have discharged prolific semen after complete castration.

Consult, among others, the distinguished Elliotson in his English translation
of these Institutions, p. 329. 3d edit. 1820.

y.
[Seite 438]

Ch. R. Jaenisch, De pollutione nocturna. Gotting. 1795. 4to.

Aug. Gottl. Richter, Specielle Therapie, vol. iv. p. 552. sq.

C. W. Hufeland, Abhandl. der Königl. Akademie der Wissensch. in Berlin,
1819. p. 170.

z.
[Seite 438]

I willingly grant that barbarous nations, of a phlegmatic temperament and
copulating promiscuously, do not require this excretion; but I must contend that
it is a perfectly natural relief in a young man, single, sanguineous, full of juices,
with a stroug imagination, and living high, although enjoying the completest
health.

a.
[Seite 438]

Morgagni, Adversar. Anat. iv. fig. 1, 2.

b.
[Seite 438]

J. Ladmiral, Effigies penis humani. LB. 1741. 4to.

c.
[Seite 438]

Ruysch, Observat. anat. Chirurg. Centur. p. 99. fig. 75–82.

And his Ep. problemat. xv. fig. 2. 4. 6, 7.

T. H. Thaut, De virgae virilis statu sano et morboso. Wirceb. 1808. 4to.
fig. 1.

The distinguished Home has clearly and faithfully displayed this truly cellular
or spongy texture of the cavernous bodies of the penis, that was lately in general
confounded with the blood-vessels in which it abounds. Phil. Trans. 1820.
P. ii. p. 183. sq.

d.
[Seite 439]

Morgagni, Aversar. Anat. 1. tab. iv. fig. 4. i. k.

e.
[Seite 439]

This smegma in young men, especially when they are heated, is well known
to accumulate readily and form an acrimonious caseous coagulum. The in-
habitants of warm climates are particularly subject to this inconvenience, and the
chief use of circumcision appears to be the prevention of this accumulation. We
know that for this reason Christians, in the scorching climate of Senegambia,
occasionally cut off the preputium, and that uncircumcised Europeans residing
in the east frequently suffer great inconvenience. Guido de Cauliaco, the ce-
lebrated restorer of surgery in his day, who flourished in the middle of the four-
teenth century, said that circumcision was useful to many besides Jews and
Saracens, ‘“Because there is no accumulation of sordes at the root of the gland,
nor irritation of it.”’ Chirurg. Tr. vi. doctr. ii. p. m. 111.

f.
[Seite 439]

Vide Theod. G. Aug. Rooze, Physiologische Untersuchungen. Braunsv.
1796. 8vo. p. 17.

g.
[Seite 439]

A phenomenon worthy of remark, even from the light which it promises to
throw on this function in general, is the erection so frequently observed in those
who are executed, especially if strangled.

Consult, besides Garmann’s compiled farrago (de Miraculis Mortuorum,
I. xi. 7 sq.)

Morgagni, De sed. el caus. morb. xix. 19 sq. (K)

h.
[Seite 439]

See Camper, Demonstration. anat. pathologic. L. ii. tab. iii. fig. l.

i.
[Seite 440]

Gysb. Beudt, De fabrica et usu viscerum uropoieticorum. L B. 1774. 4to.
reprinted in Haller’s Collection of Anatomical Disputations, t. iii. tab. iii.

k.
[Seite 440]

Carpus in Mundinum, p. 190b and 310.

l.
[Seite 440]

For which reason Zeno, the father of the Stoic philosophy, called the loss of
semen the loss of part of the animating principle. (M)

m.
[Seite 440]

Dionis, L’Anatomie des corps humains. Demonstration quatrième. Sect. 1.
Fernelius, Forestus, De Graaf, Borelli, &c. &c. Shenkius has collected several
examples.

n.
[Seite 441]

J. Hunter, A description of the situation of the testis in the foetus, with its
descent into the scrotum,
in his Observations on certain Parts of the Animal Economy,
p. 13.

o.
[Seite 441]

Bichat, Anatomie descriptive, t. ii. p. 234.

p.
[Seite 442]

l. c. p. 6.

q.
[Seite 442]

Bichat’s Anat. Descrip. t. v. p. 176.

r.
[Seite 443]

Elementa Physiologiae, t. vii. p. 420.

s.
[Seite 443]

Wilh, ten Rhyne, De promontor. Cap. bon. spei. 22. pag. m. 64, and others
quoted by Schurig, Spermatologia, p. 60. Sparmann informs us that this custom
no longer prevails.

t.
[Seite 443]

De Re Rustica. ii. 5.

u.
[Seite 443]

See examples collected by Schurig, Spermatologia, p. 395.

x.
[Seite 446]

Opuscoli di Fisica animale e vegetabile, vol. ii. Prevost and Dumas have lately
confirmed the observations of Spallanzani as to the semen of various animals.
But for obvious reasons, they say, they determined from the first not to search for
the animalcules in man, and recommend this examination to the anatomists of
Paris, where there are so many executions. Annales des Sciences Naturelles,
t. i. and ii.

y.
[Seite 446]

Creatures of an inch to an inch and a quarter in length, and of the same
general shape as the seminal animalcules, inhabit the mesenteric arteries of asses,
horses, &c. Mr. Hodgson found them in seven asses out of nine. (A Treatise
on the the Diseases of Arteries and Veins,
&c.) To increase the wonder, the intes-
tines of the human embryo have been found containing worms. Goeze, Versuch
einer naturgeschichte der Eingeweidwürmer.

z.
[Seite 446]

Annales de Chimie, t. x.

a.
[Seite 447]

Elémens de Physiologie, c. x.

b.
[Seite 448]

Winslow, Ruysch, Duverney and others, quoted by Haller.

c.
[Seite 448]

In the two men opened by J. Hunter soon after death, the vesicular fluid
was actually much less brown than usual.

e.
[Seite 450]

Mr. Shaw pointed out a venous network running along the inside of the
urethra, but accumulated at what is called the membranous part, connected with
the corpus spongiosum, and forming two columns with a groove in the middle.
This must principally assist in narrowing the canal during erection, and, as the
columns unite before the prostate, must also contribute to prevent the semen
from moving towards the bladder, or the urine from flowing from the bladder.
Med. Chir. Trans. vol. x.

f.
[Seite 451]

Hunter, Observations on the glands situated between the rectum and bladder,
called vesiculae seminales,
l. c. 45.

g.
[Seite 451]

Augustan History, quoted by Gibbon, Decline and Fall, &c. vol. ii. p. 33.

a.
[Seite 452]

Vide Haller, Comment. Soc. Scient. Gotting. vol. i. p. 12. sqq.

And among the modems, D. Clarke in Sir Everard Home, Phil. Trans.
1799. p. 163.

b.
[Seite 452]

In warm climates it too is liable to accumulation and acrimony, and has hence
been the occasion of the custom of female circumcision in many hot parts of
Africa and Asia. Carst. Niebuhr has given a view, executed to the life, of the
genitals of a circumcised Arabian female, eighteen years of age, whom he himself
was singularly fortunate in examining during his oriental tour. Beschreib. von
Arabien,
p. 77. sq.

And Osiander, Denkwürdigkeiten für die Heilkunde, &c. vol. ii. tab. vi. fig. 1. (A)

c.
[Seite 452]

Their number likewise has occasionally varied. Vide Neubauer, De triplici
nympharum ordine.
Jenae. 1774. 4to.

d.
[Seite 453]

I allude to the singular ventral skin of the Hottentot women. Wilh. ten.
Rhyne, from personal inspection long ago, considered it as enormous pendulous
nymphae. De promontorio b. spei. p. 33.

I have treated this point at large in my work, De Gen. Hum. Var. Nat. 242.
ed. 3. (B)

Steller relates something similar in regard to the Kamtschatkan women.
Beschreib. v. d. Lande Kamtschatka, p. 300.

e.
[Seite 453]

I find the opening of the urethra surrounded by very beautiful cutaneous
cilia of this kind, in a remarkable specimen of the genitals of a woman upwards
of eighty years of age. The hymen is entire, and all the other parts most per-
fectly, and, as it were, elaborately, formed. They are preserved in my museum,
and my friend and colleague, Osiander, has represented them in a plate. l. c.
tab. v.

f.
[Seite 453]

See J. James Huber’s plates of the uterus, among those of Haller, fasc. 1.
tab. ii. fig. 1. g.

g.
[Seite 453]

Ibid. fig. 1. b. b. – fig. 5. d.

h.
[Seite 453]

Such also are the two foramina, very frequently observed in living women by
J. Dryander. at the extremity of the vagina. Nic. Massa, Epist. Medicinal, t. i.
page 123. b.

i.
[Seite 453]

John Wm. Tolberg, De Varietate Hymenum. Hal. 1791. 4to.

Osiander, l. c. tab. i. – vii.

k.
[Seite 453]

Handbuch der vergleich, Anat. p. 47 2. respecting parts somewhat analogous in
some brute females, see the distinguished Duverney, Mém. présentées, &c. phy-
sical class, t. ii. p. 89.

l.
[Seite 454]

Eustachius, tab. xiv. fig. i. XX.

Santorini, Tab. Posth. xvii. 1. 1.

m.
[Seite 454]

Huber, De Vagince Uteri structura ntgosa, necnon de Hymene. Gotting.
1742. 4to.

n.
[Seite 454]

Vide Haller, Icones Anat. fasc. ii. tab. vi. fig. 1. 2.

o.
[Seite 454]

Roederer, Icones Uteri Humani, tab. vii. fig. 2. 3. 4.

p.
[Seite 454]

J. Gottfr. Weisse (Praes. Rud. Boehmer) De Structura Uteri non musculosa,
sed celluloso vasculosa.
Vitemb. 1784. 4to.

I. G. Walter, Was ist Geburtshülfe. Berlin, 1808, 8vo. p. 54.

q.
[Seite 454]

Id. De Morbis Peritonaei, tab. i. ii.

r.
[Seite 454]

Mascagni, tab. xiv.

s.
[Seite 454]

Walter, Tab. Nerv. Thorac. et Abdom. tab. 1.

J. F. Osiander, Commentatio praemio Regio ornata,qua edisseritur uterum nervos
habere.
Gott. 1808. 4to.

t.
[Seite 454]

Ferrein, Mémoires de l’Acad. des Sc. de Paris, 1741. p. 375.

u.
[Seite 454]

Mascagni, l. c. page 4.

x.
[Seite 454]

See, for instance, Sue, Mém. présentés, vol. v.

L. Calza, Atti dell’ Acad. di Padova, t. i. ii.

y.
[Seite 455]

Consult, besides the great Malpighi, Walter, Betracht. über die Geburstheile
des weiblichen Geschl.
p. 25. sq.

Chr. H. Ribke, über die Structur der Gebährmutter. Berl. 1793. 8vo.

But chiefly J. F. Lobstein, Magasin Encyclopédique, redigé par Millin,
vol. xlix. 1803, t. i. page 357. sq.

z.
[Seite 455]

I have spoken of these points at large in ray program, De vi vitali sanguini
deneganda,
&c. Gott. 1795. 4to. p. 15. sq.

a.
[Seite 455]

Fallopius, Observ. Anat. p. 197.

b.
[Seite 456]

For Stenonis was the first who asserted that the testes of women were ana-
logous to an ovarium, in 1667. See his Elementor. Myologiae Specimen. page
117. sqq.

c.
[Seite 456]

Respecting this still problematical fluid see Carpus in Mundinum. P. cxcviii.
sqq. and cccviii.

Harvey, De Generatione Animal. p. 95.

De Graaf, De Mulierum Organic, p. 194.

d.
[Seite 457]

Travels in Nubia, p. 332. sqq. The adhesion may prevent admission of the
male organ, but, like a dense hymen, does not always prevent impregnation. In the
Med. Chir. Trans. vol. xi., a female of the Eboe nation is mentioned as having
been at an advanced state of pregnancy, in Jamaica, notwithstanding that, in con-
sequence of this operation, performed upon her when a child, in her native land,
‘“a cicatrix extended from the mons veneris to within an inch of the anus,
where there existed a small orifice barely sufficient for the introduction of a small
female catheter, through which orifice the urine and menses exuded. The adhe-
sion being removed by an incision with a sharp-pointed bistoury, the delivery was
easily accomplished.”’A case is just mentioned by professor Rossi (Archives gé-
nérales,
Oct. 1827), of impregnation with no other canal than one, just sufficient
to admit a small sound, opening within the anus. Examples of the necessity for
cutting or tearing the hymen, at the time of labour, may be found in Ruysch,
Mauriceau, and F. Hildanus, &c. and in the Transact. of the London Medical Society,
vol. i. P. 2. When the hymen is imperforate, impregnation obviously never oc-
curs, and an incision is required for the escape of the accumulated menstrual fluid.
See v. c. Ambrose Paré, lib. xxiii. c. xlii. or the Med. Records and Researches. Harvey
mentions a beautiful white mare belonging to the queen, in which the entrance
of the vagina had been fastened up by iron rings to prevent her being covered,
but, to the surprise of every body, she was one day found to have foaled, and her
offspring, in coming forth, had lacerated the vagina on one side of the rings,
which still retained their situation. De Partu Exercit. p. 557. Opera.

e.
[Seite 457]

Dr. Somerville, Med. Chir. Trans. vol. vii. 1816. Barrow, Travels into the
interior of Southern Africa,
vol. i.

f.
[Seite 458]

Cuvier, Mémoires du Museum, t. iii. p. 269.

g.
[Seite 458]

Leç. d’Anat. comp. t. v. p. 131–2.

h.
[Seite 458]

History of England, ch. xxxii.

i.
[Seite 458]

Proverbs, xxx. 19.

k.
[Seite 458]

Decamerone. Giornata seconda. Novella vii.

l.
[Seite 459]

Discovered by Weitbrecht, and first accurately observed by Dr. Hunter.

m.
[Seite 460]

Med. Chir. Trans. c. iv.

a.
[Seite 461]

Consult, besides many others, F. C. Nägele, Erfahrungen über Krankh. des
weibl. Geschlechts.
Manheim. 1812. 8vo. p. 265.

b.
[Seite 461]

Most writers upon Natural History, and among the rest Buffon, allow the
existence of a periodical discharge of this kind in some other animals, especially
in certan simiae. But after carefully observing the females of the species of simiae
mentioned by him, (v. c. of the simia sylvanus, and cynomolgus, the papio maimon,
&c.) for a number of years, I easily discovered that these supposed catamenia in
some did not occur at all, and, in others of the very same species, were merely a
vague and sparing uterine hemorrhage, observing no regular period.

c.
[Seite 461]

There is hardly occasion at present to refute the unfounded assertion, that
in some countries, particularly on the continent of America, the women do not
menstruate. This opinion appears to have originated from the circumstance of
the Europeans, who visited those countries, and saw innumerable women nearly
naked, never observing any menstrual stains upon them. For this there might
be two reasons. First, the American women are, by a happy prejudice, regarded
as infectious while menstruating, and retire from society into solitary huts, to the
benefit of their health. Secondly, their extreme cleanliness, and the modest po-
sition in which they place their limbs, would prevent any vestige of the catamenia
from being observable, as Adr. Van Berkel expressly states, Reisen nach Rio de
Berbice und Surinam,
p. 46.

d.
[Seite 462]

H. Helm. Spitta, Commentatio praemio Regio ornata, sistens mutationes in or-
ganismo et oeconomia foeminarum cessante fluxus menstrui periodo.
Gotting. 1818.
4to.

e.
[Seite 462]

See, for example, Morgagni, Adv. Anat. 1. tab. iii. M. M. M.

f.
[Seite 462]

L. H. Chr. Niemeyer, De menstruationis fine et usu. Gott. 1796. 8vo.

g.
[Seite 462]

J. Fr. Osiander, on the contrary, argues on the side of the veins, Diss. de
fluxu menstrua atque uteri prolapsu.
Gott. 1808. 4to. p. 14.

h.
[Seite 463]

Those who feel interested in this enquiry, may consult, among other writers,
Abr. D’Orville, Disquisitio (Praes. Haller), causae menstrui fluxus. Gotting.
1748. 4to.

