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THE PHILOSOPHY

''<'.

OF

VITAL MOTION.

BY

CHARLES BLAND EADCLIFFE, M.B.

LICENTIATE OF THE ROYAL COLLEGE OF PHY8ICIAKS;

LECTCBEB ON VEGETABLE PHYSIOLOGY AND BOTANY AT THE WE8TM1N8TEB

HOSPITAL, ETC. ETC.

LONDON :
JOHN CHURCHILL, PRINCES STREET, SOHO.

MDCCCLI.

CONTENTS.

CHAPTEE I.

PAOB

Preliminary considerations respecting vital motion . 1

CHAPTEE II.
OF VITAL MOVEMENTS.

A. Of vital movements in vessels and cells ... 10

Section I.

Of vital movements in the vessels, cells, and inter-
cellular PASSAGES OF THE PLANT 11

I. In the laticiferojis vessels (cyclosis) 14

II. In simple cells, (including the phenomena of

"rotation") 20

III. In the plant generally (circulation of the sap) . . 27

Section II.

Of vital movements in the vessels and cells op

animal bodies 32

I. In capillary vessels 33

II. In cells 49

CHAPTEE III.

B. Of vital movements such as are seen in the

IRRITABLE TUMOURS OF THE SENSITIVE PLANT, IN
THE COATS OF THE ALIMENTARY CANAL, AND IN
VOLUNTARY MUSCLES 52

IV CONTENTS.

Section I.

FACE

In the irritable tumours of the sensitive plant, . 52

Section II.

In the coats of the alimentary canal and in volun-
tary MUSCLES 56

I. In the coats of the alimentary canal, &c, ... 62
n. In, the voluntary muscles ......... 71

CHAPTER IV.
C. Of vital movements in the heart 106,

CHAPTER V.

Of the nervous influence as an agent in vital
movement 126

CHAPTER VI.
Of the action of mind in vital movement .... 128

PREFACE.

In a work lately published under the title oi^'' Proteus;
or^ the Law of Nature" I have endeavoured to realize
that unity, or t6 ev^ which is said to ensoul the diver-
sities of things, and bind them together in one. I
have traced this principle in plant and animal, not
merely as a vague generality, but as pervading the
entire structure — from a simple organ to a perfect
organism, and from the complicated nervous, vascular,
or osseous systems, to the more rudimentary parts of
the economy. I have traced, also, the same principle
into inorganic bodies; — so that in relation to form,
we may conclude that there is one archetypal law in
all created things, whether animate or inanimate.
Heat, light, chemical affinity, electricity, motion, and
other physical agencies, have also been found to be
connected with each other, and with the more recon-
dite vital influences, as correlative aspects of one
central force ; so that the unity of creation is reflected
in force as well as form. And finally, this principlef

VI PREFACE.

has seemed to be absolute, for on proceeding onwards
it is seen to be impossible to separate form from force,
and to regard the one as a mere lifeless image, or the
other as a mere " naked essence."

But it may be objected that all these ideas are
mere philosophical abstractions, and that this unity
of nature is not a practical truth to be realized in the
problems of every-day physiology. If there be this
oneness of which you speak, it may be asked, how is
it that the body is obedient to a law which is totally
different to anything we find in inorganic nature?
Will it explain the hitherto inexplicable capillary
movements of the blood? — will it solve the oft-
perplexed, and still unread riddle of muscular action?
— will it tell us why the heart continues its mysterious
beatings? — will it give the clue to a hundred acts and
movements which are distinctive of life, and which we
are obliged to refer to an incomprehensible and potent
essence which is shut up in every living body ? — for,
except it will help to do these things, the doctrine is
of no practical value. An objection like this is just
and right, for no one can be expected to receive an
opinion which is based merely on transcendental facts
and arguments, especially when it is belied (or seems
to be) by his own daily experience.

PREFACE. Vll

Let us encounter, then, this objection on the grounds
that are here indicated, and inquire whether the
phenomena of vital motion will not receive light and
interpretation from the doctrine they seem to con-
tradict. Remembering the arguments for a common
law, let us not seek the explanation in the body alone
in which the movements are manifested, but in a
wider range of causes. Let us treat unity as a reality
and not as a fiction, and wait patiently for the result.
If we do this, every phenomenon will be found to point
to this truth; and this truth, on the other hand, by
enlarging our ideas to receive the comprehensiveness
of nature, will enable us to advance far towards the
explanation of vital motion. If we do this, the move-
ments of blood or other nutrient fluids in vessels
independently of any cardiac impulse, the action of
muscle, the beating of the heart, and many other
mysteries of life, will no longer perplex us, for each
will interpret the other, and all will refer to a common
law — cosmical — one.

4, Henrietta-street, Cavendish-sqtKire.
January \st, 1851.

THE

PHILOSOPHY OF VITAL MOTIOJN.

CHAPTER I.

PRELIMINARY CONSIDERATIONS RESPECTING
VITAL MOTION.

In spring the seed of the sensitive plant becomes the
seat of active life, and the sapling emerges from the
shelter in which it had slept during the cold season ;
in summer the foliage is unfolded; in autumn the
verdure and freshness are lost; and in winter the
plant is bare and dead. At the return of spring the
buds receive new life and awake from their dormant
condition ; in summer the branches are reclothed with
leaves and blossoms; in autumn the vital energies
decline ; and in winter the plant is again reduced to
a naked and lifeless skeleton. Year by year these
phenomena succeed each other in the same order and
with the same regularity, so that the vitality would
seem to ebb and flow in direct relation to the varying
intensity of the sunbeams. At daybreak, also, the

2 PRELIMINARY CONSIDERATIONS

leaves recover from the closed and pendent condition
in which they are found at night, and — if not dis-
turbed in any manner — they remain erect and unfolded
until evening, when they again close and droop ; and
these alternations recur in this order so long as the
characteristic sensitiveness is retained. In both cases,
indeed, there is a manifest connexion between the
phenomena and certain changes in the relative
positions of the earth and sun, the one referring to
the annual, and the other to the diurnal revolution ;
and hence it may be argued that the vital movements
of the sensitive plant are due to the joint operation of
cosmical force, and of an innate principle which
belongs to the individual organism.

The egg of the lizard, like the seed of which we
have spoken, exhibits no signs of development unless
it be quickened and fostered by external agents ; and
the same aid is necessary after the animal has escaped
from the shell. In the perfect state there is a sensi-
tive and intelligent principle by which the actions are
regulated and governed, but this does not supersede
the foreign powers which acted upon the egg. It is a
constant rule, indeed, for this animal to be active and
full of life in warm weather, and to hybernate in cold
— the periods of animation and torpidity being in
exact correspondence with the summer and winter;
and it is equally constant for the same animal, when
in its active state, to wake throughout the day and to

RESPECTING VITAL MOTION. 6

sleep throughout the night ; — and hence we may argue
that the vivifying rays of the sun are essential to the
continuance as well as to the commencement of exist-
ence, and that the vital movements of the lizard
depend, not merely upon a source and spring of action
that is peculiar to the creature itself, but also upon a
more general and comprehensive agent, which affects
at one and the same time the entire realm of nature.

As in the sensitive plant and lizard, so in other
plants and animals, the vital movements are found to
refer partly to internal and partly to external agencies.
In some cases there may be greater energy in the
forces which reside within the organism ; in others the
influence of surrounding nature may be more power-
ful ; but in every case the two classes of agencies are
invariably associated.

In order, therefore, to arrive at any satisfactory
knowledge of vital motion, it is necessary to examine
it in relation to cosmical as well as to organic force, —
or rather in relation to the forces which originate
within and without the organism — for we find, on the
one hand, that cosmical force pervades the organism
and constitutes part of its vitality, and, on the other,
that organic force is not restricted to the limits of the
body. Before we enter upon any special and syste-
matic enquiries, however, it may be well to endeavour
to obtain some preliminary information upon the mode
in which the bodily structures are affected by some of

B 2

4 PRELIMINARY CONSIDERATIONS

the more ordinary varieties of what may be called
extra-organic force^ in contradistinction to that which,
originating within the body, may be called intra-
organic. And this shall be the subject of our present
chapter.

As we might anticipate, the parts of the
plant or animal which respond most readily to extra-
organic agents, are those which are simple and rudi-
mentary in their character ; for in the higher textures,
such as muscle, the influence of this class of agents is
greatly masked by the workings of inherent vitality.
In the simple tissues, however, there is no obscurity.

In the sensitive plant, for example the cellular
cushions which move the leaves are found to expand
under the influence of light and warmth, and to
contract on the withdrawal of these agents ; and with
few exceptions, and these but apparent, the same law
is observable in all similar organs.

The simpler fabrics of animal bodies, which are
furthest removed from the control of the nervous
system, and in this respect most nearly allied to
the tissues of the plant, are also found to move in
obedience to an external impulse. The subcutaneous
areolar web is shrunk and puckered in winter, so as
to give rise to the appearance called " cutis anserina,"

EESPECTING VITAL MOTION. 5

and it is relaxed or expanded in summer. When
exposed to cold, also, the dartos contracts in a very
remarkable manner, and an opposite condition is
induced by the operation of warmth. And so likewise
in the vascular coats of erectile tissue.

These instances furnish different points of view,
from which we may regard all the principal forms of
rudimentary tissue. The irritable tumours of the
sensitive plant consist chiefly of cells which do not
differ from the ordinary cells of plants. Areolar
tissue is composed of fibrils of various sizes, which are
formed from the same material as the primary cells,
and which material appears to be absolutely identical
in plant and animal. The tunic of the dartos is
only another form of areolar web, in which there is
a preponderance of certain thicker fibres, that are
present everywhere in less abundance; and between
these fibres and those which enter into the composition
of the vascular coats, there is a direct and immediate
gradation. Each form, indged, is transitional to the
other, and the whole constitute a group that includes
all structures subordinate to true muscle. It is of
moment, therefore, that we find these tissues to con-
tract when exposed to cold, and to pass into an oppo-
site state under the influence of warmth, inasmuch as
this action must be supposed to be common to all the
rudimentary tissues of the economy. In this way,

6, PRELIMINARY CONSIDERATIONS

then, we obtain evidence of the operation of external
agents in the phenomena of vital motion, and learn at
the same time the mode of action, so far at least as
that force is concerned which is most intimately
wedded to motion — namely, heat.

This result is in harmony with that which

marks the operation of the same agent in inanimate

bodies, for these contract or expand according to the

presence or absence of heat: and yet there is an

important difference in the midst of this seeming

analogy. It is found, indeed, that there is a much

greater alteration of volume in organic solids, under

trifling changes of temperature, than in any other

bodies. Under no higher degree of heat than what

is expressed by the term warmth, the fibrils of the

areolar covering of the body are greatly elongated,

provided they were previously in a contracted state;

and in the fibres of the dartos and erectile tissue, the

former length may be doubled. In inorganic solids, on

the contrary, tlie change, under these circumstances,

would be almost inappreciable; and even in fluids,

which are apt to undergo greater changes than solids,

and are very sensible to the motive power of heat,

as may be seen in the mounting or falling of the

liquid in the tube of the thermometer, we are

acquainted with no instances where the change is in

RESPECTING VITAL MOTION. 7

any way commensurate with that which is witnessed
in these organic solids.

Notwithstanding this peculiarity, however, it is
evident that the simple vital movements of which we
speak are connected with, and in some degree deter-
mined by, ordinary heat, and on further examination
we find no reason to doubt this conclusion.

It is found, indeed, that various inorganic solids
are affected differently by heat, some being acted
upon to a much greater extent than others: and
this is sufficient to show that there may be a still
further difference in organic substances, without any
departure from the mere physical character of the
phenomenon.

It may be observed, also, that the solids in question
are composed of several elements, as oxygen, hydrogen,
nitrogen, and carbon, which for the most part remain
gaseous when in an uncombined state, and of which
the mutual affinity is so feeble that they readily pass
into an aeriform condition, — and hence it may be
supposed that such solids will undergo a greater
change of volume under the action of heat than an
inorganic substance, in which the constitution is simple
and the molecular affinity more stable. And for the
same reason it need be no ground of wonder that
the change should be greater than in water, or in
any other fluid whose particles do not tend to

8 PRELIMINARY CONSIDERATIONS

remain gaseous under the ordinary condition of the
atmosphere.

The hygroscopic property of organic substances,
which is illustrated in the expansion or contraction of
the belts of sea-wrack which occasionally serve as
hygrometers, or in the shortening or lengthening of
a lady's ringlets, according to the moisture of the
atmosphere — is another circumstance which may in
part account for the changes of volume in these tissues.
It is probable that the heat which determines the
evaporation of water from the earth operates, remotely,
in preparing these bodies to receive a portion of this
fluid within their interstices ; but whatever the expla-
nation may be, the phenomenon is of a physical
character, inasmuch as it is exhibited when the sub-
jects of it are removed altogether from the operations
of vitality. This hygroscopic property, therefore, is
another reason why the remarkable changes of volume
in the rudimentary tissues of the organism, under
slight changes of temperature, may be nothing more
than the natural and physical consequence of the
constitution of these tissues.

Such would appear to be some general facts in con-
nexion with the operation of one form of external
agent, in some of the simpler phenomena of vital
movement. They show that the motions in the tissues
of the plant and animal, of which mention has been
made, may be referred in part to causes that are

RESPECTING VITAL MOTION. 9

not within the pale of life ; and also that the move-
ments themselves, in so far as they are related to heat,
are analogous to those which are brought about by
the same agent in inorganic substances, any apparent
diflference being only one that may be accounted for
by the mere physical constitution of the tissue.

10 OF VITAL MOTION.

CHAPTER II.

OF VITAL MOVEMENTS.

These phenomena may be arranged under three
heads: — Under the first, are those which are seen
in vessels and cells; under the second, all such
movements as occur in the irritable tumours of the
sensitive plant, in the coats of the alimentary
canal, and in the voluntary muscles ; and under the
third, the rhythmical beatings of the heart. We shall
speak of the several varieties of vital motion according
to this arrangement, and then add some separate con-
siderations on the influence of the nerves and mind in
these phenomena.

A. OF VITAL MO VEMENTS IN VESSELS
AND CELLS.

These movements are less complex in the plant than
in the animal, for here they are not confused by the
cardiac impulse ; and it is in the plant, therefore, that
we institute our first inquiries.

OF VITAL MOTION. 11

Section I.

OF VITAL MOVEMENTS IN THE VESSELS, CELLS, AND
INTERCELLULAR PASSAGES OF THE PLANT.

Preliminary Considerations.

In plants, the sap exhibits very positive motion, but
there is no true circulation. There is a general move-
ment which belongs to the plant as a whole, and to
which all parts contribute; and there is a special
movement, which is itself divided into two varieties,
the one belonging to the laticiferous vessels, and the
other to certain single cells.

The plan of the general movements of the sap would
seem to vary at different times and places. When
examined during the summer, the main current is
found to pass from the roots, through the fibres and
ducts of the newly-formed woody zones of the stem, to
the upper surface of the leaves. It then tends towards
the lower surface of the leaf, and thence, in a down-
ward direction, through the fibrous structures of the
bark, passing at the same time inwardly and horizon-
tally through the tissues which form the medullary
rays. " Very little of the elaborated sap reaches the
roots, from which the motion commenced ; and none of
it, except that small quantity which mixes with the
ascending current, is again transmitted through the
system." The movement is not confined to any special
tissue, but it seems to pervade indiscriminately the

12 OF VITAL MOTION.

intercellular passages as well as the cavities of the
cells, and to pass without difficulty through organic
membranes, except these be thickened and altered by-
solid deposits. During the winter, however, or, at
any rate, in times of severe frost, (as we learn from
M. Biot,) the sap of the same plant flows chiefly from
the branches towards the roots, so that at these times
the former organs would seem to exercise the office
which generally belongs to the latter. In plants, also,
where the roots are sparingly developed, and infixed in
arid and moving sand, or in parasites, whose dry,
aerial roots are every-way unfitted to the function of
absorption, it is clear that the fluids necessary to the
wants of the economy must find entrance by other
channels. In the lower cellular plants, also, which
are adherent to dry and barren rocks, the surface
which exercises the function of absorption is that
which corresponds to the aerial system of more perfect
plants. It would appear, therefore, that the stem and
root, with their several organs respectively, may be
the channel of absorption, a varying degree of import-
ance being assigned to either in different plants ; and
this we may understand to be possible, from the law
of analogy which has been already set forth in another
work. It would appear, also, that there are periodical
changes in the same plant, so that no one plan can be
considered as constant — a supposition which is the
more probable from the fact, that the sap infiltrates

OP VITAL MOTION. 13

through the textures generally, like a stream through
a porous rock, and not in fixed and definite channels.