Gisb. Verz. Muilman, An ex celebrata hactenus opinione de plethora universali
vel particulari vera fluxus menstrui causa explicari possit?
L B. 1772. 4to.

Theod. Traug. Jaehkel (Praes. Krause), Aetiologia fluxus menstrui. Lips.
1784. 4to.

i.
[Seite 463]

The universal plethoric orgasm, as it was termed, which some formerly re-
garded as the cause of menstruation, has been long since refuted by more en-
lightened physiologists. To the arguments of the latter, we may be permitted
to add the instance of the celebrated Hungarian sisters formerly mentioned
(78. note f.), who, from monstrous formation, were united together. Although
the same blood flowed in each on account of the union of the abdominal blood-
vessels at the loins, they differed frequently both in the period and the quantity
of their menstruation.

k.
[Seite 464]

Médecine Légale, t. i. p. 393.

l.
[Seite 464]

Traité complet des Accouchemens, p. 53.

m.
[Seite 464]

Phil. Trans. 1812. p. 11.

n.
[Seite 464]

Med. Chir. Trans. t. xiii. p. 347.

o.
[Seite 464]

Commentarii de morborum historia et curatione, cap. 43.

p.
[Seite 464]

Sur les Fonctions du Cerveau, t. iii. p. 253.

q.
[Seite 464]

See the Causes Célébres of Foderé (l. c. t. i. p. 500. sq.) for an account of a
priest and what he thought a dead body.

r.
[Seite 464]

Phil. Trans. 1817.

r.
[Seite 465]

Journey from Prince of Wales Fort to Hudson’s Bay, &c. 1795. p. 313. sq.

s.
[Seite 465]

Leviticus, xv.

t.
[Seite 465]

Hist. Natur. vii. 13.

u.
[Seite 466]

Sur les Fonctions du Cerveau, t. iv. p. 355. sqq.

a.
[Seite 467]

On all the subjects of this section, consult, among many others, Fr. B.
Osiander, Observationes de homine, quomodo fiat et formetur, in the Comment. Soc.
Reg. Scientiarum recent.
vol. iii. p. 25. vol. iv. p. 109.

b.
[Seite 467]

Unless the observation first made by Wargentin, in Sweden, – that there is
a greater proportion of births in September, which corresponds to the preceding
December, be considered as relative to this point. Swensk. Vetensk. Acad. Had-
lingar.
1767. vol. xxviii. p. 249. sq.

c.
[Seite 467]

Of the various circumstances of this admission, I have spoken in my work
De gen. hum. variet. nat. p. 17. sq. 3d edit.

d.
[Seite 467]

v. the two instances of uteri seen by Ruysch, immediately after impregnation.
The one of a common woman, murdered by her paramour immediately after
connection. Adversar. Anat. Med. Chirurg. Dec. i. tab. ii. fig. 3. The other
of a married woman, impregnated a few hours previously, and killed in the act
of adultery by her husband. Thesaur. Anat. vi. p. 23. sq. tab. v. fig. 1.

e.
[Seite 467]

If we consider the impetus with which the semen is emitted, and, as it were,
swallowed by the uterus, and how small a quantity is proved, by experiments on
[Seite 468] brutes, to be sufficient for impregnation, we shall be able to explain those well
established cases of conception, where the hymen was imperforate, – cases com-
monly brought forwards in support of the existence of a seminal aura.

f.
[Seite 468]

See J. Chph. Kuhlemann, Observat. circa negot. generat. in ovib. factae.
Gotting. 1753. 4to. c. f. ae.

g.
[Seite 468]

See Everard Home’s contrary opinion respecting the origin of the corpus
luteum and its relation to the ovum, Phil. Trans. 1817. p. 255. and 1819. p. 59.

h.
[Seite 468]

See W. Hunter, Anatomy of the gravid uterus. tab. xv. fig. 5. tab. xxix.
fig. 3. tab. xxxi. fig. 3.

i.
[Seite 468]

It is a celebrated question, of great importance both in physiology and forensic
medicine, and much agitated in late years, whether a corpus luteum is the conse-
quence of a fruitful coition only, and therefore an infallible sign of conception, or
whether it may occur independently of coition, and therefore exist in virgins. We
trust that we have established the truth of this point, and shown the conditions
under which a corpus luteum may occasionally be formed even in virgins.
Specimen physiologiae comparatae inter animantia calidi sanguinis vivipara et ovipara,
in the Commentat. Soc. Reg. Scientiar. Gotting. vol. ix. p. 109. sqq.

k.
[Seite 468]

That different conceptions may occur from the repetition of copulation after
very short intervals, is proved by the instances of adulterous women who have
brought forth twins resembling different fathers in the colour of their skin: viz.
of black women who have brought forth a black and a mulatto, and of European
women who have brought forth a white and a mulatto. (B)

l.
[Seite 469]

Ad. El. Siebold, De diagnosi conceptionis et graviditatis saepe dubia. Wirceb.
1798. 4to.

Gm. Theoph. Kelch, De symptomatibus et signis graviditatis earumque causis.
Regiom. 1794. 4to.

m.
[Seite 469]

Aretaeus Cappadox (De Causis et Sig. Morb. Diuturn. l. ii. c. ii. p. 64.
sq., Boerhaave’s edition), seems the first who gave a true account of the origin
of this membrane, the more accurate knowledge of which we owe to Wm. Hunter.

After the revival of anatomy, Fallopius restored the knowledge of it. Observ.
Anat.
p. 207.

It is the chorion, either simply called so, or the spongy, tomentous, fungous,
filamentous, reticulated,
of the following age; the involucrum membranaceum of

B. S. Albinus.

The first delineation of it was given, as far as my knowledge extends, by
Ruysch. Thes. Anat. v. tab. i. fig. 1. F. B. C. G.

n.
[Seite 469]

This is called cribriform by the distinguished Fr. B. Osiander.

o.
[Seite 469]

W. Hunter, l. c. tab. xxxiv. fig. 3–6.

Home, Phil. Trans. 1817. tab. viii.

p.
[Seite 469]

By Osiander, the membrane, ovi crassa. See B. S. Albinus, Annotat. Acad.
l. i. tab. iii. fig. i. e. W. Hunter, l. c. tab. xxxiii. fig. 1–4.

q.
[Seite 469]

Ever. Home and that admirable artist Francis Bauer give an engraving
of an ovulum, thought to be only of eight days. Phil. Trans. l. c. tab. viii. and
xi.

r.
[Seite 469]

Respecting the membranes of the ovum, and their connection with the uterus
and embryo, vide J. F. Lobstein, über die Emährung des Foetus. Halle, 1804.
8vo.

s.
[Seite 470]

The Membrana media of Rouhault, Haller, &c., the vasculosa of Osiander.

For the various synonyms and homonyms of the membranes of the ovum,
consult Haller, Elem. Physiol. vol. viii. P. i. p. 194. sq. and Tabarrani’s letter
to Bartaloni, Atti di Siena, t. vi. p. 224. sq.

t.
[Seite 470]

The membrana tenuis of Osiander; in French, la coiffe.

u.
[Seite 470]

See Hunter’s figures (imaginary indeed), l. c. tab. xxxiv. fig. 9. 8. 7.

x.
[Seite 470]

Paul Scheel, at the end of his Commentat. de liquoris amnii asperae arteriae
foetuum humanorum natura et usu.
Hafn. 1799. 8vo.

C. H. D’Zondi, Supplementa ad anat. et physiolog. potissimum comparatam.
Lips. 1806. 4to.

y.
[Seite 471]

Steph. J. Van Geuns, De natura et utilitate liquoris amnii. Ultraj. 1793.
4to.

z.
[Seite 471]

Consult the distinguished Tiedemann, Anatomie der Kopflosen Missgeburten.
Landshut, 1813. fol. p. 52. D. Welge, a medical practitioner at Goslar and formerly
a favourite pupil of my own, has enriched my museum with an excellent example of
this kind, viz. a twin female foetus without head, arms or thorax, born (what is par-
ticularly worthy of notice) alive, after a perfect and vigorous sister; for it repeat-
edly extended and bent its legs before it perished, on being seized with a general
horripilation.

a.
[Seite 471]

C. Fr. Burdach, De primis momentis formationis foetus. Regiom. 1814. 4to.

b.
[Seite 471]

There is no occasion in our times to refute the false remarks and figures,
published by Mauriceau, Kerckring, and others, of foetuses, one or a few days
old.

The reasons of my fixing upon this term, I have explained at large in the
Medicin. Bibliothek. vol. ii. p. 673. sq.

How remarkably this was afterwards confirmed by fact, will be found in the
same work, vol. iii. p. 727.

c.
[Seite 471]

Those who have not an opportunity of inspecting the fragile primordia of
our race, may consult the excellent plates in Ruysch’s Thesaur. Anat. vi. tab. ii.
fig. 2, 3, 4, 5. 8. 10. Thesaur. x. tab. iii. fig. 1.

Also B. S. Albinus, Annotat. Acad. l. i. tab. v. fig. 4, 5.

Trew, Commerc. Litter. Noric. 1739. tab. iii. fig. 4, 5.

Abr. Vater, Mus. anatom. propr. tab. viii. fig. 2. 4, &c.

And, instar omnium, Sömmerring’s Icones Embryonum Humanor. Francof.
ad Moen. 1799. fol.

d.
[Seite 472]

The proportion is not very constant, and is liable to national variety. (D)

Egede expressly mentions the infrequency of twins among the Greenlanders,
Descr. du Groenland, p. 112.

Their remarkable frequency, on the contrary, among the people of Chili is
asserted by Molina, Saggio su la Storia Nuturale del Chili, p. 333.

e.
[Seite 472]

See Denman, Engravings tending to illustrate generation and parturition.
Lond. 1787. fol. tab. ix.

Twins are very rarely contained in a common amnion. Vide J. de Puyt,
Verhandel. der Zeeuwsch Genootsch. te Ulissingen, t. ix. p. 423. sq.

Consult Hor. Garneri, Mém. de l’Acad. de Turin, 1809. Append. p. 89.

f.
[Seite 472]

W. Noortwyk, Uteri Humani Gravidi Anatome, tab. iii. fig. 5. 6. 7.

g.
[Seite 472]

Hoboken, Anatome secundin. human. repetita, p. 522. sq. fig. 38. 39. 40.

This structure is further displayed in the arterial branches of the placenta by
Aug. Chr. Reuss, Nov. Observ. circa Structur. Vasor. in Placenta Humana.
Tubing. 1784. 4to.

h.
[Seite 472]

J. Noreen, De Uracho. Gotting. 1749. 4to.

Ph. Ad. Boehmer on the same, at the end of his Anatome ovi hum. foecund.
sed deformis.
Hal. 1763. 4to.

i.
[Seite 473]

Vide Fabr. ab Aquapendente, De Formato Foetu. tab. xii. xiii. xiv. xvii.
fig. 27. xxv.

k.
[Seite 473]

Vide Commentat. Soc. Reg. Sc. Gottingens. vol. ix. p. 128. fig. 1.

l.
[Seite 473]

Among the moderns who still compare it to this, are J. F. Lobstein, l. c.
über die Ernährung des Foetus.

And C. H. D’Zondi, Supplem. ad Anat. et Physiol.

m.
[Seite 473]

The opinions both respecting the natural constancy of the vesicula umbilicalis
and its analogy to the tunica erythroides, I originally, as far as I know, pro-
posed thirty-four years since, in the first edition of these Institutions (1787), and
in my Specimen Physiologiae Comparatae (1788) formerly quoted.

The connection of this vesicle with the intestinal canal of the embryo, and
indeed with the appendix vermiformis of the caecum, is shown by Laur. Oken in
his and Diet. G. Kieser’s Beytr. zur Vergl. Zoologie, &c. Fasc. i. ii. Bamberg.
1806. sq.

See likewise Kieser’s Ursprung des Darmkanals aus der vesicula umbilicalis,
dargestellt im menschlichen Embryo.
Goett. 1810. 4to.

But, on the contrary, Fr. Meckel shows it to be united with the diverticulum
of the small intestines (Diverticulum Littrianum), Beytr. zur Vergl. Anatomie.
vol. i. fasc. i. Lips. 1808. p. 93.; and more fully in Reil and Autenreith’s
Archiv. für die Physiologie, vol. ix. p. 421.

Consult, among many others, W. Hunter, Anatomical Description of the Human
Gravid Uterus
(a posthumous work edited by Matthew Baillie). Lond. 1794.
4to. p. 40. sq.