The movement of the elaborated sap or latex in the
laticiferous vessels, to which the name of cydosis is
given, has been fully investigated by Professor Schultz.
It is the counterpart of the capillary circulation in the
higher animals in the earlier periods of their foetal
history, or of that which remains permanently in some
of the rudimentary entozoid forms ; that is to say, it
is not a single and constant stream, proceeding and
returning to and from a common fixed centre or heart,
but a complex movement, consisting of many distinct
currents directed to and from certain independent
centres, the positions of which are subject to continual
change. This is the plan observable in the vascular
area of animal bodies prior to the formation of the
heart, and therefore there is nothing special and
peculiar in the phenomena of cyclosis.

The second special movement of the sap, or rotation,
is that which is observed in the contents of certain
cells, and the phenomena are always limited to one of
these rudimentary bodies. The law is not constant,
and there are great and manifest variations, not only
in different plants, but even in contiguous cells of the
same plant. In one instance, the movement is directed
along one wall of the cavity, and in a contrary direc-
tion down the other side, the line of the current being
in accordance with the longitudinal axis of the cell :

14 OF VITAL MOTION.

in another instance it follows a spiral course in a
transverse direction : in a third it is vague, and to
all appearance unobservant of any particular law.

In attempting to detect the causes of these several
movements, we propose to commence our task with
the study of the phenomena of cyclosis, for here we
secure an intermediate position between the vague
and imperfectly-understood movements confined to
individual cells, and that more complicated circulation
of the sap which extends to the entire plant.

I. OF THE MOVEMENTS IN THE MILK VESSELS OF
THE PLANT (CYCLOSIS).

In this, as in every phenomenon of vital movement,
we have to seek for the efficient cause in agents which
proceed from surrounding objects, and in agents which
reside within the organism.

1. Of extra-organic force as the agent in the
phenomena of cyclosis.

On watching the movements of the sap in the
laticiferous vessels, Dr. Lindley found them to cease
in a low temperature, and to recommence when the
plant was carried into a warm room ; and in this fact
we have evidence of a partial dependence upon the
influence we designate as heat. Let us begin our
examination, then, by inquiring into the manner in

OF VITAL MOTION. 15

which this physical agent may be concerned in these
changes ; and to this end, let us divest ourselves of
those ideas of mysterious and unknown powers with
which the explanation is presumed to be connected,
and at the same time banish the notion that the
causes of vital movement ??22/5^, of necessity, be different
from those which determine motion in inanimate
bodies, while we consider, on ordinary principles,
the necessary effects of heat under these circum-
stances.

Motion is one of the effects of heat in ordinary
matter, repulsion of the particles marking the com-
munication, and attraction the withdrawal, of the
influence. If the body acted upon be arranged in a
tubular form, an alteration in the capacity of the
cavity must result, the calibre being diminished or
extended, as the case may be. Such, also, may be
presumed to be the effect of heat in a vessel composed
of the simpler organic fabrics, for we have already
seen that the particles of these tissues are affected
like those of inorganic bodies.

Let it be supposed, then, that a latex vessel is acted
upon by heat, and what, we may ask, will be the con-
sequences. The vessel, as we have already seen, is
composed of matter possessed of a remarkable sus-
ceptibility to movement under slight alterations of
heat, much greater in degree than that which belongs
to water, or blood, or the allied fluids, and therefore

16 OF VITAL MOTION.

we suppose that the expansion of the latex will not
be commensurate with the change experienced by the
coats of the vessel ; and hence, the primary operation
of heat upon the vessel will be the production of a
vacuum between the coats and the contents.

The operation of heat, therefore, may be the cause
of the primary act of absorption, for to fill the vacuum
which is thus formed, it is evident that there must be
a rushing inwards of aeriform or watery fluids from
neighbouring parts — a phenomenon readily permitted
by the porosity, which is one of the properties of
organic membrane — and thus the filling of the shrunk
and empty laticiferous web, on the return of spring,
may be nothing more than the necessary effect of the
increased warmth of the season.

It does not appear, however, by what means the
solar heat can be concerned in the production of the
focal movements by which the latex is agitated, for
this agency operates uniformly and equally upon all
portions of the web. Nor in the construction of the
vessels themselves does there appear to be any pecu-
liarity which could localize the operation, inasmuch
as the focal points are subject to change, and not con-
fined to any fixed and permanent positions. At this
stage of our inquiry, also, we do not find any aid in
the physical agencies which are correlative of heat —
namely, light, electricity, and the rest — and therefore
we leave our present point of view, and proceed to

OF VITAL MOTION. 17

study the phenomena of cyclosis in relation to the
agents, which reside within the organism.

2. Of intra-organic force as the agent in the
phenomena of cyclosis.

In addition to vital and peculiar principles, we find
within the organism the several forces of ordinary
matter — namely, heat, chemical affinity, electricity,
and the rest. Of these agents, at this stage of our
inquiry, heat is the only one whose effects are tangible
and intelligible, and therefore we leave the others in
abeyance for the present.

We know from the history of the animal economy
that the production of organic heat will be commen-
surate with the molecular changes of the nutrient
fluid, and the solid textures in relation to this fluid ;
and hence we may argue that the quantity of latex
present in any part of the laticiferous web, will be a
fitting measure of the capacity of that part for the
production of heat. A greater amount of this influ-
ence, we may argue, will be extricated where the
vessels are dilated and congested with sap, (yasa
expansa,) than in the places where the vascular
calibre is contracted, and the contents evacuated
{vasa contracta).

The variable sizes of the laticiferous tubes, which
is characteristic of the system, may therefore be the
cause of some irregularities in the origination and

c

18 OF VITAL MOTION.

operation of organic heat. Where indeed a vessel is
more dilated, there we may suppose molecular changes,
which will necessitate a further dilatation, by which
additional quantities of fluid will be attracted from
neighbouring parts; for although changes take place
cotemporaneously in vessels which are contracted and
comparatively empty, yet these lesser phenomena will
be absorbed and counteracted by the greater. For the
same reason, also, that the more expanded portions
should, in the first instance, be the seat of a more
vigorous extrication of heat and consequent expansion,
by which currents are determined towards them, so
also we must grant the possession of the same faculty
when they have become more expanded by absorption.
Once set up indeed, the process of expansion must go
on in these parts, for anything we know to the con-
trary, either until a sufficient resistance is opposed
by the pressure of neighbouring parts, or until the
vessel is ruptured — for the coats will be less able to
resist the distending force as the expansion progresses.
The stage of contraction in the laticiferous web
which supervenes upon dilatation would seem to argue
the abstraction or suspension of force, and such may
be the case. This will appear if we leave those focal
centres which have attained their maximum degree of
enlargement, and cast our eyes upon other portions of
the same system of vessels. There we find irregularity
in the sizes of the tubes : and hence we may begin

OF VITAL MOTION. 19

again as at first; and as the absorbing power of the
original centres is suspended we may argue that
the vessels which are most dilated at the time of
suspension, will in their turn take upon themselves a
faculty of expansion and become centres of attraction.
These secondary centres will expand at the expense
of the neighbouring vessels : and this process will go
on (as in the first instance) until a barrier is opposed
to further progress by external resistance. Cotem-
poraneously with the cessation of the flow of latex
to these points a third order of centres will be
established in other parts of the web where the vessels
are largest, and there being no impediment to their
enlargement, they will go on dilating, until, as in the
former instances, the efficient cause is balanced by
external resistance. A fourth order of centres will
succeed the third, and a fifth be superadded upon the
fourth, and so on in an unending series, — the position
of the new centres in each case being in those portions
of the vascular web which are most dilated when the
old centres cease to enlarge.

In the absorption produced by the expansion of
these fugitive hearts we find a cause which will tend
to empty all congested portions of the vascular web,
and by this means we may partially account for the
supervention of the stage of contraction upon that of
dilatation. A second cause may also be found in the
changes which have taken place in the contents of

c2

20 OF VITAL MOTION.

the dilated centres, for these contents may be supposed
to be impoverished by having subserved to the nutri-
tive wants of the part, and to have become on this
account far less fitted to the performance of those
molecular changes which originate heat : and hence
the stage of contraction may be in part due to a
direct diminution of the local manifestation of organic
heat.

Other agencies, without doubt, have some share in
the determination of these phenomena, as we shall see
in the sequel ; but in the operation of heat, we find —
as it seems — the first step in the explanation of the
primary absorption of the latex into the contracted
vessels, and of the subsequent oscillation of this fluid
to and from certain focal centres, while at the same
time we are able to account, by the same means, for
the change of position in the centres themselves.

II. OF THE MOVEMENTS IN SIMPLE CELLS, AND
THE PHENOMENA OF " ROTATION."

1. Of extra-organic force as the agent in these
movem£nts.

The functions of the laticiferous vessel and the
common cell are called into action at the same time,
and the season which determines or suspends the
vascular changes determines and suspends also the
growth and internal movements of the cell.

OF VITAL MOTION. 21

Whatever may be the cause of the appearance of
the primary germs or nuclei in the organic fluids, we
know that their molecular constitution is closely allied
to the substance which forms the coats of cells and
vessels, and also that heat is necessary to their future
development. In these bodies, therefore, we may
argue that expansion is inevitable under the operation
of the last-named agent, and thus it is possible to
conceive that the enlargement of growth may be no
mysterious property but only the natural result of
the operation of heat upon the substance. Even the
formation of the cavity, by which the originally solid
nucleus is converted into a hollow vesicle, may also
be a part of the same process, for under the operation
of an expansile force the particles of these minute
fabrics will tend outwards from the centre.

When the cell is once formed we may readily under-
stand that heat may be the cause of further develop-
ment, for the material of which it is constituted will
be acted upon like the coats of the laticiferous vessel.
The process of rupturing which takes place in many
of the free cells of organic fluids may also be the
natural consequence of unrestrained expansion, and
this result would probably be constant if in many
cases the process were not kept within bounds by
collateral pressure, as is the case in the cellular
elements of solid tissues.

In the coats of simple cells there do not appear to

22 OF VITAL MOTION.

be any periodical changes corresponding to those wit-
nessed in the milk-vessels ; but, at the same time,
there is a fact which may be construed to indicate the
existence of obscure changes in some measure ana-
logous. The concentric layers which occupy the in-
terior of many cells would seem indeed to refer to
periodical alterations, which may be understood to be
possible enough. We may suppose, indeed, a cell to
submit to a state of contraction after having attained
to its maximum state of dilatation, partly because its
contents have been abstracted by neighbouring cells
which are in process of development; and partly
because the same contents are less fitted to the gene-
ration of heat after having subserved in some measure
to the nutritive Avants of the part. And further, we
may suppose a second state of expansion during a
period of comparative inactivity in neighbouring
parts, which itself might result in contraction when
the contents were wasted by nutrition, or wanted for
the growth of other cells.

Under similar circumstances, also, the same pro-
cesses might be repeated a number of times. In each
case we may suppose the formation of one of the con-
centric layers, which line the interior of the cavity, to
mark the epoch of nutrition, activity, and dilatation ;
and in this way the layers may be regarded as relics
which give evidence of slow periodical changes in these
cells, analogous, in some degree, to the more realized

OF VITAL MOTION. 23

movements of the fugitive hearts of the laticiferous
web of vessels.

These remarks upon the phenomena of cell growth,
are intended to serve rather as suggestions than as
explanations; but while we would be careful not to
assign to them an importance they do not deserve, we
must be equally on our guard not to scout the idea
that physical agents are concerned in these changes.
Heat is undoubtedly concerned, and largely so, and it
is to be remembered that the changes in the organic
substance accord with the natural law of action of
this agent in inorganic substances.

The phenomena of cell-growth point also to
the influence of light as well as heat. This agency is
necessary to the free formation of the granules of
starch: thus potatoes grown in orchards thickly
crowded with trees, are always more watery and less
rich in amylaceous matter than those cultivated in the
open fields. The growth of the layers which impart
hardness to wood requires a free exposure to the in-
fluence of light ; and for this reason the timber grown
in dense forests is never so firm and hard as that which
has been freely exposed to the sun. The granules of
the substance allied to starch, which impart colour to
plants, depend for their formation upon the same foreign
power. The growth of the entire plant is also influ-
enced by light, and thus the trunk and its branches

24 OF VITAL MOTION.

are always more perfectly developed than the root and
rootlets.

In all these changes light seems to determine the
formation of additional nuclei or centres of growth,
and to be the prime mover of the act of nutrition. As
heat stands related to development, so light appears
to be connected with genesis : how and by what means
is not easy to decide, but still we may obtain much
information if we study the fact attentively. Light,
it may be said, involves a certain clearness of the
atmosphere and absence from clouds, which is favour-
able to evaporation and radiation; and under these
circumstances it may be supposed that the organic
fluid in which the nuclei originate tends rapidly to
give off its more watery portions. This process pro-
ceeds until at last the remaining fluid is no longer
able to retain the organic matter in solution, and
hence perhaps the appearance of the solid particles.
In this way the formation of nuclei in the organic
fluid, and of crystals in an ordinary chemical solution,
are both favoured by the operation of light, for a state
of atmosphere is involved in the presence of this
agent which would bring about the necessary evapo-
ration of the solvent.

I am not prepared to deny that light has a special
action upon growth, for it is directly concerned in the
changes of the photographic process ; but at the same
time it is to be borne in mind that this agent is cor-

OF VITAL MOTION. 25

.relative with physical motion, heat, chemical affinity,
and electricity. Instead of having any distinct and
independent mode of action, therefore, light is rather
to be regarded as a condition of one and the same
action, — ^higher in character, perhaps, than heat, but
still related to this and the other physical agents, just
as the several prismatic colours in light are related to
each other, all being varying aspects of one central
principle.

It is difficult indeed to imagine any real difference
in the mode of operation of the several physical agents
foreign to the body ; and it is more consistent with
the spirit of philosophy to seek in secondary causes
for the explanation of any apparent differences.
Instead of supposing light to have any special action
upon the organism, it is better, therefore, to regard
this influence as expressive of that condition of the
atmosphere most favourable to evaporation and radia-
tion, and most likely to bring about that degree of
inspissation in the organic fluids which naturally
results in the deposition of solids that were previously
in a state of fluidity.

The phenomena of "rotation" refer also to the
agencies concerned in the free discharge of the other
functions of nutrition ; and here, likewise, it is possible
to meet with a partial explanation without having
recourse to the unintelligible mystery of vital power.
Let it be supposed indeed that the cell (itself acted

26 OF VITAL MOTION.

upon by external agents) reacts inductively upon the
floating nuclei contained within it, and it may be
imagined that one of the consequences of the action
will be the communication of a motion to these nuclei,
such as is witnessed in a constrained and modified
manner in the various forms of electromotory machines.
These intercellular movements may be in part explained
in this way, for there is no doubt of the existence of
a tangential force in connexion with electricity, which
under some circumstances is sufficient to communicate
to the body acted upon a direct, and, as it were, orbital
movement around the body which is the principal
source and spring of action.

At the present stage of our inquiry we may only
hope to obtain presumptive arguments, for those
which furnish demonstration and conviction have to
be reared by a tedious cumulative process, which will
not be complete until all the phenomena of vital
movement have passed under consideration. At the
same time it is necessary to place a check upon our-
selves, lest we be blinded by our prejudices, and to
keep the judgment cool and collected while we weigh
the evidence which will gradually come under notice.

2. Of intra-organic force as the agent in cellular

movements.
As in the phenomena of cyclosis, it is probable that
in this case there are internal physical agencies which

OF VITAL MOTION. 27

originate and operate in the same manner. In the
plant, however, the power which enkindles and fosters
life proceeds in great part from without ; and it is not
until we ascend to animal bodies that the inherent life
of the creature assumes any great degree of promi-
nence. In the laticiferous movement, which approaches
most nearly to the capillary circulation of animals,
there is, it is true, the distinct trace of internal power ;
and so, also, it may be argued, in the molecular move-
ments of "rotation," and in cells which exhibit
laminated deposits ; but in all these cases the organic
and foreign forces operate in the same manner, and
are analogous in character; and it is not necessary to
attempt to determine what precise degree of import-
ance belongs to either.