B. N. G. Schreger’s Letter to Sömmerring, De functione placentae uterinae.
Erlang. 1799. 8vo.

n.
[Seite 475]

L. Ph. J. Pott, Commentatio praemio regio ornata de corporis foeminae gravidae
mutationibus,
&c. Gott. 1815. 4to.

W. Wagner, on the same subject, Commentatio quae secundam palmam tulit.
Brunsv. 1816. 8vo.

o.
[Seite 475]

v. W. Hunter, Anat. Uteri Gravidi, tab. xvi.

p.
[Seite 475]

Ibid. tab. xviii.

q.
[Seite 475]

v. B. S. Albinus, Annotat. Acad. i. ii. tab. iii. fig. 2.

r.
[Seite 475]

Arantius, De Humano Foetu libellus, p. 5. sq. 1579. Compare B. S. Al-
binus, Tab. Uteri Gravidi, ii.

s.
[Seite 475]

Among others consult J. Burns, Anatomy of the Gravid Uterus. Glasgow.
1799. 8vo. – a work carefully and faithfully executed.

t.
[Seite 476]

v. Doeveren, Specimen. Observ. Academ. p. 104. sq.

u.
[Seite 477]

On the various appearances of the decidua during the latter half of preg-
nancy, consult W. Hunter, Anat. of the gravid uterus, tab. xxiv. fig. 3, 4. tab.
xxix. fig. 45. comparing with these, tab. xxix. fig. 2.

x.
[Seite 477]

This weight and volume are remarkably large in proportion to the mother,
if compared with those of the offspring of many other mammalia. But, not-
withstanding that, woman is so far from producing the largest foetus in this
respect among the mammalia, that she is far surpassed by some, especially of the
bisulca, and most by the Savia pig.

y.
[Seite 478]

Boerhaave, Praelectiones Academicae, with Haller’s notes, t. vi. p. 113. sq.

z.
[Seite 478]

Phil. Trans. 1797.

a.
[Seite 478]

A new System of Physiology, &c. vol. i. p. 337.

b.
[Seite 478]

Harvey, De Generatione, p. 228, &c.

c.
[Seite 478]

Regn. De Graaf, t. i. 310.

d.
[Seite 478]

Verheyen, Sup. Anat. tract. 5. cap. 3.

e.
[Seite 479]

Galen, De semine, lib. i. c. 2.

f.
[Seite 479]

Thes. Anat. and Adversaria Anat. Medic. Chirurg.

g.
[Seite 479]

Boerhaave, Praelect. Acad. Haller’s note to p. 182. t. 6.

h.
[Seite 479]

Haller, Elementa Physiol. t. 8. p. 22.

i.
[Seite 479]

Opera, i. fol. m. 421.

k.
[Seite 479]

See, for instance, Dr. James Blundell, in the Med. Chir. Trans. vol. x. p. 266.

l.
[Seite 479]

Account of the structure of the Wombat, by Sir E. Home. Phil. Trans.
1798.

m.
[Seite 479]

Home, Phil. Trans. 1817. Saumarez, l. c. p. 429.

Mr. Saumarez observed in two instances, when two hours and a half only
had elapsed after coition, and before corpora lutea were formed, globular, pearl-
coloured bodies, as large as a pin’s head, which, on being squeezed, burst and
discharged a very subtle fluid to some distance. Dr. Haighton commonly met
with them. Whether these were semen, having undergone some change, is
uncertain.

The well known instances of conception, where the admission of the male organ
into the vagina was prevented by the great strength of the hymen, are sometimes
cited against the opinion that the semen passes beyond the vagina, but certainly
with no weight. 1. Because the most minute portion of semen is sufficient to
impregnate: – Spallanzani mixed three grains of frog’s semen with a pound and
a half of water, and with a little of this mixture fecundated nearly all the nu-
merous posterity contained in the threads taken from the female; and, after
mixing three grains with even twenty-two pounds of water, he fecundated some.
(Dissertations, vol. 2. p. 191. English transl.) 2. Because the vagina has an
[Seite 480] action of its own sufficient to move the semen onwards to the uterus: – it is
seen during the oestrum of brutes (and also the uterus in a lower degree) to have
a peristaltic movement; it often firmly embraces the human placenta; and Dr.
Hamilton, the present obstetric professor of Edinburgh, mentions, in his lectures,
having attended a physometric patient whose vagina sucked up air from without,
as appeared from the emission of air ceasing in the warm bath, and Dr. Monro
(secundus), likewise, was perfectly satisfied that the woman drew in the air. Any
canal supplying the place of vagina, however small, probably executes the same
absorbing action, or convey the influence of an absorbing action of the womb.

n.
[Seite 480]

Experimental Enquiry, &c. by John Haighton, M. D. Philos. Trans. 1797.

o.
[Seite 480]

Haller, Elem. Physiol, and notes to Boerhaave, l. c.

p.
[Seite 481]

The divided end of the tube was found totally impervious. The experi-
ment succeeded when one tube only was divided: the division of both deprived
the animal not only of fertility but of sexual desire, and caused the ovaries to
shrink, and even the division of one had this effect in some instances. If the
tube was divided after coition, the result was the same, provided the operation
was performed before the contents of the vesicles had entered it; for, if too much
time had elapsed, the ova were transmitted to the uterus and grew to maturity.

q.
[Seite 481]

The foetus lias frequently remained in the ovarium. See, for instance, the
Phil. Trans. 1680-3. and 1797 and 1820; also Schurig’s Embryologia, p. 824. sq.
where Bohn, Grundius, Ortlob, Blasius, and Littre, are quoted.

Such cases do not militate against the probability of the approximation of the
semen masculinum to the ovarian contents being necessary for impregnation,
[Seite 482] because the tenuity of the vesicles, when ready for this operation, is such as we
may suppose presents no barrier to the influence of the male upon the female
fluid, especially if we reflect that oxygen and blood affect each other through a
piece of moistened bladder (Sect. II. (G). Indeed it is possible, even, that the vesicle
bursts and the two fluids come into actual contact, but that imperfect rupture or
some other cause detains the ovarian fluid till it has acquired permanent adhesions.

r.
[Seite 482]

Schurig, Gynaecologia, pars ii. p. 172. Morgagni, Ruysch, &c. &c.

Dr. Blundel has repeated his uncle’s experiments, with this variation, that
he produced the obstruction not in the tubes, but in the uterus or vagina. Impreg-
nation was of course equally prevented and the ovarian vesicles burst as usual.
Med. Chir. Trans. vol. x.

s.
[Seite 482]

‘“That the semen first stimulates the vagina, os uteri, cavity of the uterus,
or all of them.’

‘“By sympathy, the ovarian vesicles enlarge, project, and burst.’

‘“By sympathy, the tubes incline to the ovaria, and having embraced them
convey the rudiments of the foetus into the uterus.’

‘“By sympathy, the uterus makes the necessary preparations for perfecting the
formation and growth of the foetus, and,’

‘“By sympathy, the breasts furnish milk for its support after birth.”’

There is reason, however, from one passage, to suppose that Dr. Haighton
believes the semen to pass no farther than the vagina. After dwelling upon the
opinion opposite to his own, he says, ‘“The difficulties which were opposed to
the conveyance of the semen by the tubes, were, as we should expect, intended to
prepare the way for a different explanation; therefore physiologists, by a very
natural transition of thought, were led to suppose that the presence of semen in
the vagina alone was sufficient to account for impregnation:”’ and he immediately
proceeds to relate his experiments. In fact I know this to be his opinion, because
in a MS. of his lectures that I rendered full and accurate by taking my notes in
Latin, I find it said of Haller for believing that the semen always enters the
uterus, ‘“Now it is surprising that a man like Haller should do so, who, from
his works would seem to form his opinions, in general, on sound reasoning:”’ and
Ruysch’s cases are quite ridiculed, because this anatomist, ‘“being now of an age
[Seite 483] when most other people can see but little, set about looking for something won-
derful, and discovered what nobody had ever seen before, viz. semen in the uterus
and Fallopian tubes.”’

t.
[Seite 483]

In the body of a young woman, eighteen years of age, who had been brought
up in a convent and had every appearance of being a virgin, Valisneri found five
or six vesicles protruding in one ovarium, and the corresponding Fallopian tube
redder and longer than usual, as he had frequently observed in brutes during
heat. Bonnet gives the history of a young lady who died furiously in love with
a man of low rank, and whose ovaria were turgid with vesicles of great size.
Blancaard, Schurig, Brendelius, Santorini, and Drelincourt, mention analogous
facts. Haller’s notes to Boerhaave’s Praelect. Acad.

u.
[Seite 483]

Spec. Physiol. &c. anno 1788. quoted in 562. (note i.)

x.
[Seite 483]

Phil. Trans. 1819.

y.
[Seite 483]

Anthrop. Ichnogr. 1. 3. and 12. quoted by Schurig. ‘“Tam conjugatae
quam virgines haec ova saepissime excernunt, insensibiliter quidem, quia non
advertunt, nec quiequam de iis suspicantur.”’

z.
[Seite 484]

Cox’s Philadelphia Medical Museum, vol. i. The case usually quoted also
occurred in America (South Carolina), and may be found in Buffon.

a.
[Seite 485]

Annales de Montpellier, quoted in the Journal de Médecine, t. xii.

b.
[Seite 485]

Tropical Diseases, p. 111.

c.
[Seite 485]

Bulletin de la Faculté de Médecine, 1821.

d.
[Seite 485]

Hist. Nat. vii. 9.

e.
[Seite 485]

Lieutaud, Sandifort, Morgagni, Stein, Theden, Schmucker, Engel.

f.
g.
[Seite 485]

Ephemerid. Natur. Curios. Dec. 3. Ann. 7 and 8. Obs. 35. Cent. 9.
Obs. 75. Phil. Trans. vol. iv. 1699. &c. &c.

Med. Facts and Observations, vol. iii. translated from the German.

h.
[Seite 485]

v. c. Newnham, Inversio Uteri. Davis, ibid. T. Windsor, Med. Chir.
Trans.
vol. x. &c. &c.

i.
[Seite 485]

Phil. Trans. 1818.

k.
[Seite 486]

The doctrine of each ovarium furnishing a different sex, is indeed found in
Hippocrates, Aristotle, Galen, Lactantius – a superstitious father of the church,
Rhases, and Avicenna, but has been so long exploded, that Dr. Parsons, in his
Enquiry into the Nature of Hermaphrodites, p. 43., written above eighty years
since, declares it ‘“cannot but seem obsolete before even a capacity of the lowest
class.”’

l.
[Seite 486]

See examples by Dr. Maton, Trans. of Coll. of Physicians, vol. v.
Foderé, Méd. Légale, t. i.; and by Dr. Dewees, Philad. Med. Mus. vol. i.

m.
[Seite 486]

Phil. Trans. 1817.

n.
[Seite 486]

John Cross, Sketches of the Medical Schools of Paris, p. 192.

o.
[Seite 487]

Edin. Phil. Journal, vol. iii. p. 296. sq.

p.
[Seite 487]

Edinb. Journal of Med. Science, Jan. 1827. p. 366. sq.

q.
[Seite 487]

Annales de Chimie, t. vii. p. 162.

r.
[Seite 487]

Animal Chemistry. Translation, p. 41. sq.

s.
[Seite 487]

Recherches Physiologiques, p. 271.

t.
[Seite 487]

Anatomie Générale, t. ii. 344.

u.
[Seite 487]

De Placenta.

x.
[Seite 487]

Drs. Chapman and Rousseau, Philadel. Journ. of the Medical and Physical
Sciences,
No. 1. p. 182.

y.
[Seite 487]

Elements of Physiology, vol. ii. p. 199.

z.
[Seite 488]

Dr. Chapman, l. c.

a.
[Seite 488]

Edinb. Med. and Surg. Journal, vol. v.

b.
[Seite 488]

Comparative Anatomy. Translated by Mr. Lawrence, § 375.

a.
[Seite 490]

See W. Fr. v. Gleichen, l. c.

b.
[Seite 490]

v. c. The illustrious Haller, who plainly asserted, that all the viscera and
even the bones of the future foetus, nearly fluid indeed and therefore invisible, were
pre-formed, before conception, in the maternal germ.

In support of this hypothesis, he argued chiefly from the continuity of the
membranes and blood-vessels between the incubated chick and the yolk of the
egg. Opera Minora. t. ii. p. 418. sq.

But the more frequently I have demonstrated the phenomena of incubation in
the physiological class, the less strength have I found in this argument.

Nor can I sufficiently wonder how this great physiologist could so constantly
reject, as almost absurd, the inosculation, properly so called, of the vessels of the
chick with those of the yolk, while at the same time he admitted and defended a
perfectly similar inosculation in the connection of the human ovum with the
gravid uterus!

See his Elem. Physiol. Lausannae, 1788. t. viii. P. i. p. 94. comparing
p. 257.

c.
[Seite 491]

See L. P. Zweifel gegen die Entwickelungstheorie.Aus der Französischen
Handschrift von
G. Forster. Gotting. 1788. 8vo.

d.
[Seite 491]

v. Kant’s remarks on these, Critik der Urtheilskraft, p. 372.

e.
[Seite 491]

This defect I have shown at large, Handbuch der Naturgeschichte, p. 14. sq.
10th edit.

f.
[Seite 491]

Those who desire a fuller demonstration of this and other assertions but
briefly noticed in the present section, I refer to the work, über den Bildungstrieb.
3d edit. Gotting. 1791. 8vo.

g.
[Seite 491]

See Chr. Girtanner, über das Kantische Prinzip für die Naturgeschichte.
Gotting. 1796. 8vo. p. 14. sq.

h.
[Seite 492]

Here allow me to make three remarks.

1. I have used the expression – nisus formativus, merely to distinguish it
from the other orders of vital powers, and by no means to explain the cause of
generation, that I consider equally involved in Cimmerian darkness as the
cause of gravitation or attraction, which are merely terms given to effects known,
like the nisus formativus, à posteriori.

2. The word nisus I have adopted chiefly to express an energy truly vital, and
therefore to distinguish it as clearly as possible from powers merely mechanical,
by which some physiologists formerly endeavoured to explain generation.

3. On the contrary, the point upon which the whole of this doctrine respecting
the nisus formativus turns, and which is alone sufficient to distinguish it from
the vis plastica of the ancients or the vis essentialis of C. Fr. Wolff and similar
hypotheses, is the union and intimate co-exertion of two distinct principles in the
evolution of the nature of organised bodies,
of the physico-mechanical with the
purely
teleological, – principles which have hitherto been adopted but separately
by physiologists in framing theories of generation.

i.
[Seite 493]

Jos. G. Kölreuter, Dritte Forsetzung der vorläuf. Nachr. p. 51. sq.

k.
[Seite 493]

Recent instances of this remarkable phenomenon are related by Corvisart,
Journal de Med. March, 1809.