The evidences, moreover, of the operation of any
vital principle in the vegetable economy are too ob-
scure to allow satisfactory and advantageous inves-
tigation, and it is better, therefore, to leave the con-
tested topic in complete abeyance until we arrive at
the more marked problems of animal life.

III. OF THE GENEBAL MOVEMENTS OF THE SAP.

This question is much more simple than it appears
to be : and if we take care to suspend the operation
of certain unfounded prejudices which appertain to it,
we shall find that the general movements of the sap

28 OF VITAL MOTION.

are determined by the very same agents which Bring
about the special movements of the cell and latex
vessel.

1. Of extra-organic force as the agent in this
movement.

A statement of M. Biot, quoted by Dr. Lindley,
affords a true clue to the discovery of the secret
action of these forces. According to this observer,
there is an abundant exudation of sap from the
spongioles in frosty weather, which continues until a
thaw supervenes, when it gives place to an opposite
process of absorption, of which the vigour and activity
is directly related to the degree of warmth and heat.
In other words, there are changes which seem to show
that the tissues of the plant contract when exposed to
the influence of cold, and expand when heated, just as
any inorganic substance ; the waters being expelled
from or absorbed into the porous textures, according
to circumstances.

The powerful upward current of the sap, during
the warm weather, would also seem to point to the
same order of changes, and to meet with its explana-
tion in them ; for at this time the trunk and branches,
with their several appendages, will be expanded by
the heat, and vacua produced, into which fluids may
be supposed to rush. The agent, also, which produces
the expansion will vaporize a large quantity of these

OF YITAL MOTION. 29

fluids, and the vapours, passing off into the atmo-
sphere, will leave their former spaces to be filled from
the same sources; and hence (the condition of the
atmosphere being such as to favour evaporation and
radiation) the same agent which causes the primary
rush of fluids from the earth will provide for the con-
tinuance, and convert the rush into a continuous current.

The downward movement of the sap during the
colder months of winter, when the temperature of the
air is too low to produce any considerable expansion
in the tissues of the aerial system of the plant, and
when, for the same reason, the evaporation of fluids
will be retarded, would seem also to be of similar sig-
nificance ; for at this time we may suppose the under-
ground portions of the plant to be relatively warmer
and more expanded than the aerial ; and, consequently,
on the same principles we may account for the change
of current which has taken place.

Other powers may, and do, operate in these move-
ments; but the actual exudation and absorption of
sap from the roots, witnessed by Biot, on the super-
vention and cessation of a frost, together with the
changes in the main current which characterize the
circulation of the plant in summer and winter, — all
point to heat as a grand and important agent.

In the circulation of the plant it has been already
stated that the fluids move indifferently through the
cells and vessels, or through the insterstitial spaces,

30 or VITAL MOTION.

and that no part is specially concerned in the process.
Each cell, as it would appear, aids in the production
of the general current; and this, therefore, is com-
pounded of an infinite number of minor currents. The
sap, indeed, may be said to rise as through a porous
rock ; and the analogy would be nearly perfect, if we
could imagine the component crystals to be hollow
and porous, and the stream to filter through their
cavities as well as in the interstices. That the leaves
or spongioles have no special power in determining
these movements, though at times these are tlie main
entrances to fluid, is evident from the changes in the
main current of the sap which take place in winter
and summer; for whatever function seems to belong
to the leaf at one time is transferred to the rootlet at
the other, so that the function of either, in relation to
the absorption or exhalation of fluid cannot be re-
garded as absolute. In the arguments, also, which
show the essential unity of the various parts of the
plant, which have been set forth elsewhere,* there is a
strong reason for the belief in the possibility of a
change of function in these parts.

The entire subject however is very imperfect, and
many new observations must be made before it can
be fully known. At the same time, it is sufficiently
clear that the phenomena of the general circulation

• '- Proteus ; or, the Law of Nature." London : J. Churchill,
1850. Pages 9, &c.

OF VITAL MOTION. 31

in the plant are not always definitely and absolutely
the same; and from what is known, it may be argued
that the changes which take place are due to the
operation of causes analogous to those which deter-
mine changes in the centres of the laticiferous vessel.
In particular, the statement of Biot is very clear as
to the existence of general expansion under the
influence of heat, and of contraction under the oppo-
site condition of cold; and hence we may infer that
these eflects will always follow when the plant is sub-
jected to these agents.

2. Of intra-organic force as an agent in the general
movement of the sap.

The evidence which appertains to this division of
our subject, above what has been cited in connexion
with the cell and latex vessel, is very obscure and
imperfect; and to enter upon it would involve the
discussion of questions which will be more advan-
tageously considered when we speak of vascular move-
ments in animal bodies. As, however, the general
movement of the sap is in great part the aggregate
expression of the cellular and vascular movements,
we may argue that the influence of intra-organic force
will be the same as in the cell and latex- vessel, — and
as to the rest, we must be content to reason from
analogy, from what we shall find hereafter in animal
bodies.

32 OF VITAL MOTION.

Section II.
OF vital movements in the vessels and cells

OF ANIMAL BODIES.

In creatures which remain at the foot of the scale
of existence, and in the early transitional phases of
beings which ultimately attain to a higher grade, the
vascular movements are in every respect similar to
those of the laticiferous system in the plant ; but in
more perfect states the plan is greatly altered, and
instead of the ever-changing centres, and the oscilla-
tory currents connected with them, there is a single
heart and a perfect circulation. In this movement
the heart is undoubtedly the prime agent, but it is
not less true, that the vessels, and especially the smaller
ones, possess an important complementary power, — and
this it is our present purpose to investigate.

The cellular movements of animal bodies are, in
many respects, similar to those of plants, but in
addition to these is one that is exhibited in certain
processes to which the name of cilia is given, and
which has attracted considerable attention in these
days of microscopic investigation. All these demand
attention in proper order.

OF VITAL MOTION. 33

I. OF MOVEMENTS IN THE CAPILLARY VESSELS.

1. Of extra- organic force as the agent in these
movements.

The changes in the life of hybernating animals are
the grand test of the operation of these forces upon
the vascular system, for this strange faculty is to be
referred simply to the conditions in which the life is
passed, and not to any peculiarity in the nature of this
life. A common squirrel, for example, which hybernates
in high northern latitudes no longer does so if it be
removed to a warm climate ; but he returns to his old
habit if again restored to his former home : and this
is the common experience of all creatures which
exhibit these phenomena. Nor is there any peculiarity
in the organization of these animals, except perhaps
a greater delicacy of constitution; — for of several
animals to all appearance precisely similar, some are
found subject to periodical torpidity, and others not,
— and so we may argue that their strange suscepti-
bility to the influence of forces foreign to the organism
is merely an exaggerated expression of a sensibility
which pervades animate nature.

The manner in which the vessels are affected by
these forces may be illustrated by other facts. If, for
example, the hand be held to the fire it becomes
flushed with blood, and this condition may increase

D

34 OF VITAL MOTION.

until a high degree of inflammatory action is kindled
in the part; — but if, on the contrary, it be plunged
into iced water, the circulation is suspended, and the
vessels shrink so completely that the bloodless tissues
resemble blanched wax. An effect, in some respects
similar, may also be noticed in the skin of persons in
whom the circulatory powers are feeble, and the
appearance sallow and bloodless during the winter,
but who lose their sallowness and become roseate and
blooming on the occurrence of summer. In other
words it may be said that, in each of these cases, the
coats of the vessels expand or contract as heat is
imparted or withdrawn.

So far as we are able to judge, this alteration in
capacity would seem to extend to all vessels generally,
and to be prolonged in duration, and not to be tran-
sient and limited to certain points as in the latici-
ferous system of the plant. The exercise of force in
this case, as it would appear, is designed to preserve
the vessels as open channels, so as to remove as much
as possible any resistance which might impede the
action of the heart. In the lower grades of exist-
ence, however, the case is different, and also in the
earlier periods of the foetal history of the higher
animals, while the heart is as yet a feeble instrument
in the propulsion of the nutrient plasm, for under
these circumstances the vessels do actually possess a
proper power of movement analogous to the focal

OF VITAL MOTION. 35

powers of the latex vessels: — and in the higher
animal when the circulation flags and the heart beats
faintly and irregularly, it is interesting to observe
that the blood no longer moves in a continuous stream
in one direction in the capillaries, but oscillates irre-
gularly to and from certain points, in such a manner
as to show a tendency to the revival of those nume-
rous centres of action, which had been absorbed and
superseded by the heart.

2. Of intra-organic force as the agent in the
capillary movements.

In vegetables the vascular movements are mainly
dependent upon the agency of extrinsic force, but in
animals the case is altered, and the internal or organic
powers gain the ascendancy, except in the hyber-
nating class, where perhaps the influence of the two
is nearly balanced.

The internal or organic force may be divided into
two principal forms, and each of these will demand
separate consideration. The first is connected with
the mysterious operations of the nervous system ; and
the other, which is less vague and indefinite in its
character, in the expression of the several molecular
changes which constitute the functions of nutrition,
respiration, and secretion.

d2

36 OF VITAL MOTION.

(a.) Of the nervous influence as an agent in the
capillary movements.

It is not our purpose to consider the abstract pro-
perties of the nervous system, and the high and
mystical communion between it and the intelligence
of man, but simply to examine the physical relation
which exists between this system as matter and the
rest of the organism.

The physical mode in which the nervous influence
affects the capillary vessels — for there is such a tan-
gible mode of action — may be ascertained without any
diflficulty. When, for instance, the mind is paralysed
by fear, the skin becomes pale and blanched, in con-
sequence of the shrinking of its vessels; and not only
so, but if the bodily frame be fragile and delicate, the
deadening influence extends to the heart, and a state
of syncope or entire suspension of circulation is the
result: when, on the other hand, the frame thrills
under the excitement of joy, and the nervous power
is exuberant, the countenance becomes radiant, the
skin is suffused with blood, and the heart beats with
increased vigour. These phenomena afford a twofold
illustration of the importance of the nervous principle
as an " agent of life," and of the nature of the agency
physically considered.

As evidenced in the capillary vessels, therefore, the
effects of an exuberant or deficient supply of nervous

OF VITAL MOTION. 37

influence are identical with those which attend the
communication or withdrawal of that physical agent
with which we have been already occupied, — so
identical, indeed, that we naturally inquire whether
the higher and mystical force does not operate through,
and by means of, this ordinary agent. Independently
of any unintelligible theories on the subject, it would
appear that the peculiar nature of the nervous system,
and the relation which this system holds to the rest of
the organism, would authorize such a conjecture. The
composition is of cells and fibres, constructed upon a
common type, and moulded from a common plasm,
with the other parts of the body; and structurally,
therefore, there is no sufficient reason to suppose
speciality of attributes. Nerve and ganglion, also,
dissolve away under the ordinary destructive agencies
which act upon the body, and change into new chemical
compounds, identical in nature and history with the
compounds which result from the disintegration of the
rest of the organism. Viewing the question, there-
fore, in connexion with genesis, as in the act of
nutrition elsewhere, a certain amount of ordinary
physical force must attend the formation of nervous
matter : and viewing it in connexion with destruction
or disintegration, or, in other words, in relation to
the respiratory function, the chemical affinity, which
is here in active play, is but another name for the
same force. A proportionate destruction of tissue is

38 OF VITAL MOTION.

also involved in the development of nervous influence ;
and in this respect, as in other varieties of force, the
nervous influence may be regarded as the exponent of
a certain condition of change in matter.

For these reasons it must be admitted that ordi-
nary physical agencies constitute a part, at least,
of nervous power ; nay, more, — that the degree
of the one is commensurate with that of the others.
It is impossible, moreover, to conceive the idea of
ordinary force being present and inoperative ; and it
can scarcely be imagined that the nervous power
which is superadded to the more commonplace agents
should have a different law of action, otherwise the
one might negative the other. Whatever difference
of essence, reason and experience argue a community
of operation ; for, so far as the capillary vessels are
concerned, the effects of an insufficient or excessive
supply of nervous influence are similar to those which
attend equivalent alterations in the intensity of
ordinary force. Such, indeed, are the facts already
cited in connexion with the history of fear and joy
as to allow it to be supposed that the nerves act upon
the capillaries — not by the sur-addition of any new
agency, but by means of that which is already in
operation, — by that, namely, which is the necessary
exponent of the molecular changes in the material
part of the nervous substance.

The metaphysical arguments which concern the

OF VITAL MOTION. 39

relation between physical and vital force have been
set forth elsewhere, and to these we must refer the
student for the other arguments which bear upon this
subject. At present, however, we have only to do
with physiological facts and considerations ; and these,
we may observe, are of such a character as to allow
us to suppose an intimate relation between the nervous
influence, physically considered, and the ordinary force
of matter, — so intimate, indeed, that the former may
be regarded as a mere modification of the latter, not
essential to the functions of vegetables, or of the
lowest tribes of animate existence, but superadded in
order to intensify the vitality of higher and more
favoured creatures. It remains to be seen whether a
subsequent examination of the phenomena of vital
motions will bear out this conjecture, and the judg-
ment must be suspended until the special modes of the
operation of force upon the heart and the muscular
system generally have been passed in review.

(b.) Of the organic force^ not of a nervous character^
as an agent in the capillary movements of
animal bodies.

The force here referred to is of a twofold nature :
on the one hand, it is the exponent of the changes
which constitute the function of nutrition; and on
the other, it marks the molecular movements of
respiration.

40 OF VITAL MOTION.

The operation of the force originating in nutrition
may be seen in the phenomena of capillary circulation,
if we contrast the opposite conditions of inflammation
and anaemia. The abstract idea of inflammation
consists, as it were, in the emancipation of some of
the smaller vessels from their subservience to the
heart — in the return to an early type of circulation
— and in the establishment of an unnatural focus
of movement, to which an undue afflux of blood
is determined. In this state the vessels exhibit
the highest degree of vitality, and are fully dis-
tended with blood; while, at the same time, the
increased manifestation of heat shows that this con-
dition is attended with an inordinate amount of
common force. In anaemia, on the contrary, where
the watery blood is insufficient to the fit discharge of
the function of nutrition, the capillaries are shrunk
and exsanguine ; and this condition is always accom-
panied with an absence of the natural degree of
animal heat. Contrasting, therefore, the history of
inflammation with the opposite state of anaemia, we
may, without the assumption of any unintelligible
agency, explain the peculiar condition of the vessels
at the time, as the natural consequence of the degree
of ordinary force resulting in the nutrient changes, to
which at the time the vessels are subjected.

The history of the function of respiration is written
in such plain terms, that it can scarcely be doubted

OF VITAL MOTION. 41

that the accompanying force, which is its exponent,
is ordinary and mechanical in its characters. The
essence of this function consists in the formation of
water and carbonic acid by the union of the oxygen
of the atmosphere with certain hydrogen and carbon
constituents of the organism ; and, as the volume of
the products is less than that of the constituent
elements, it follows that the extrication of a certain
amount of heat must attend their formation; and
hence there can be no doubt that the force operating
upon the vessels may be ordinary force. And that
such is its nature may be ascertained, if the subject
be fully analyzed.

What, it may be asked, is the true and essential
character of the function of respiration? On a first
glance at the physical and chemical nature of the act,
without any reference to ulterior consequences, it
would not seem to differ widely from the ordinary
processes of combustion and decay. The atmosphere
acts in the same way in each case, and the products
which mark the action are similar; and except a mere
question of degree, the only difference would appear
to be, that in the one case the dissolution of the bodily
fabrics is slow and gradual, and masked by the depo-
sition of new matter in the function of nutrition, while
in the other the disorganization is more rapid, and
altogether undisguised by the counteracting function.