N. Ansiaux, Clinique Chirurgicale. Lyons, 1816. 8vo. p. 217.

London Medical and Physical Journal. July, 1816.

Another example I owe to my friend F. Sig. Voigt, professor at Jena.

But the most remarkable case I myself saw in a young medical man, attending
[Seite 494] my lectures, who, when with the French army, lost the last joints of three fingers of
the left hand, and two joints of the little finger, by frost, in the famous retreat to
Beresina. The following year horny rudiments of nails were reproduced on the
last phalanx but one of the fore, middle, and ring finger, but the little finger
remained as before.

l.
[Seite 495]

Blumenbach, Comparative Anatomy, § 341.

m.
[Seite 495]

Petit, Mém. de l’Acad. des Sciences, 1733.

n.
[Seite 496]

Burton, Anatomy of Melancholy, vol. ii. p. 16. sq.

Vanini exclaims, ‘“O utinam extra legitimum et connubialem thorum essem
procreatus! Ita enim progenitores rnei in venerem incaluissent ardentius, accu-
mulatim affatimque generosa semina contulissent, e quibus ego formae blanditiam
et clegantiam, robustas corporis vires, mentemque innubilem, consequutus
fuissem. At quia conjugatorum sum suboles, his orbatus sum bonis.”’ De
Admirandis Naturae.
Parisiis, 1616.

o.
[Seite 496]

Deuteronomy, xxiii. 2.

p.
[Seite 497]

‘“And Jacob took him rods of green poplar, and of the hazel and chesnut
tree; and pilled white strakes in them, and made the white appear which was in
the rods. And he set the rods which he had pilled before the flocks in the gutters
in the watering troughs, when the flocks came to drink, that they should conceive
when they came to drink. And the flocks conceived before the rods, and brought
forth cattle ringstraked, speckled, and spotted.”’ Genesis, xxx.

q.
[Seite 497]

The paragraph above was published in the former edition, and since then
Sir Everard Home also has supported the vulgar opinion and given some examples
in the Phil. Trans. 1825. p. 75. sqq. Indeed, he and Mr. Bauer think that they
have even discovered nerves in the placenta, around the umbilical arteries, and
in the maternal part of the placenta. A remarkable and most authentic case has
just been published by Mr. Bennett, in the Lond. Med. and Physic. Journal for
July last. A woman gave birth to a child with a large cluster of globular tumors
growing from the tongue and preventing the closure of the mouth, in colour,
shape, and size, exactly resembling our common grapes; and with a red ex-
[Seite 498] crescence from the chest as exactly resembling in figure and general appearance
a turkey’s wattles. On being questioned before the child was shown her, she
answered, that while pregnant she had seen some grapes, longed intensely for
them, and constantly thought of them, and once was attacked by a turkey-cock.
Both growths were successfully removed, and Mr. Bennett has been kind enough to
allow me to see them.

The circumstance of longing during pregnancy is rather curious. The stomach
sympathises so strongly with the uterus, that many women experience nausea
or even vomiting, chiefly in the morning, soon or immediately after conception,
and perhaps during several of the first months: occasionally during the latter
months only: some during the whole of pregnancy. Many long for certain nice
articles of food, and become much distressed if not gratified; but others for coals,
sealing-wax, flax, tar, chalk, raw meat, and live fish. Tulpius mentions a lady
having devoured 1400 herrings in her pregnancy. But Ludovicus Vives tells us
of a woman who longed for a bite in the back of a young man’s neck, and would
have miscarried if not gratified; and Langius, of another who had set her heart
upon biting a baker’s shoulder, which she saw bare and white as he carried his
bread to the oven every morning. The husband bribed the baker at so much each
bite. The poor fellow stood two very manfully, but when a third was talked of,
his courage failed. A woman at Andernach on the Rhine longed for her hus-
band, and is declared to have murdered him, ate what she could, and salted the
rest. Shenkius, l. c. de Gravidis.

r.
[Seite 498]

Phil. Trans. 1821, P. 1.

s.
[Seite 498]

Journal de Physiol. t. vii.

a.
[Seite 499]

Fr. B. Osiander, Handbuch der Entbindungskunst, t. ii. P. i.

b.
[Seite 500]

I have recorded a remarkable instance of this kind in the Comment. Soc.
Scient. Gottingens.
vol. viii.

c.
[Seite 500]

Gonsult J. De Gorter, de actione viventium particulari, p. 38.

d.
[Seite 500]

v. Camper, Demonst. anat. pathol. L. ii. p. 9.

e.
[Seite 500]

v. Smellie, Set of anatomical tables, tab. xi.–xv.

f.
[Seite 501]

Although, even among my own countrywomen, the symptoms described
under these four stages vary greatly in violence and proportionate duration;
nevertheless, however naturally they take place, they universally (excepting
some extremely rare cases) so far surpass, even under the most favourable
circumstances, the pains experienced by domestic brutes in their labours, that
I trust no one who has frequently witnessed labours in both, will seriously doubt
the immense difference between them in this respect.

g.
[Seite 501]

B. S. Albinus, Tab. uteri gravidi, vii.

Wm, Hunter, Anat. of the gravid uterus. tab. x. fig. 3.

h.
[Seite 501]

Nic. Massam and all since his time denominate this portion of the interior
of the womb, during or shortly after pregnancy, the cotyledons, from the analogous
[Seite 502] appearance observable in the gravid uterus of sheep or goats, in which similar
cavities (acetabula) exist, receiving what are called the glandular corpuscles of
the chorion that correspond with the foetal portion of the human placenta.

Whatever was hollow, like an acetabulum, was called κοτύλη by the ancients.
Vide J. Cammerarii Comm. utriusque linguae, p. 256. 384.

i.
[Seite 502]

See Dr. Smellie’s Treatise on the theory and practice of Midwifery; Dr. Bartley’s
Treatise on Forensic Medicine, &c. Bristol. Foderé declares, that to his own
certain knowledge his wife went ten months and a fortnight in her two first preg-
nancies. M. Dulignac, long a surgeon-major, declared on a trial, that in regard
to his three last children his wife was pregnant thirteen months and two weeks
with two, and eleven months with the other; and that he had discovered each
of these pregnancies between the fourth and fifth months by the motion of the
child and watched them all to their termination. Foderé, Méd. Legale, t. ii.

That there is great variety among brutes was known to the ancients, but M.
Teissier has made very extensive observations on this point: – Of 160 cows, 14
calved from the end of the 8th month to 8 months and 26 days; 3 on the 270th
day; 50 from the 270th to the 280th; 68 from the 280th to the 290th; 20 on
the 300th; 5 on the 380th. He obtained similar results with 202 mares, 130
sows, and 139 rabbits. M. Darcet found that in the same hen’s nest, 1 egg
hatched on the 13th day; 2 on the 17th; 3 on the 18th; 5 on the 19th. (Foderé.)

a.
[Seite 503]

J. Anemaet, De mirabili quae mammas inter et uterum intercedit sympathia.
L B. 1784. 4to.

b.
[Seite 503]

Eustachius, tab. xxvii. fig. 12.

Haller, Icon. anat. fasc. vi. tab. i.

c.
[Seite 503]

As G. R. Boehmer properly remarks, De consensu uteri cum mammis caussa
actis dubia.
Lips. 1750. 4to.

d.
[Seite 504]

A. B. Kölpin, De structura mammarum. Griphisw. 1765. 4to.

Athan. Joannidis, Physiologiae mammarum muliebrium specimen. Hal.
1801. 4to.

e.
[Seite 504]

v. C. A. Covolo’s two plates at the end of Santorini’s posthumous tables.

f.
[Seite 504]

v. Mich. Girardi, tab. i. annexed to the same plates of Santorini.

g.
[Seite 504]

J. Gottl. Walter, Observ. Anat. p. 33. sq.

h.
[Seite 504]

Santorini, tab. posth. viii.

i.
[Seite 504]

Ruysch, Thes. i. tab. iv. fig. 4.

k.
[Seite 505]

In pregnant women, especially during the first pregnancy, the nipples are
usually yellow.

In the Samojede females, even when virgins, Klingstaedt asserts that they are
quite black. Mém. sur les Samojedes et les Lappons, p. 44.

l.
[Seite 505]

B. S. Albinus, Annotat. Acad. L iii. tab. iv. fig. 3.

m.
[Seite 505]

Morgagni, Advers. Anat. i. tab. iv. fig. 2.

n.
[Seite 505]

Fl. J. Voltelen (Praes. Hahn), De lacte humano observationes chemicae.
L B. 1775. 4to.

Parmentier and Deyeux, Précis d’Expériences et observations sur les différentes
espèces du lait.
Strasburg, 1798. 8vo.

Thenard, Annales de Chimie, t. lix. p. 262.

o.
[Seite 505]

Marc. L. Williamoz, De sale lactis essentiali. L B. 1756. 4to.

p.
[Seite 505]

Senac. Tr. du coeur, vol. ii. p. 276. ed. 2.

Fr. v. P. Gruithuisen, Untersuch. über den Unterschied zwischen Eiter und
Schleim durch das Microscop.
Munich. 1809. 4to. p. 16. fig. 15.

q.
[Seite 505]

Consult J. Theod. Van de Kasteele, Diss. de analogia inter lac et sanguinem.
L B. 1780. 4to.

And Alex. Wilson on the analogy between milk and chyle, Observations relative
to the influence of the climate,
p. 97. sqq.

r.
[Seite 506]

v. Among a host of witnesses, Kölpin in Pallas’s Neuen nordischen Bey-
trägen,
vol. ii. p. 343.

s.
[Seite 506]

Many circumstances induce me to believe that the lymph of the absorbents is
of much importance in the secretion of milk.

For instance, the swelling of the subaxillary glands almost always observable
during the first months of pregnancy.

But especially the remarkable fact, – that, in advanced pregnancy, when, from
the womb compressing by its size the large and numerous lumbar plexuses of
lymphatics, the legs have swollen, this oedematous tumour so completely dis-
appears immediately after labour that the calves of the legs almost hang flaccid
from the lymph finding no impediment in the lumbar plexuses and rushing
upwards, and a copious secretion of milk instantly ensues upon the passage of the
lymph.

The momentary thirst (330) experienced on applying the child to the breast,
from the absorption of fluid in the fauces, may be also mentioned.

t.
[Seite 506]

This is asserted to be common in Russia. Comment. Acad. sc. Petropolit.
vol. iii. p. 278. sq. (C)

u.
[Seite 506]

I have spoken of this at large in the Hannoverisch. Magazin, 1787, p. 753. sqq.

x.
[Seite 507]

Dictionnaire des Sciences Médic. Art. Cas rares.

y.
[Seite 507]

Magendie’s Journal de Physiologie, Janvier, 1827.

z.
[Seite 507]

Quaest. Med. Legales, p. 503.

a.
[Seite 507]

Medico-Chirurgical Transactions, vol. iii.

b.
[Seite 508]

Capt. Franklin’s Narrative of a Journey to the Polar Sea, p. 157. sq.

c.
[Seite 509]

Phil. Trans. vol. xli. p. 813.

d.
[Seite 509]

Phil. Trans. No. 214. p. 263.

e.
[Seite 509]

Hannoverisch. Magazin, 1787, p. 753. Comparat. Anat. § 364.

f.
[Seite 509]

Phil. Trans. 1799, p. 171. sq. See supra, p. 419. n. t.

g.
[Seite 509]

In the Phil. Trans. abridged, vol. ix. p. 206. sq. is an instance seen by Dr.
Stack, in Tottenham Court Road, of an old woman of sixty-four, who had not
borne a child for sixteen years, secreting milk after repeatedly applying her
grandchild to her breasts for the purpose of quieting it, and continuing to furnish
milk in great abundance up to the time of the narration, – four years, to the
children of her daughter, who, finding her mother so useful, ‘“was emboldened
to bid fair for an increase of issue, which till then, she knew not how to nourish
or provide for.”’

h.
[Seite 509]

See Cuvier Leçons d’Anatomie comparée, t. v. Generation.

i.
[Seite 510]

Cuvier Règne Animal, t. iv. p. 2. In the disease of wheat, called the purple,
Mr. Bauer has discovered innumerable animalcules in the seed. Their presence
appeared inexplicable, yet he found them multiply by viviparous generation.
But the difficulty was solved by placing a quantity of them in the depression at
the back of a healthy seed, and sowing this; when he found the stem of the new
plant filled with them. Phil. Trans. 1823. Some animalcules are endowed
with so small a sense of delicacy, that three individuals co-operate at procreation.
Sennebier’s Introduction to his translation of Spallanzani’s Opusc. di fisica animale
e vegetabile,
&c. p. lxxvi.

k.
[Seite 510]

Hie plantas tenero abscidens de corpore matrum
Deposuit sulcis; hic stirpes obruit arvo,

Quadrifidasque sudes et acuto robore vallos;

Silvarumque aliae pressos propaginis arcus
Exspectant, et viva sua plantaria terra;

Nîl radicis egent aliae: summumque putator
Haud dubitat terrae referens mandare cacumen.

Quin et caudicibus sectis (mirabile dictu)

Truditur e sicco radix oleagina ligno.

Virgil. Georgica. Lib. ii.

l.
[Seite 510]

See Spallanzani’s admirable Observations et expériences sur les Animalcules.
He found a small portion detach itself from the bodies of some, the bodies of
others split longitudinally, of others transversely, of others both longitudinally and
transversely into four parts, and the new animalcules soon acquired the size of
the parent and experienced the same changes in their turn.

m.
[Seite 511]

It is singular that some hermaphrodites do not impregnate themselves, but
mutually impregnate and are impregnated by others; such are the gasteropodous
mollusca and many worms.

n.
[Seite 511]

The fair sex were formerly treated with more politeness than at present. An
accidental pregnancy was frequently attributed to the warmth of imagination, the
influence of demons, and many other circumstances supposed equally powerful
as the deed of kind. In Venette’s Tableau de l’Amour conjugal, and in
Bartholin’s works, may be seen an Arrét Notable de la Cour du Parlement de
Grenoble,
which, upon the attestation of many matrones and sages femmes and
docteurs of the University of Montpellier et autres personnes de qualité, that women
often fall pregnant spontaneously, declares a lady who had brought forth a son
although her husband had been absent four years, to be a woman of worth and
honour, and the child to be the legitimate heir of Monsieur the husband. When
a demon bore the blame, he was called an incubus, and his semen always struck so
cold to the ladies ‘“ut displicentiam magis quam delectationem inde sint con-
secutae.
”’ Zacchias, Quaestiones Medicae Legales, lib. vii. tit. 1. Quaest. vii. 7.
A demon that played the part of a female, was named a succubus. It was
asserted that a mischievous devil would often act as a succubus, and then, meta-
morphosing himself into an incubus, deposit in the vagina of some woman the
semen which he had received from a man.

See also Varro, De re rust. ii. 1. Columella, vi. 27. and Pliny, Hist. Nat.
viii. 17.

The ancients believed that mares were sometimes impregnated by the wind, –
ἐξανεμ [...]σθαι.

Vere magis, quia vere calor redit ossibus, illae
Ore omnes versae in Zephyrum stant rupibus altis,
[Seite 512]
Exceptantque levis auras; et saepe sine ullis
Conjugiis vento gravidae (mirabile dictu)
Saxa per et scopulos et depressas convallis
Diffugiunt.
o.
[Seite 512]

Some insects, – ichneumons, lay their eggs in living caterpillars or other species
of their own genus, which are consequently destroyed, so that certain species appear
to naturalists created solely for the destruction of others. The most frightful ex-
ample is the female of a species of sphex; she digs a hole in sandy ground, drags a
large spider or caterpillar into the hole, bites off its legs to prevent its escape, and
deposits an egg in the hole, so that the young one may nourish itself with the
spinning fluid of the poor animal. Blumenbach, Handbuch des naturgeschichte.

p.
[Seite 512]

Hunter, On a secretion in the crops of breeding pigeons for the nourishment of
their young,
in his Observations on certain parts, &c. p. 235.

q.
[Seite 513]

Mr. Hunter satisfied himself experimentally of the truth of the common
assertion, – that the she-ass gives milk no longer than the impression of the foal
is upon her mind. The skin of her foal thrown over the back of another, and
frequently brought near her, is sufficient. Journal of the Royal Institution, No. 2.

a.
[Seite 514]

On the subject of this section consult, among numerous others, Trew, De
differ. quibusdam inter hominem natum et nascendum intercedentibus.
Norimb.
1736. 4to.

Andr. and Fr. Roesslein (brothers), De differentiis inter foetum et adultum.
Ibid. 1783. 4to.

Ferd. G. Danz, Zergliederungskunde des ungebohrnen Kindes mit Anmerk. von.
S. Th. Soemmerring. Frankfort. 1792. 2 vols. 8vo.

Also Theod. Hoogeveen, De foetus humani morbis. L B. 1784. 8vo. p. 28. sq.

Fr. Aug. Walter, Annotat. Academ. already quoted, p. 44. sq.

And J. Dan Herholdt, De vita imprimis foetus humani. Havn. 1802. 8vo.
p. 61. sq.

b.
[Seite 514]

Fourcroy, Annales de Chimie, t. vii. p. 162. sq.

c.
[Seite 514]

Consult Herm. Bernard, De eo quo differt circuitus sanguinis foetus ab illo
hominis nati.
Reprinted in Overkamp’s collection, t. i.

Jos. Wenc. Czikanek, De actuosa hominis nascituri vita s. circulat. foetus ab
hominis nati diversitate.
Reprinted in Wasserberg’s collection, t. iv.

[Seite 515]

Sabatier, at the end of his Tr. Complèt d’Anat. vol. iii. p. 386. sq. 1781.;
and in the Mémoires Mathemat. et Physiques del’Institut. t. iii. p. 337. sq.

But especially J. Fr. Lobstein, Magazin Encyclopédique. 1803. t. iii. vol. li.
p. 28. sq.

d.
[Seite 515]

v. Arantius, De humano foetu libellus, p. 97.

Compare B. S. Albinus, Explicatio tabular. Eustachii, p. 164. sq.

e.
[Seite 515]

Haller, De valvula Eustachii. Gotting. 1738. 4to.

f.
[Seite 515]

Eustachius, De vena sine pari, p. 289. Opuscula, tab. viii. fig. 6. tab. xvi.
fig. 3.

g.
[Seite 515]

J. F. Lobstein, De valvula Eustachii. Arg. 1771. 4to.

h.
[Seite 515]

Haller, De foramine ovali et Eustachii valvula. Gotting. 1748. fol. c. f. ae.
and much more copiously in his Opera minora, t. i. p. 33. sqq.

i.
[Seite 516]

For an account of the opinion of C. Fr. Wolff, who regards the foramen
ovale as another mouth of the inferior cava, opening into the left auricle in the
same manner as the mouth commonly known opens into the right, see Nov.
Comment. Acad. Scient. Petropol.
t. xx. 1775.

k.
[Seite 516]

H. Palm. Leveling, De valvula Eustachii et foramine ovali. Anglipol.
1780. 8vo. e. f. ae.

l.
[Seite 516]

B. S. Albinus, Annot. Acad. l. ii. tab. vii. fig. 7.

m.
[Seite 516]

v. Haller, Icones Anat. fasc. iv. tab. iii. vi.

n.
[Seite 516]

Here is not the proper place for explaining the conditions under which this
occurs, and the cautions therefore requisite in giving an opinion, in a court of
[Seite 517] justice, founded on the examination of the lungs. Among many other writings,
the very important posthumous paper of Wm. Hunter may be consulted in the
Medical Observ. and Enquiries, vol. vi. p. 284. sq.

Ph. Corn. Heineken’s dissertation, De docimasia pulmonum incerto vitae et
mortis recens natorum signo.
Gott. 1811. 4to.

And Fr. B. Osiander, Comment. de respiratione, vagitu et vi vitali foetus humani
inter partum,
&c., on which compare the Götting. Gel. Ang. 1820. p. 1955. sq.

o.
[Seite 517]

Portal, Mém. de l’Acad. des Sc. de Paris. 1769. p. 555. sq.

Metzger, De pulmone dextro ante sinistrum respirante. Regiom. 1783. 4to.

p.
[Seite 517]

B. S. Albinus, Annotat. Acad. l. vi. tab. ii. fig. 7.

q.
[Seite 518]

F. Meckel, Abhandlungen aus der menschlichen und vergleichenden Anatomie.
Halle, 1806. 8vo. He makes it probable that these three organs contribute to
the chemical functions of the nervous and hepatic systems, and thus diminish the
quantity of hydrogen and carbon.

r.
[Seite 518]

C. Uttini, Be glandulae thyroideae usu, in the Comment. instituti Bononiens,
vol. vii. p. 15. sq.

s.
[Seite 518]

Haller, Icones Anat. fasc. iii. tab. 3.

t.
[Seite 518]

J. Ant. Schmidtmüller, über die Ausführungsgänge der Schilddrüse. Land-
ut, 1804. 8vo.

u.
[Seite 518]

Aug. Louis de Hugo, De glandulis in genere et speciatim de thymo. Gotting.
1746. 4to. fig. 2.

Morand the younger, Mémoires de l’Acad. des Sc. de Paris. 1759. tab. 22–
24.

Vincent Malacarne, Memorie della Societa Italiana, t. viii. 1799. P. i. p. 239.

sq.

Flor. Caldani, Congettura sopra l’uso della glandula timo. Venice. 1808. 4to.

Sam. Chr. Lucae, Anatomische Untersuchungen der Thymus. Fasc. i. ii.
Frankfort on the Maine. 1811. 4to.

C. Fr. Th. Krause, Opinionum de thymi functione examen. Gott. 1818. 8vo.

x.
[Seite 518]

Haller, Icones Anat. l. c.

y.
[Seite 519]

Hewson, Experimental Enquiries, P. iii. passim.

z.
[Seite 519]

See Eustachius their discoverer, tab. i. ii. iii., and tab. xii. fig. 1. 10. 12.

Haller, Icones Anat. fasc. iii. tab. vi.

Malacarne, l. c.

a.
[Seite 519]

Mr. Jowitt in Dr. James Johnson’s Med. Chir. Review.

b.
[Seite 520]

Elementa Physiologiae, t. viii.

c.
[Seite 520]

See Mr. Bryce, Edinb. Med. and Surg. Journal. 1815. Jan.

a.
[Seite 521]

Vide Const. Anast. Philites, De decremento seu de marasmo senili. Hal.
1808. 8vo.

b.
[Seite 521]

Vide J. de Muralto, Ephemerides N. C. Dec. ii. ann. 1. p. 305.

Roume de St. Laurent, in Rozier’s Obs. et Mém. s. la Physique. Juillet.
1775. p. 53.

c.
[Seite 521]

Aristotle, Hist. Animal. l. vi. c. 3. Opera, vol. ii. p. 326.

d.
[Seite 521]

Hence, as I have remarked in another place, (Nova Litteraria Goettingensia,
a. 1808. p. 1386.) human monsters are not unfrequently met with so strongly-
resembling the form of brutes; because the nisus formativus, having been dis-
[Seite 522] turbed and obstructed from some cause or other, could not reach the highest pitch
of the human form, but rested at a lower point and produced a bestial shape.
On the contrary, I have never once found among brutes a true example of mon-
strosity, which, by a bound of the nisus formativus, bore any analogy to the
human figure.

For fuller information in regard to the resemblance of the very early human
embryo at first to the larvae of reptiles, and afterwards in some measure to the
foetuses of quadruped mammalia, consult, after Harvey, De generat. animal.
p. 184. 235. sq. London. 1651. 4to. Grew, Cosmol. Sacr. p. 37. 47. Lister,
De humoribus. p. 444. and others, especially Autenreith, Observat. ad histor.
embryon. facientium,
P. i. Tubing. 1797. 4to. Fr. Meckel, both Auffätz. zur
menschl. u. vergleich. anat.
p. 277. sq. and Beyträg. zur vergleich. anat. p. 63,
and elsewhere. And Const. Anast. Philites, l. c.

e.
[Seite 522]

I say of human bone; for in the incubated chick it commences much later,
– at the beginning of the ninth day, which corresponds with the seventeenth week
of human pregnancy.

Observations, therefore, made on the incubated chick, must not be hastily
applied to the formation of the human embryo, – an error committed by the
great Haller himself, who asserted decidedly that what he had demonstrated in
regard to the incubated chick, was equally applicable to other classes of animals, and
to man himself.

This prejudice subsequently gained so much ground, that some physicians,
who endeavoured to settle the forensic disputes respecting premature labour,
deduced their arguments from this hasty comparison of the periods of incubation
with those of human pregnancy. Vide v. c. Hug. Marreti, Consultation au sujet
d’un enfant, &c.
Dijon. 1768. 4to.

f.
[Seite 522]

I have treated of this at large in my osteological work, P. i. S. ii. and iii.

g.
[Seite 523]

Consult Tiedemann, uber die Entwickelung der Seelenfähigkeiten bey Kindern,
in the Hessisch. Beytr. Vol. ii. P. ii. iii.

h.
[Seite 523]

Jer. Vrolik (praes. Brugmans), Diss. de homine ad statum gressumque
erectum per corporis fabricam disposito.
Lugd. Bat. 1795. 8vo.

i.
[Seite 524]

The fabulous report that prevails even to this day, respecting the want of
beard among some American nations, I refuted by a host of witnesses in the
Götting. Magaz. ann. ii. P. vi. p. 418. sq.

Add, from later writers respecting the North American Indians, J. Hecke-
welder, von den Indianischen Völkerschaften, p. 340. sq. and respecting the
Brazilians, Prince Maximilian, Reise, vol. i. p. 135. and elsewhere.

k.
[Seite 525]

I have inserted in the Bibl. Medic. vol. i. p. 558. sq. an account communi-
cated to me by G. E. ab Haller, of procreation in a Swiss girl only nine years
of age.

l.
[Seite 525]

For man has no peculiar privilege of not experiencing the effects of climate
in common with other organised bodies, which are commonly known to arrive at
their growth much later, caeteris paribus, in cold than in warm climates.

As to the giants of Patagonia and the dwarfs of Madagascar, mentioned by
Commerson, I have reduced the exaggerated accounts of the former to a true
statement, and shown that the latter are diseased Cretins, in my Treatise De gen.
hum. var. nativ.
p. 253. 260. ed. 3.

m.
[Seite 525]

J. Bern. Fischer, Tract. de senio ejusque morbis. Ed. 2. Erf. 1760. 8vo.

Benj. Rush, Medical Inquiries and Observations, vol. ii. Philadel. 1793. 8vo.
p. 295. sq.

Bure. W. Seiler, Anatomiae c. h. senilis specimen. Erlang. 1799. 8vo.

Const. Anast. Philites, l. c.

n.
[Seite 525]

Vide J. Bürlin, De foeminis ex suppressione mensium barbatis. Altorf.
1664. 4to.

This remarkable phenomenon, that deserves further investigation, is analo-
gous to a change frequently remarked in female birds, which, after ceasing to lay
eggs, lose the feathers peculiar to their sex and acquire those characteristic of the
male. I have treated of this at large in my commentary de nisus formativi aber-
rationibus.
Gotting. 1813. 4to. p. 8. (F)

o.
[Seite 526]

Joach. H. Gernet, De siccitatis senilis effectibus. Lips. 1753. 4to.

p.
[Seite 526]

I do not here repeat what I have said at large in my osteological work,
p. 36. sq. upon the remarkable wasting of the bones of old men.

q.
[Seite 526]

G. Gottl. Richter, De morte sine morbo. Gotting. 1736. 4to.

r.
[Seite 526]

J. Oosterdyk Schacht, Tr. qua senile fatum inevitabili necessitate ex hum.
corp. mechanismo sequi demonstratur.
Ultraj. 1729. 4to.

Matt. Van Genus, De morte corporea et causis moriendi. L B. 1761. 4to.
reprinted in Sandifort’s Thesaurus, vol. iii.

C. G. Ontyd, De morte et varia moriendi ratione. Lugd. Bat. 1791. 8vo.

Curt. Sprengel, Instit. Medic. t. i. Amst. 1809. 8vo. page 289. sq.

s.
[Seite 526]

See the successive progress of the phenomena of death observed by the indi-
vidual himself, a man of middle age, dying of dysentery, in Moritz’s Magaz. zur
Erfahrungs-Seelen-Kunde,
vol. i. P. i. page 63. sq.

t.
[Seite 527]

Durondeau, Nouveaux Mém. de l’Ac. de Bruxelles, vol. i. 1788. P. i.

u.
[Seite 527]

C. Himly, Commentatio (which gained the royal prize) mortis historiam, causas
et signa sistens.
Gotting. 1794. 4to.

Sal. Anschel, Thanatologia s. in mortis naturam, causas, genera, species, et
diagnosin disquisitiones,
ib. 1795, 8vo.

x.
[Seite 527]

Among other well-known treatises on this subject, consult J. Gesner, De
termino vitae.
Tigur. 1748. 4to. reprinted in the Excerptum Italicae et Helveticae
litterat.
1759. t. iv.

y.
[Seite 527]

Bacon de Verulamio, Historia vitae et mortis. Opera, vol. ii. p. 121. sq.
128. sq. London. 1740. fol.