The parallelism of the acts of decay and respiration

42 OF VITAL MOTION.

appears also when we attend miDutely to the history
of the latter function. If we are to estimate the
vigour of the respiratory changes by the amount of
the gaseous products which are given off, it is found
that this vigour is directly proportionate to the feeble-
ness of the vitality of the organism, becoming more
and more marked as the vitality flags, and by insen-
sible degrees blending at death into the signs of com-
mon decay. The plant, also, lives less intensely at
night than during the day, and at this time the greater
amount of carbonic acid exhaled is the evidence of
increased freedom in the respiratory changes; and in
autumn, when the powers of vegetation are sickening,
the quantity of the same gas is greater than during
the summer. In animal bodies, also, the products of
expiration are greater in winter than in summer ; and
in tropical regions, where the powers of the system
are fortified by a free exposure to the sun, the deepened
colour of the skin may be an argument in favour of a
certain decomposition of carbonic acid, under the influ-
ence of light, and of a deposition of carbonaceous matter
in some degree analogous to that which takes place
in the chlorophyllous cells of plants. Again, in the
depression of putrid and eruptive fevers, the exhala-
tion of gases from the pulmonary organs is much
greater than in health.

The conclusion from these facts is that the process
of respiration is resisted by the vitality of the organism,

OF VITAL MOTION. 43

and it would seem that the chief difference between
this process and that of decay consists partly in the
degree of this resistance, and partly in the destruction
being masked in the one case by the repairs of nutri-
tion. There is no difference in the essential nature
and products of the acts, but simply in the conditions
in which they take place in the economy.

Viewed in this relation, the force connected with
the process of respiration must be considered, in great
part at least, as physical and mechanical in its cha-
racter,— for it is difficult to attach the idea of vitality
to a change, so closely allied to combustion and putre-
factive disorganization : and the more so, as the effects
upon the capillaries may be explained by this means.
The dilated condition of the vessels, when the function
of respiration is vigorous, may be regarded indeed as
the natural consequence of the free extrication of heat,
which must take place under these circumstances, and
the shrunk and contracted condition when the process
flags, as an equally necessary consequence of the
diminished supply of the same agent.*

* The function of respiration, allied as it is to the processes of
decay and combustion, is essentially destructive to the organism;
and if certain circumstances did not exist, by which it was kept
within bounds, the body would soon kindle up into fever or
actual flame. The distinctive gaseous product, moreover, is
highly poisonous in its character, and hence a second reason why
the function would be inimical to the wellbeing of the creature
unless properly restrained and checked. It may be interesting,

44 OF VITAL MOTION.

The phenomena of capillary movement in perfect
organisms appear to point to a common law in the
operation of force, and this equally, whatever may be
the nature of the force. Except in a very rudimentary

therefore, to pause a moment and investigate the antagonizing
influences which prevent and correct these several evils.

The history of respiration appears to imply that this function
is most vigorous in the absence of light. In plants, for example,
the formation of carbonic acid is nearly suspended during the
day, or at any rate is much less marked than at night. In
animals these results are obscured by many circumstances, but
here also, all other things being equal, the same facts are
observable. In that form of force, therefore, which is accom-
panied with the sensation of light, we find, as it would seem, a
condition unfavourable to the formation of carbonic acid, and
light, on this account, may be supposed to be unpropitious to
the act of respiration. Light, moreover, is not merely unfa-
vourable to the formation of carbonic acid, but it is entirely
inimical to this process, for the history of vegetation affords
sufficient and ample proof that this gas is actually decomposed
under the influence of this agent. And thus it would appear,
that the conditions unfavourable to the act of respiration are
those which restore the equilibrium of the atmosphere by
destroying the poisonous gas which is the product of the act.

The actual mode in which light prevents the formation, or
effects the decomposition of carbonic acid, is but very imper-
fectly understood. The belief is, that the gas in question,
though poisonous to animals, is a necessary element of food
to plants : it is supposed that the latter are enabled to assimilate
this gaseous food under the influence of light, and in this way
to preserve the air in the requisite degree of purity. It is
an apparent fallacy, however, to imagine that plants are the
agents solely concerned in the process of atmospheric depu-
ration. The difference between animal and vegetable is one
of degree and not of kind, and though all parts of the creation

or VITAL MOTION. 45

condition of the vessels, or else at times when the
heart flags there is no evidence of the existence of any
power in these vessels which could aid in the circula-
tion by rhythmical contractions and dilatations; but

are bound up as a common whole in mutual subserviency
each to the other, each part is nevertheless a complete entity
in itself, and not merely a complementary appendage to
another.

It may well be doubted, indeed, that plants are the sole agents
endowed with the power of destroying carbonic acid. If it
were so we might imagine (what is not the case) that the quan-
tities of this gas present in the atmosphere would be greater in
proportion as the forests disappear before the progress of civili-
zation. In India and China also it may well be doubted
whether the vegetable covering of the soil is sufficient to render
the air fit for healthy breath. And in the colder realms of the
north, where the vegetable carpet is so scantily spread that
mighty hordes of animals are compelled to migrate year by year
into more southern regions, the insufficiency of the vegetation
to the proper purification of the atmosphere is very apparent :
and so also in the ocean, for the scanty fields of seaweeds can
scarcely be proportionate to the wants of the countless creatures
which breathe in the waters.

And if the vegetable world be insufficient to the task of
purifying the air and waters, where are we to turn in order to
find the co-operating agencies? It may not be to the realm of
animate nature, for here, though under certain circumstances
there may be evidence of a partial decomposition of carbonic
acid; yet, at all times, a larger amount of this gas will be
generated than can by any possibility be decomposed. It is to
the inorganic world, therefore, that w^e are obliged to turn, and
that here are to be found the complementary agencies for which
we seek, appears for a threefold reason.

In the first place : the stability of the atmosphere is an argu-
ment that the cause of this stability rests in an agency which

46 OF VITAL MOTION.

there is evidence of a general dilatation under the
operation of force, by which these vessels are preserved
as open channels for the current which flows from the
heart. We may imagine circumstances which would

remains constant and unchanging. This fact seems to point
beyond the kingdom of life ; for, if the forms of vegetation were
solely concerned in maintaining this equilibrium, it might be
supposed that the quantity of carbonic acid present in the air
would be greater in winter than in summer.

In the second place : it may be supposed that inorganic bodies,
under certain circumstances, are endowed with a catalytic power,
by virtue of which they are enabled, without any manifest
change in themselves, to effect changes in other bodies, and
hence it may be argued, without any improbable assumption,
that the phenomenon of light is expressive of a condition in
certain inorganic as well as in certain organic substances, by
which the formation of carbonic acid is prevented and its
decomposition effected.

In the third place : the history of sulphuretted hydrogen,
(which gas is a joint product with carbonic acid in the process
of decay, and not uncommonly also in respiration,) furnishes
a strong argument that inorganic bodies are actually concerned
in this depuratory office. Both these gases present many points
of relationship, and they are closely allied in origin, in properties,
in the poisonous effects upon the system, and also in the mode in
which they are affected by light, for this agent is unfavourable
to their origin and fatal to their existence ; and therefore it is
allowable to "Seek some explanation of the action of light in the
one case by what is more clearly seen in the other. What, then,
it may be asked, is the class of bodies employed in the destruction
of the sulphuretted hydrogen which is continually passing off
into the atmosphere? As is the case with carbonic acid, it
cannot be supposed that this gas is absorbed as food by vegetable
structures, neither can it be supposed to be in any way sub-

OF VITAL MOTION. 47

induce an undue and partial expansion in certain
vascular tubes, and then suppose as the consequence
of this an increased afflux of blood, which again, by its
own peculiar molecular changes, would keep up and

servient to the wants of the animal system, for to animal and
vegetable it is a direct and deadly poison. We are obliged to
admit, therefore, that inorganic bodies are concerned in the
decomposition of this gas — for agents must be employed to
conquer the affinities of its component elements; and as this is
the case here, so also we may argue, in relation to carbonic
acid, that inorganic bodies under the influence of light are
endowed with a similar depuratory office.

As to the identical bodies which may he concerned in the
removal of carbonic acid and other poisonous gases from the
atmosphere, we may infer, from the history of spongy platinum,
that these are the porous rocks and earths. We know that the
peculiar properties of the metal are chiefly owing to the infinite
extension of surface by which the substance to be acted upon
is brought into intimate contact "with the agent, and there-
fore a similar property may, without any improbability, be
claimed for other mineral bodies in which this condition exists.
And hence we may see new proofs of design and beauty in the
world around us. The porous rocks, when lighted by the sun-
beams, may be intended to filter and purify the air as well as the
waters, and so made to serve a purpose which could not be
answered by crystalline solids like marble or granite. The belt
of sand which encircles the sea may also have a similar office,
and the activity of its several particles be increased perhaps by
the continual washings of the tides. And, finally, the bound-
less deserts of torrid climes may have some relation to the
exuberant life of other parts of the same regions, and instead of
being wild and dreary desolations, they may be important means
by which the atmosphere is purified, and health secured to man,
and beast, and plant.