Chr. W. Hufeland, Makrobiotik, t. i. page 90. and elsewhere. edit. 3. 1805.

z.
[Seite 528]

De l’Influence, &c. P. iv. c. 15.

a.
[Seite 528]

Kirby and Spence, vol. i. p. 404.

b.
[Seite 528]

l. c. P. iii. ch. 1. p. 618.

b.
[Seite 529]

Bohn mentions having seen two female infants alive who had been buried
deep in the ground by their incontinent mothers, and not dug up for some hours.
He says also that, in 1719, a female infant was dug up alive after being
buried for some time at its birth by the mother; and that in 1764, a new-born
child was taken alive from a heap of straw, in which it had been placed, wrapped
in several cloths by its inhuman parents seven hours previously. Dr. James Curry
has recorded a case upon the authority of a surgeon of the Northampton
General Hospital, of a child which was born apparently dead, and, on account
of the attention required by the mother, put aside, and then carried by a
woman to a wash-house, in the depth of winter. After two hours the surgeon
enquired after the child, and by perseverance recovered it. Obs. on App. Death, &c.

There can be no doubt that many infant lives are annually lost from the want
of perseverance in resuscitating measures.

c.
[Seite 529]

Sir Richard Croft attended where the child weighed 15 pounds; and on the
other hand the weight has sometimes not exceeded 3 pounds.

d.
[Seite 529]

Phil. Trans.

e.
[Seite 529]

Harvey, Op. p. 545. Mahon, Méd. Lég. i. 243. Ed. Med. and Surg.
Journ.
1815. Belloc, Cours de Méd. Légale, 77. sq.

f.
[Seite 529]

In a recently described case of puberty, in a boy three years of age, the
judgment, as usual, is not at all superior to that of other children, but the part
of the head stated by Gall as the residence of the organ of sexual love, has been
examined, and is so large that Dr. Spurzheim declares few adults have it of equal
size. Med. Chirurg. Trans. vol. xi. The same in vol. xii. p. 76.

g.
h.
[Seite 530]

Spermatol. p. 185. sq.

i.
[Seite 530]

I say generally, because, for instance, the greatest evolution of the testes is
often accompanied either by little beard, or a small larynx, or some analogous
circumstance, while the other marks of manhood are strikingly manifested; and
vice versa. A boy only six years of age, without any premature evolution of the
organs of generation, is recorded to have had a beard. Philos. Trans.

k.
[Seite 530]

Pott, Works, vol. iii. p. 330. A castrator of sows and other brutes in
Germany is said to have been so enraged with his daughter for giving loose reins
to her passions, as to have resolved to extinguish them, and to have completely
succeeded by removing her ovaria. – ‘“Ita bilis mota est, ut, aperto latere, cas-
traret puellam, quam ab eo tempore nulla tetigit veneris cupido.”’ Boerhaave,
Praelect. Acad. t. vi. p. 127.

l.
[Seite 531]

Phil. Trans. vol. xcv.

m.
[Seite 531]

Mémoires de la Société Médicale d’Emulation. Paris, tom ii.

n.
[Seite 531]

See a case read before the Medicinisch-Chirurgischte Gesellschaft, and to be
found in the Lond. Med. & Physic. Journal, 1819, p. 512. sq. where another is
quoted from Theden. I believe I know a living case of this kind myself, but
dissection only can clear up the matter.

o.
[Seite 531]

Lectures on the Male Urine and Genital Organs, p. 424.

p.
[Seite 531]

l. c. t. i. p. 194. sq.

q.
[Seite 531]

An experiment to determine the effect of extirpating one ovarium upon the
number of young produced.
In his Observations on certain parts, &c.

r.
[Seite 532]

A female infant who cut four teeth at the end of the first fortnight, walked
and had hair reaching to the middle of her back soon after the seventh month,
menstruated and had stiff brown hair on the pubes, and every corporeal mark of
puberty at the ninth month, died in her twelfth year, without having shown
the least sexual instinct. Allgemeine Deutsche Leits. fur Gebactskunde. Gall
saw a similar case, and others may be found in Buffon. (Gall, l. c. p. 260.)
Gall found the cerebellum had not grown proportionally, – ‘“had but a very in-
significant development.”’

s.
[Seite 532]

Gall, l. c. t. iii. p. 254.

t.
[Seite 532]

‘“At Paris,”’ says Gall, (l. c. t. iii. p. 261.) ‘“I saw the son of a mulatto,
not quite three years of age; he threw himself not only upon little girls, but
upon women, and urged them boldly and obstinately to gratify his desires. The
sexual organs were not prematurely developed, but merely of the dimensions
usual at his age, yet he had more than momentary erections, as he was surrounded
[Seite 533] by girls willing to indulge him from the piquant singularity of the thing. He
died of consumption before attaining his fourteenth year. His cerebellum was
extraordinarily developed; the rest of his head of the common dimensions. In
every other respect, indeed, he was only an ill-educated spoiled child.”’

I beg to omit the argument urged at p. 421, that had Lefort been an imperfect
being of either sex, desire would not have been felt, – this being dependent upon
the development of the cerebellum, not of the genitals.

u.
[Seite 533]

In the third volume of his large work, printed in 1818, and some years
before this in his lectures, Gall declared, from numerous observations, that the
fibres of the medulla spinalis ascending from the genital parts till they reach the
cerebellum, decussate exactly like the anterior pyramids. Some years afterwards,
M. Serres and M. Fleurens made the same discovery, and contended for prio-
rity, not mentioning Gall. It is remarkable how many discoveries of Gall’s that
were denied or disregarded, have been since made by others, and even frequently
contested by two parties, he and his labours being never once thought of. ‘“The
greater part of authors,”’ says he, ‘“who have treated of the same subjects as
myself, posteriorly to me, practise this same kind of generosity towards me.”’
l. c. t. vi. p. 26.

x.
[Seite 534]

‘“It will not be easy to produce me an instance of any one giant or of any
one dwarf perfectly sound in heart and mind, i. e. in the same degree with a
thousand other individuals who are regularly constituted. Great mental weak-
ness is the usual portion of giants, gross stupidity that of dwarfs.”’ Lavater,
Physiognomy.

y.
[Seite 534]

Haller, Elementa Physiologiae. t. xii. lib. 30.

z.
[Seite 535]

See Literary Gazette, May 1. 1824.

a.
[Seite 535]

In the year 1748, Mr. Dawkes, a surgeon at St. Ives, near Huntingdon,
published a small tract called Prodigium Willinghamense, or an Account of a
surprising Boy, who was buried at Willingham, near Cambridge, upon whom
he wrote the following epitaph. But whether it was ever engraved upon his
tombstone I have not learned.

‘‘Stop Traveller, and wondering, know, here buried lie the remains of Thomas,
son of Thomas and Margaret Hall; who, not one year old, had the signs of
manhood; not three, was almost four feet high; endued with uncommon strength,
a just proportion of parts, and a stupendous voice; before six, he died as it were
of an advanced age.’

‘‘He was born in this village, Oct. 31. MDCCXLI. and in the same, de-
parted this life, Sept. 3. MDCCXLVII.’’

Mr. Dawkes viewed him after he was dead, and says the corpse had the aspect
of a venerable old man.

See also a description of him in the Phil. Trans. 1744-5.

This perfectly authentic case removes all doubts respecting the boy at Salamis,
mentioned by Pliny (Hist. Nat. lib. vii. c. xvii.) as being four feet high, and
having reached puberty when only three years old; and respecting the man
seen by Craterus, the brother of Antigonus (Phlegon, De mirab. c. xxxii.),
who in seven years was an infant, a youth, an adult, a father, an old man, and
a corpse.

[Seite 536]

Hopkins Hopkins, weighing never more than 18lb. and latterly but 12, died
of pure old age at seventeen; and one of his sisters, but 12 years of age, and
weighing only 18lbs. at the time of his death, had all the marks of old age.
(Gentleman’s Magazine, vol. xxiv. p. 191.) At the Hospice de Maternité, a few
years ago, a child is declared to have been born all wrinkled, and with strong grey
hair on its head and chin. It appeared in good health, but its hands and feet
were of double the usual length. Tablettes Universelles.

b.
[Seite 536]

Phil. Trans. 1827.

c.
[Seite 536]

Phil. Trans. 1799, p. 174.

d.
e.
[Seite 537]

At 105 he did penance in a white sheet for an illicit amour, which physio-
logical fact John Taylor the poet, in 1635, immortalised in the following
elegant rhymes: –

‘“Fair Catharine Milton was this beauty bright,’
‘Fair like an angel, but in weight too light,’
‘Whose fervent feature did inflame so far’
‘The ardent fervor of old Thomas Parr,’
‘That for love’s satisfaction ’twas thought meet’
‘He should be purged by standing in a sheet;’
‘Which aged he one hundred and five year,’
‘In Aldersbury Bury’s church did wear.’
‘Should all that so offend such penance do,’
‘Oh! what a price would linen rise unto,’
‘All would be turn’d to sheets, our shirt and s–––––,’
‘Our table linen, very porter’s frock,’
‘Would hardly ’scape transforming.’

Menstruation has continued regularly till the seventieth year (Phil. Trans.
1713), and women have lain in at fifty-four. (Edinb. Annual Register, vol. ix.)

f.
[Seite 537]

Phil. Trans. vol. iii. 1699.

g.
[Seite 537]

See an original and beautiful Account of the State of the Body and Mind in
old Age,
in the Med. Inquiries and Observations (vol. ii.) of that most interesting
writer. Dr. Rush.

h.
[Seite 537]

On the Influence of Tropical Climates.

i.
[Seite 537]

Oriental Field Sports, vol. i. p. 236.

k.
[Seite 538]

Anecdotes of the Life and Writings of Bishop Watson, &c.

l.
[Seite 538]

John Hunter saw such an instance. Nat. Hist. of the Teeth. This was in
a female, as I believe is more frequently the case.

m.
[Seite 539]

Examples may be found in Sir John Sinclair’s Code of Health and Lon-
gevity.
See also the article Cas Rares, in the Dictionnaire des Sciences Médicales.

n.
[Seite 539]

Iliad, lib. v.

o.
[Seite 539]

2 Samuel, xix. 35.

p.
[Seite 539]

Psalm xc. – ascribed to Moses by most biblical scholars.

q.
[Seite 540]

Pope, Essay on Man. Epistle 1.

r.
[Seite 540]

Dr. Johnson, Review of a Free Enquiry into the nature and origin of evil.

s.
[Seite 541]

By the former, stimuli act upon them, and by the latter, they upon stimuli:
by the sensibility and contractility of the vessels, substances are taken up by the
roots, and circulated through the system, and converted into the various parts of
the vegetable. Yet this does not imply perception, consciousness, or will. The
excitability of the absorbents and secretories of our own system carries on absorp-
tion and secretion without our consciousness or volition.

t.
[Seite 542]
‘“Sense,”’ says Hamlet to his mother, ‘“sure you have,’
‘Else could you not have motion.”’
u.
[Seite 542]

I cannot conceive an animal without consciousness, perception, and volition;
nor can I conceive these in an animal without a brain, any more than the secre-
tion of bile without a liver or something analogous. I contend not for the name,
but for the thing. Zoologists indeed affirm that many internal worms and all
the class of zoophytes have no nervous system. But comparative anatomy is yet
imperfect, the examination of minute parts is extremely difficult, and new organs
are daily discovered. Blumenbach, after remarking that, except those animals
which inhabit corals and the proper zoophytes, most genera of the other orders of
the Linnaean class of vermes are found to possess a distinct nervous system, adds:
‘“Although former anatomists have expressly declared in several instances that
no such parts existed.”’ (Comparative Anatomy, ch. cxvi. F.) Besides, some
beings have been denominated animals without any very satisfactory reason.

Where the nervous system of an animal cannot be readily detected, its presence
may be inferred from motions evidently voluntary, such as retraction upon the
approach of footsteps, – proving the existence of an organ of hearing, a brain,
and nerves: motion in a part directly stimulated, as the contraction of an hydatid
upon being punctured, is no proof of an animal nature, for this is common to
vegetables, for instance, the leaves of the dionaea muscipula, which contract for-
cibly on a slight irritation. It may likewise be inferred from the presence of a
stomach, because, where there is a stomach, the food is taken in, not by absorbing
vessels constantly plunged in it, but by a more or less complicated and generally
solitary opening regulated by volition. John Hunter contended that the sto-
mach was the grand characteristic of the animal kingdom.

x.
[Seite 542]

I see daily instances of something deserving some such name as judgment
[Seite 543] or reason in brutes. To the incredulous I offer the following anecdote in the
words of Dr. Darwin. ‘“A wasp on a gravel walk had caught a fly nearly as
large as itself. Kneeling on the ground, I observed him separate the tail and
the head from the body part to which the wings were attached. He then took the
body part in his paws and rose about two feet from the ground with it; but a
gentle breeze wafting the wings of the fly turned him round in the air and he
settled again with his prey upon the gravel. I then distinctly observed him cut
off with his mouth first one of the wings and then the other, after which he flew
away with it unmolested with the wind.”’ Zoonomia: Instinct. – The works
of the two Hubers Sur les abeilles and Sur les moeurs des fourmis indigènes furnish
an abundance of most interesting instances of reason in those insects. See also
Mr. Smellie’s paper in the Transact. of Royal Society of Edinburgh, vol. i.
p. 39. sqq.

y.
[Seite 543]

An error has been committed not only in representing the gradation regular,
but in supposing every species of animal to constitute a distinct step in the gra-
dation. ‘“The whole chasm in nature,”’ says Addison (Spectator, No. 519.),
‘“from a plant to a man, is filled up with divers kinds of creatures, rising one
above another, by such a gentle and easy ascent, that the little transitions and
deviations from one species to another are almost insensible.”’ ‘“All quite down
from us,”’ says Locke (Essay on the Human Understanding. b. iii. c. 6.), ‘“the
descent is by easy steps, and a continued series of things, that in each remove
differ very little one from the other. There are fishes that have wings, and are
not strangers to the airy region; and there are some birds, that are inhabitants of
the water; whose blood is cold as fishes, and their flesh so like in taste that the
scrupulous are allowed them on fish days. There are animals so near of kin
both to birds and beasts, that they are in the middle between both: amphibious
animals link the terrestrial and aquatic together, seals live at land and at sea, and
porpoises have the warm blood and entrails of a hog; not to mention what is
confidently reported of mermaids or sea men.”’ ‘“In respect of our intellectual
and moral principles,”’ remarks Mr. Dugald Stewart (Outlines of Moral Philoso-
phy,
par. 109), ‘“our nature does not admit of comparison with that of any other
inhabitant of this globe: the difference between our constitution and theirs
being a difference, not in degree, but in kind. Perhaps this is the single instance
in which that regular gradation which we, every where else, observe in the uni-
verse, fails entirely.”’

Now the various kinds of animals do certainly run into each other; – there
are no great peculiarities of construction in single organs between which and the
ordinary structure of the same organs in other animals an intermediate structure
connecting the two are not continually brought to light by naturalists. No two
are so different but that discoveries are continually made of a third intermediate.
[Seite 544] But connection is not gradation. Many kinds, and the intermediate ones by
which they are united, are all on a level in point of excellence and combination
of properties, so that a single step in the gradation may comprehend a great
number of kinds: – the whole vegetable kingdom forms but one step.

z.
[Seite 544]

Hamlet, Act ii. Sc. 2.

a.
[Seite 544]

Le Cat (Traité de l’Existence du fluide des nerfs, p. 35.), asserts that he had
seen the jocko or chimpansé (simia troglodytes) both laugh and cry. The reader
will remember the lines in Milton’s Paradise Lost (B. ix.), –

‘“Smiles from reason flow,’
‘To brute denied.”’

The orang-outangs exhibited a few years ago at Exeter–’Change, – the one a
satyrus and the other a chimpansé, are said by their keepers to have sometimes
laughed when much pleased, but never to have wept. Steller states the fact of
weeping in regard to the phoca ursina; Pallas, in regard to the camel; and Hum-
boldt, in regard to a small American monkey. Mr. Lawrence, Lectures, p. 236.

b.
[Seite 545]

In La Fontaine’s charming fable of Le Singe et le Dauphin, the former
during a shipwreck, near Athens, resolves to profit by his resemblance to man,
for whom the dolphin was anciently said to have a great regard. (See Pliny,
Hist. Nat. ix. 8, 9.) In the hurry,

Un dauphin le prit pour un homme,
Et sur son dos le fit asseoir
Si gravement, qu’on eut cru voir
Le chanteur que tant on renomme.

Just before landing him, the dolphin asked whether he often saw the Piraeus,
to which he unfortunately replied,

Tous les jours: il est mon ami:
C’est une vieille connaissance.

One glance was sufficient to discover the difference between a man and a
monkey.

Le dauphin rit, tourne la tête;
Et, le magot considéré,
Il s’apperçoit qu’il n’a tiré
Du fond des eaux rien qu’une bête;
Il l’y replonge, et va trouver
Quelque homme à fin de le sauver.

‘“The difference between the volume of the brain of the orang-outang and man
is as 5 to 1: their convolutions differ considerably in number and structure; the
anterior lobes especially are narrowed into a cone, flattened above, hollowed out
below, &c. and the difference is much more striking in other apes.”’ Gall, l. c.
t. vi. p. 298.

c.
[Seite 545]

In the external senses of at least smelling, hearing, and seeing, man is sur-
passed by brutes. Whether they have any sense not possessed by us I cannot
pretend to say.

d.
[Seite 546]

Consult Blumenbach, De Generis Humani Varietate Nativa. Sect. i. De
hominis a caeteris animalibus differentia.

e.
[Seite 546]

Paradise Lost, book iv. 288.

f.
[Seite 546]

There is little necessity in the present day to attempt the refutation of the
ridiculous opinion that man is destined to walk on all-fours. But I do so for
the purpose of displaying many peculiarities of our structure.

It is almost incredible that a thinking man could have entertained it for a
moment, any more than the idea of our naturally having tails. Yet this is the
fact; and, in exquisite ridicule of such philosophers, Butler makes Hudibras,
after proving to his mistress by his beard that he is no gelding, fruitlessly urge
his erect posture in proof that he is not a horse.

‘“Next it appears I am no horse,’
‘That I can argue and discourse,’
‘Have but two legs, and ne’er a tail. –’
‘Quoth she, That nothing will avail;’
[Seite 547]
‘For some philosophers of late here’
‘Write, men have four legs by nature,’
‘And that ’tis custom makes them go,’
‘Erroneously upon but two.’
‘As ’twas in Germany made good’
‘B’ a boy that lost himself in a wood,’
‘And growing to a man was wont’
‘With wolves upon all-four to hunt.”’
g.
[Seite 548]

As the head is connected with the trunk farther back in brutes than in us,
the small length of lever between the occipital foramen and the back of the head,
and the length of the head below the foramen, require all this power; but even
in us much more upholding power than we have at the back of the neck would
be required for all-four progression, as the head would no longer rest upon the
spine.

h.
[Seite 550]

See Gall. l. c. t. ii. p. 281. sqq.

i.
[Seite 551]

Mémoires de l’Academie des Sciences de Paris. 1764.

k.
[Seite 551]

In a chimpansé that died at Exeter Change a few years ago, the statement
of Tyson and Daubenton was verified, – that this black ape has no intermaxillary
bone. The red-haired variety (Simia Satyrus) has it, and is destitute of
nails on the hind thumbs and of ligamentum teres at the head of the os femoris,
both which structures this chimpansé possessed. The Satyrus is therefore not
so near the human subject as the Troglodytes.

l.
[Seite 552]

Blumenbach accounts for this, and I think justly, by the two-fold operation,
of our intellect (l. c. § 18. p. 54.), and of the more accommodating nature of
our frame (l. c. § 17.)

m.
[Seite 552]

Cuvier, Discours Préliminaire aux recherches sur les ossemens Fossiles des
Quadrupèdes.

n.
[Seite 552]

l. c. Sect. IV.

o.
[Seite 555]

Albinos spring up among all races of men; and they cannot be accounted
for, except when descended from albinos, for this variety of body may be here-
ditary no less than it is connate and irremediable. It is known to be common
to some mammalia and birds, but has never been observed by Blumenbach in
cold-blooded animals, (l. c. § 78.) A white rabbit is an instance of an albino.
The absence of the pigmentum nigrum renders the eyes extremely sensible to
light, whence such persons prefer going out in the evening. In Wafer’s well-
known and amusing account of those he found in the isthmus of Darien, he says,
‘“They see not well in the sun, poring in the clearest day; their eyes being weak;
and running with water if the sun shine towards them; so that in the day time
they care not to go abroad, unless it be a cloudy dark day. Besides they are a
weak people in comparison of the others, and not very fit for hunting and other
laborious exercises, nor do they delight in such, but notwithstanding their being
thus sluggish and dull in the day time, yet when moonshiny nights come, they
are all life and activity, running abroad and into the woods, skipping about like
wild bucks; and turning as fast by moonlight, even in the gloom and shade of
the woods, as the other Indians by day, being as nimble as they, though not so
strong and lusty.”’ Dampier’s Voyages.

Blumenbach was the first who conjectured the true nature of the peculiarities
of the albino.

p.
[Seite 555]

The hair is frequently of different shades in different parts.

John Hunter remarked that the iris in animals agrees principally with the
colour of the eyelashes.

However various the colour of the hair in horses, the iris, he also observes, is
always of the same. But then the hair is always of the same at birth, and the
skin does not participate in its subsequent changes, being as dark in white as in
black horses. In cream-coloured horses, indeed, there is an exception, – the
iris agrees with the hair, but then the foals are originally cream-coloured and the
skin is cream-coloured. Hunter. On the colour of the pigmentum of the eye in
different animals,
l. c. p. 247.

q.
[Seite 556]

‘“Sooty blackness is not peculiar to the Ethiopian, but is occasionally found
in other varieties of men very different and remote from each other, in the Bra-
zilians, Californians, Indians, and some South Sea Islanders; and among the
latter, the new Caledonians form an insensible transition with the chesnut co-
loured inhabitants of Tongatabu from the tawny Otaheitans to the black New
Hollanders.”’ Blumenbach, l. c. § 43.

‘“Some tribes of Ethiopians have long hair (Bruce on the Gallas; African
Institution on the people of Bornu); on the contrary, some copper-coloured people
have the crisp hair of the Ethiopian (the inhabitants of the Duke of York’s
island, near New Ireland; Vide Hunter, Historical Account of the proceedings
at Port Jackson
). Again, the hair of the New Hollanders, specimens of which I
have now before me, is so perfectly intermediate between the crisp hair of the
Ethiopian and the curly hair of the islanders of the Pacific ocean, that there has
been much diversity of opinion, from the first Dutch to the latest English tra-
vellers, to which of the two varieties it should be referred. As to the varieties of
colour existing among nations whose hair is usually black, we have sufficient
authority for asserting that numerous instances of red hair occur in all the three
last varieties.”’ l. c. § 52.

‘“The Caffres and the people of Congo have hair not unlike that of Europeans.
Even the Foulahs, one of the Negro tribes of Guinea, have, according to Mr.
Park, soft, silky hair; on the other hand, the inhabitants of many other coun-
tries resemble the Africans in their hair, as the savages of New Guinea, Van
Diemen s land, and Mallicollo. And in the same island some of the people are
found with crisp and woolly, others with straight hair, as in the New Hebrides.
In New Holland there are tribes of each character, though resembling in other
particulars.”’ J. C. Prichard, M. D. Researches into the Physical History of Man,
Ed. 1. p. 83.

‘“Many tribes of the Negro race approach very near to the form of Euro-
peans. The Jaloffs of Guinea, according to Park, are all very black, but they
[Seite 557] have not the characteristic features of the Negro – the flat nose and thick lips:
and Dampier assures us that the natives of Natal in Africa have very good limbs,
are oval-visaged, that their noses are neither flat nor high, but very well propor-
tioned; their teeth are white, and their aspect altogether graceful. The same
author (Dampier’s Voyages) informs us, that their skin is black, and their hair
crisped. Nor are others of this diversity more constant. In the native race of
Americans, some tribes are found, who differ not in the characters in question
from Europeans. ‘‘Under the 54°10′ of north latitude,’’ says Humboldt, ‘‘at
Cloak-bay, in the midst of copper-coloured Indians, with small long eyes, there
is a tribe with large eyes, European features, and a skin less dark than that of
our peasantry.’’ Humboldt’s Essay on New Spain, translated.”’ l. c. p. 62.
note b.

‘“The features of the inhabitants of the Friendly Islands are very various,
insomuch that it is scarcely possible to fix on any general likeness by which to
characterize them, unless it be a fulness at the point of the nose, which is very
common. But on the other hand we met with hundreds of truly European
faces, and many genuine Roman noses among them.”’ Cook’s last Voyage.
Vol. I. 380.

‘“Similar examples,”’ remarks Blumenbach on this passage (l. c. § 55. note.),
‘“are observed, among Ethiopian and American nations; and, vice versa, the
resemblance of individual Europeans to Ethiopians and Mongoles is very fre-
quent and has become even proverbial.”’

r.
[Seite 557]

‘“The Tartars of the Caucasian variety pass by means of the Kirghises and
neighbouring people into the Mongoles, in the same manner as these by means
of the people of Thibet into the Indians, by means of the Esquimaux into the
Americans, and by means of the Phillippine Islanders even in some measure
into the Malays.”’ Blumenbach, l. c. § 86.

s.
[Seite 557]

See note q. p. 556.

t.
[Seite 557]

Paradise Lost, book iv. 297.

u.
[Seite 558]

Hume, Essays. Part I. Essay 21. Note M.

x.
[Seite 558]

Beyträge zur Naturgeschichte. Th. i. p. 98.

y.
[Seite 558]

Soemmerring, De basi cranii et originibus nervorum cranio egredientium.

z.
[Seite 559]

Cuvier, Léçons d’Anatomie Comparée.

a.
[Seite 559]

Soemmerring, l. c.

The native Americans pursue their enemies through the desert by the sense
of smell, and have distinct terms for the odour of an European, a Negro, and an
American Indian. (Humboldt, Political Essay on New Spain. Translated. vol. i.
p. 245. Haller, El. Phys.) Negroes in the Antilles can distinguish blacks from
whites in pursuit by the same sense. The bodies of all men have doubtless a
peculiar odour, though the inferior races only enjoy the sense of smell sufficiently
acute to make very nice distinctions in regard to it. In them, too, it is much
stronger. I recollect walking one night many years ago with a physician, –
Dr. Walshman, to the house of a poor man in the suburbs of the town. The
wife came to the door with a candle in her hand, and, opening a dark room on
one side of the passage, begged me to walk into it while she lighted the physician
to her husband. My nose was presently struck by a very strong smell, some-
thing like that of bacon. At the return of the light I perceived three or four
little mulattos asleep in a sort of bed, and after leaving the house Dr. Walshman
informed me that the woman’s husband was a black.

b.
[Seite 559]

Camper, (Dissertation physique sur les différences réelles, que presentent les
traits du visage chez les hommes de différens pays et différens ages
) gives the follow-
ing proportions of the facial angle:

European80 or 90
Chinese75
Negro70
Orang-outang58
Monkey42

Mr. White of Manchester (Essay on the regular gradation) states them rather
differently:

European80to90
Asiatic7580
American7075
African6070
Orang-outang5060
Monkey4050

Cuvier gives 75° for the facial angle of the young orang-outang, l. c. viii.
Art. i.

c.
[Seite 560]

Mem. of the Bavarian Acad. of Sciences, vol. viii. p. 77. sqq.

d.
[Seite 560]

The temperature of the Negro has been said to be two degrees cooler than
that of Europeans, and the voluptuous therefore to prefer a Negress in summer,
a fair Circassian in spring and autumn, and an European brunette in winter.

e.
[Seite 560]

Juvenal. Sat. xv. 163.

d.
[Seite 561]

Westminster Review. 1826.

e.
[Seite 561]

See supra, p. 72. 75. sq.

f.
[Seite 562]

An Elementary System of Physiology, vol. iii. p. 286.

s.
[Seite 562]

From this physiological fact it follows, that if a species is not kept down by
disease or violence, or, as should be the case with mankind, by good feeling, to
such numbers as can find support, the excess must regularly perish. To vege-
tables this can be no cruelty. As all the brute creation are preyed upon, their
numbers may be always sufficiently thinned without starvation. Violent deaths
are too insignificant to operate much in restraining the numbers of mankind, and
terrible as is the havoc of disease, the rapid increase of nations, who can command
any extent of land they require for food, proves it not to be the great restrainer
of population. Starvation, however, is not necessary to limit our numbers, be-
[Seite 563] cause it is the imperious duty of every man to abstain from getting children unless
he has property or work sufficient to feed them when they come into the world.

These palpable facts have been luminously stated by a celebrated member of
my own college at Cambridge, and how any one can deny them, or pretend there
is impiety in Mr. Malthus’s Essay on Population, I cannot comprehend. Mr.
Mills (Supp. to Encyclop. Brit. art. Savings Banks), considers that the addition
made by Mr. Malthus to the admitted doctrine of population being commensurate
with food is, that man’s tendency to marry, and prolific powers, cause a greater
number to be born than can be fed.

h.
[Seite 563]

Horace, l. iv. od. 4.

i.
[Seite 564]

Thomson’s Annals of Philosophy, No. 2.

k.
[Seite 564]

The offspring most frequently resembles both parents, but the proportion of
resemblance to each, both on the whole and in regard to particular parts, is
various, – some children favouring the father most, some the mother, though
usually resembling each enough to preserve a family likeness, – some parts being
as it were an equable compound of the same in both parents, (as the skin in the
mulatto offspring of a black and white,) some an unequal compound, (as when
the offspring of a black and white is white with patches of black or with
merely a black penis, Phil. Trans. vol. 55. Bartholin, Hist. Anat. Schurig,
Spermatologia, p. 146.) and others again similar to the same as seen in one parent
only; and it is remarkable that the resemblance to the parents, whether in regard
to common or uncommon peculiarity, is occasionally not observed in the imme-
diate offspring, but re-appears in the third or even a later generation.

As the different properties of both parents are on the whole pretty well blended
in the offspring, we may, by breeding successively from offspring and one of the
original parents, at length produce an offspring exactly resembling this parent.
(590.) Some dissolute Europeans are said to have begun with a black woman,
and copulated with their offspring till they made her the great grandmother of a
white.

National features, form, and in a great measure even character, arise from a
nation marrying among themselves, and will be more marked in proportion to
the rarity of connection with foreigners. Hence the amazing peculiarity of ths
Jewish race.

The advantage of crossing breeds is well known, and may be explained by the
transmission of the parent’s qualities. If any unfavourable deviation in structure
or constitution occurs, and is transmitted, and the descendants who receive it
hereditarily intermarry, the deviation is doubly enforced in their offspring: but
if a connection is made with another family or breed it is, on the contrary, diluted.
Could a race, however, have all its wants well supplied, and, at the same time,
have no unhealthful habit, so as to acquire no tendency (p. 459.) to unfavourable
deviation, I do not think that the soundness of breeds would require crosses.
The Arabians never allow the mares of the noble race to be covered by any but
stallions of their own rank, yet the excellence of the breed is maintained.
(D’Arvieux, Travels in Arabia, p. 168.) Their horses have every comfort, and
yet are not subjected, like our domestic animals and most of ourselves, to un-
natural habits. The degeneracy of many plants unless their soil is changed, is
quite another circumstance.

l.
[Seite 565]

Pallas, Spicileg. Zoologica.

m.
[Seite 565]

Blumenbach, l. c. § 28.

n.
o.
p.
q.
r.
[Seite 565]

Pallas, Spic. Zool. fasc. iv. p. 22. Sandifort, Museum Anatomicum Acad.
Lugd. Batav. t. i. p. 306.

s.
[Seite 565]

Blumenbach, l. c. § 30.

t.
u.
x.
[Seite 566]

In regard to colour, however, the Albino proves how great a change may
take place in one generation. In the Memoirs of the London Medical Society,
(vol. iii.) is described a case, where not only patches of the hair of the head of an
European changed from black to perfect white, first on one side and then on the
other, and in the course of seven years every hair became white excepting the
eyebrows, but the skin also from being swarthy became fair. (I may add that the
irides remained unchanged, and that another case is annexed to it where half
the hair was black and lank, and the other half light and frizzled.) I recollect
accounts of other persons, who belonged to the dark races, turning white, – one
of a negress, in Maryland, forty years of age, who had been turning white during
the last fifteen years, and had become scarcely inferior in any part of her surface
to an European, and was still changing, (Phil. Trans. vol. li.), – one in the
Manchester Memoirs, (vol. v. P. 1.) of a negro about forty years of age, whose
skin had so changed in two years that the narrator was convinced that all the
black portions remaining did not exceed a square foot, and the change still con-
tinued to proceed very rapidly,_-one of a man, born in Bengal, near sixty years
of age, who left India in his tenth year, and had for nine years been changing to
white, (Dr. Duncan, jun. Reports in the Practice of the Clinical. Ward of the Royal
Infirmary of Edinburgh.
138.), – one mentioned by the Due de Rochefoucalt
Liancourt. (Travels through the United States, vol. v. p. 124. sqq.) The duke
says, that the change had been proceeding for three years, was still going on,
and the wool of the head had changed to European hair, and that several such
[Seite 567] instances, though less complete, had occurred. Another will be seen in the
Journal of the Royal Institution, No. xii. p. 379. A Sussex girl was, a few
years ago, a patient in St. Thomas’s Hospital, whose family were all white,
but whose left shoulder, arm, and hand, were of a negro-blackness, except that a
stripe of white ran between the elbow and arm-pit. (Dr. Well’s Works.) I once
saw a young Welsh-woman whose left upper arm was remarkably dark. The
shoulder was almost as black as a negro’s, but became gradually lighter down the
arm, and abruptly terminated an inch below the elbow. The greater part of the
upper arm was covered with fine scanty hairs. A white woman in twenty years
became as black as a negress, without any evident reason, according to a state-
ment in the London Medical and Physical Journal. (1811. p. 24.), – another
suddenly became black from mental distress, and remained so; and the blackness
was not from jaundice, congestion of blood, &c.; but a change in the colouring
matter of the rete mucosum. Journal Général, vol. lxviii., where a second is
referred to. And other such cases may perhaps be discovered, though those
which I have read appear to have been instances of cutaneous disease.

y.
[Seite 567]

Examples have already been mentioned (563. B.) of what is a still stronger
argument, – the simultaneous production of two individuals of different varieties,
– of a negro and a Caucasian, by the same mother.

z.
[Seite 568]

Cuvier, Discours Préliminaire aux Recherches sur les Ossemens Fossiles des
Quadrupèdes. Natural varieties
only are meant. Local situation can produce
the most intimate structural diseases; witness Cretinism.

a.
[Seite 568]

Poiret, Voyage en Barbarie, t. i. p. 31. Vide Blumenbach, l. c.

b.
[Seite 568]

Paley, Natural Theology, c. 23. p. 472.

c.
[Seite 568]

Lord Kaimes, M. de Virey, and Dr. Prichard, have quoted many instances
of these facts. ‘“We found,”’ says Humboldt, ‘“the people of the Rio Negro
swarthier than those of the lower Orinoco, and yet the banks of the first of these
rivers enjoy a much cooler climate than the more northern regions. In the
forests of Guiana, especially near the sources of the Orinoco, are several tribes
of a whitish complexion, the Guiacas, Guajaribs and Arigues, of whom several
robust individuals exhibiting no symptom of the asthenical malady which charac-
terises Albinos, have the appearance of true Mestizos. Yet these tribes have
never mingled with Europeans, and are surrounded with other tribes of a dark
brown hue. The Indians, in the torrid zone, who inhabit the most elevated
plains of the Cordilleras of the Andes, and those who are under the 45° of south
latitude, have as coppery a complexion as those who under a burning climate
cultivate bananos in the narrowest and deepest vallies of the Equinoctial region.
We must add that the Indians of the mountains are clothed, and were so long
before the conquest, while the aborigines, who wander over the plains, go quite
naked, and are consequently always exposed to the perpendicular rays of the sun.
I could never observe that in the same individuals those parts of the body which
were covered were less dark than those in contact with a warm and humid air.
We every where perceive that the colour of the American depends very little on
the local position in which we see him. The Mexicans, as we have already
observed, are more swarthy than the Indians of Quito and New Granada, who
[Seite 569] inhabit a climate completely analogous, and we even see that the tribes dispersed
to the north of the Rio Gila are less brown than those in the neighbourhood of
the kingdom of Guatimala. This deep colour continues to the coast nearest to
Asia, but under the 54°10′ of north latitude, at Cloak Bay, in the midst of
copper-coloured Indians, with small long eyes, there is a tribe with large eyes,
European features, and skin less dark than than that of our peasantry.”’ Political
Essay on New Spain,
translated.

The Jews settled in the neighbourhood of Cochin ‘“are divided into two classes,
called the Jerusalem or white Jews, and the ancient or black Jews.”’ – ‘“The
white Jews look upon the black Jews as an inferior race, and not as a pure cast,
which plainly demonstrates that they do not spring from a common stock in
India.”’ Buchanan, Christian Researches in Asia, 219, &c.

The white appear to have resided there upwards of seventeen hundred years.

Dr. Shaw and Mr. Bruce describe a race of fair people in the neighbourhood
of Mount Aurasius, in Africa, who, ‘“if not so fair as the English, are of a shade
lighter than that of any inhabitants to the southward of Britain. Their hair also
was red, and their eyes blue.”’ They are imagined to be descendants of the
Vandals. Bruce, Travels.

The Samoiedes, Greenlanders, Laplanders, Esquimaux, &c. are very swarthy;
nay, some of the Greenlanders are said to be as black as Africans.

‘“Do we not in fact behold,”’ says M. de Virey, ‘“the tawny Hungarian, dwell-
ing for ages under the same parallel and in the same country with the whitest
nations of Europe; and the red Peruvian, the brown Malay, the nearly white
Abyssinian, in the very zones which the blackest people in the universe inhabit?
The natives of Van Diemen’s land are black, while Europeans of the correspond-
ing northern latitude are white, and the Malabars in the most burning climate,
are no browner than the Siberians. The Dutch, who have resided more than
two centuries at the Cape of Good Hope, have not acquired the sooty colour of
the native Hottentots; the Guebres and Parsees, marrying only among them-
selves, remain white in the midst of the olive-coloured Hindus.”’ J. T. Virey,
Histoire Naturelle du genre humain, t. i. p. 124.

d.
[Seite 570]

I fear that John Hunter has not generally the credit of this observation, but
the following passage shows it to be clearly his. ‘“As animals are known to pro-
duce young which are different from themselves in colour, form, and disposition,
arising from what may be called the unnatural mode of life, it shows this curious
power of accommodation in the animal economy, that although education can
produce no change in the colour, form, or disposition of the animal, yet it is
capable of producing a principle which becomes so natural to the animal that it
shall beget young different in colour and form; and so altered in disposition, as
to be more easily trained up to the offices in which they have been usually em-
ployed; and having these dispositions suitable to such changes of form.”’ Hun-
ter, On the Wolf, Jackall, and Dog, l. c.

e.
[Seite 570]

May not some circumstances that produce a change in the offspring by acting
through the parent, produce the same change likewise in the parent, although the
change in the latter is not the cause of the change in the offspring?

f.
[Seite 571]

On the Causes of the Variety in the Complexion and Figure of the Human
Species,
p. 85. sq.

g.
[Seite 571]

l. c. ed. 2. t. ii. p. 565. sq.

h.
[Seite 572]

Cook, Voyages, vol. iii. book v. c. 7.

i.
[Seite 572]

If the kingdom of Hayti continues, some highly interesting physiological
questions will be determined: – We shall know what cultivation the African
race is capable of, and what influence civilisation has upon the system of succes-
sive generations.

k.
[Seite 572]

Med. Gazette, No. 2.

l.
[Seite 573]

Quarterly Review, Jan. 1828. p. 7. Review of Two Years in New South
Wales, &c.
by P. Cunningham, surgeon, R. N. 1827.

m.
[Seite 574]

Narrative of a Journey through the Upper Provinces of India, from. Calcutta
to Bombay,
by the late Reginald Heber, D. D. Lord Bishop of Calcutta, p. 54. sq.

n.
[Seite 575]

Voyage en Egypte et en Syrie, t. i. p. 87. sq.

o.
[Seite 578]

Thoughts and Recollections by one of the last century.

p.
[Seite 578]

Voyages des Découvertes aux Terres Australes.

q.
[Seite 579]

‘“Animals living in a free and natural state are subject to few deviations from
their specific character; but nature is less uniform in its operations, when influ-
enced by culture. Considerable varieties are produced under such circumstances;
of which the most frequent are changes in the colour.’

‘“These changes are always, I believe, from the dark to the lighter tints; and
the alteration very gradual in certain species, requiring in the canary-bird several
generations; while in the crow, mouse, &c. it is completed in one. But this
change is not always to white, though still approaching nearer to it in the young
than in the parent; being sometimes to dun, at others to spotted, of all the
various shades between the two extremes. This alteration in colour being con-
stantly from dark to lighter, may we not reasonably infer, that in all animals
subject to such variation, the darkest of the species should be reckoned nearest to
the original; and that where there are specimens of a particular kind, entirely
black, the whole have been originally black? Without this supposition it will be
impossible, on the principle I have stated, to account for individuals of any class
being black. Every such variety may be considered as arising in the cultivated
state of animals.”’ Hunter, On the colour of the pigmentum nigrum of the eye,
l. c. p. 243.

r.
[Seite 579]

Dr. Prichard, l. c. chap. vii. viii. ix. Rudolphi mentions Pallas, Schelver,
Doornik and Link, as supporters of this opinion. We have just seen the senti-
ments of a Bishop.

s.
[Seite 580]

Dr. Rudolphi, professor in the University of Berlin. Grundriss der Phy-
siologie.

t.
[Seite 580]

Blumenbach believes the spontaneous generation of the animalcule vibrio
aceti,
because it is found only in the artificial mixture of vinegar and paste. But
as animalcules abound in vinegar, why should it not merely be a variety
occasioned by the influence of the paste? Handbuch der Naturges. th. ix.

u.
[Seite 581]

Philosophie Zoologique, vol. ii. Paris, 1809.



Blumenbach, Johann Friedrich. Date:
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