48 OF VITAL MOTION.

exaggerate the original expansion, and so give rise to the
phenomena of inflammation; but under ordinary cir-
cumstances, the " capillary power" is so ruled, that all
parts are affected equally, the office being to destroy
the contraction of the vessel, which would counteract
the action of the heart, and not to determine the flow
of blood to one part rather than another.

The mode of capillary action may indeed be illus-
trated by the circumstances which favour the injec-
tion of the vessels, which is necessary for anatomical
purposes, and the illustration is perfectly legitimate.
The fluid, as we know, passes from the syringe into
the minutest vessel with great readiness, so long as
the animal continues warm, or when the warmth is
restored by immersion in the warm bath, but the con-
trary is the result when the animal is cold. In the
one case the operation succeeds, as it would appear,
because the passages present little or no resistance to
the force of the syringe — in the other it fails, on
account of that contracted state which has taken place
in the vascular tunics, and in the tissues generally,
when the body has become cold. No other explana-
tion is admissible than that which refers to physical
agents — for life has ceased ; — nor is any other needed,
for all the phenomena may be accounted for by the
changes which must take place in the coats of the
vessels, under varying degrees of temperature.

So also, we may argue of the natural circulation, if

OF VITAL MOTION. 49

the he.art be substituted for the syringe, and we may
suppose that the blood moves sluggishly when the
vessels are contracted, and rapidly when this cause of
resistance is overcome, and the calibre expanded, — and
that the so-called capillary power is directed to the
removal of impediments to the action of the heart,
and not an inherent heart-like faculty of action.

II. OF THE CELLULAR MOVEMENTS IN ANIMAL
BODIES.

Great attention has been paid to the anatomical
peculiarities of cells, and to their modes of growth, but
this has been almost altogether without reference to
efficient causes. Indeed, in this case, as in many
others in physiology, these important considerations
have been neglected on the ground that they referred
to some principle whose operations were in no degree
cognisable to the reason.

On comparing, however, the analogous sections in
the history of the plant and the animal, we find many
reasons to suppose that the cells in each case are acted
upon by the same agents, and in the same manner.
In the animal, external warmth is necessary to growth,
as is evident from the history of nutrition in hyber-
nating animals, for in them the process of growth is
arrested during winter. Light, also, is necessary, as
we may see particularly in the effects of this agent in
determining the free development of the blood and the

£

50 OF VITAL MOTION.

coloured cells of the epidermis. On the other hand,
the history of plethora, when contrasted with the
opposite effects of anasmia, may serve to show that free
nutrition is associated with an abundant development
of organic force.

It would appear, also, that there are phenomena in
animal bodies which seem analogous to " rotation" (of
the vaguer sort,) and that these are referrible, in part
at least, to physical agencies. Dr. Addison, indeed,
pointed out some time ago the existence of moving
molecules in many forms of free cells, as in those of
mucus, pus, and lymph, and also in the colourless
cells of the blood ; and I have heard him state, that
after watching these movements until they had ceased,
he has repeatedly seen them renewed and made as
brisk as ever by accidentally placing the watch-glass
in which the fluid had been contained upon the warm
mantelpiece. It would thus appear that the process
of cooling after removal from the body had arrested
their movement, and that they were renewable by
warmth, and in this manner we may detect further
proofs of the continued operation of these agents.

It appears, also, that the movements of " vibratile
cilia" continue so long as the supporting cells retain
their integrity and are acted upon by warmth, and
that they cease in opposite conditions ; and this being
the case we may obtain some light as to the cause of
these singular phenomena. To find any proof of ex-

OF VITAL MOTION. 51

ternal agencies, indeed, is to make a discovery by
which we are relieved from supposing the existence of
any mysterious intelligence in this organic rudiment,
by the workings of which the cilia are moved; and
when we escape from this notion, then there is no diffi-
culty in supposing a continued series of inductive
charges and discharges between the ciliate-cell and
any other bodies which may have a share in this action,
and in this way the vibration of the cilia may be con-
sidered as the intelligible sign of these charges and
discharges.

E 2

52 OF VITAL MOTION.

CHAPTER III.

B. OF VITAL MOVEMENTS SUCH AS ARE SEEN IN
THE IRRITABLE TUMOURS OF TEE SENSITIVE
PLANT, IN THE COATS OF THE ALIMENTARY
CANAL, AND IN VOLUNTARY MUSCLES.

These phenomena are arranged in two sections,
according as they belong to the animal or vegetable
kingdom of nature; and this division furnishes the
primary heads of the present chapter.

Section I.
OF movements such as are seen in the irritable

TUMOURS OF THE SENSITIVE PLANT.

1. Of extra-organic force as the agent in these
movements.

Like all other phenomena of plant-life, these move-
ments point rather to extrinsic than to inherent agents,
when thev are examined in relation to their efficient

OF VITAL MOTION. 53

causes. In the Mimosa sensitiva, for example, where
the life of the plant is quickened into its highest in-
tensity, the vital motion is distinctly referrible to
those associated influences which proceed from the
sun. The leaves open and expand in the morning,
and become raised on their footstalks; and in the
evening they again close and droop: or, in other
words, the irritable tissues pass into a state equivalent
to expansion under the operation of light and warmth,
and return to the contracted condition when these in-
fluences are withdrawn. They are in fact acted upon
in the same manner as the rudimentary structures with
which we were concerned in the first chapter.

The sudden contraction when the plant is touched
would seem to point to an external agent, and to meet
its explanation without the assumption of any mystical
and inherent principle. The first question in this
matter concerns the nature of the agent, and then we
have to inquire whether there is an abstraction or a
communication of influence when the contact is made.
The agent, whatever it is, must be physical in its
character, for it may be connected with an inorganic
instrument, and therefore we have to choose which of
the several correlated expressions of physical force is
the one concerned. It is not heat, or light, or chemical
affinity, because there may be no evidence of the pre-
sence of these in the instrument ; — it is not the mere
communication of ordinary motion, for the results are

54 OF VITAL MOTION.

peculiar; — and if not these, we have to ask if it be
electricity? That it may be so we may argue for
many reasons, but especially from the history of the
blade electrometer, where the metal leaflets are seen
to diverge on the communication of the influence which
they are intended to measure, and to collapse when
touched — phenomena so singular that we are led to
ask if the instrument is not a coarse and clumsy imi-
tation of the leaf of the sensitive plant. It is not diffi-
cult to suppose indeed that this leaf, of whose extreme
susceptibility to motion we have evidence, may be a
natural electrometer , and also that it may become
charged with electricity, for it is acted upon by light
and heat and other forces, with which electricity is
associated as a correlative agent. It is also difficult
to believe otherwise than that something has been ab-
stracted, and not communicated, when the plant is
touched, for we have evidence in the undisturbed
natural changes of the plant that contraction is con-
sentaneous with the withdrawal of the diurnal stimulus,
while at the same time the possibility of an instanta-
neous abstraction, and the production of similar re-
sults, is evident in the movement of the common
electrometer, so that this very fact of sudden contrac-
tion is a strong argument in favour of the force con-
cerned being of the nature of electricity.

In this manner we may fancy the sensitive plant to
be an exquisitely delicate natural electrometer adapted

OF VITAL MOTION. 55

to measure changes which are far beyond the per-
ceptions of the common instrument of this name.

The phenomena of motion in other irritable
plants are of a similar character, and with few
exceptions, the contraction occurs at night, or at
times of contact with any foreign body, while the
opposite condition of expansion is cotemporaneous
with the day. The dijQference in other cases is,
that the movements are not susceptible of rapid
alterations, and merely respond slowly to the sun,
but still the general law is the same, and leaves
and flowers open in the day, and close at night. There
are some flowers, however, whose movements seem to
obey a different law, and to open at night ; but these
it must be observed do not close in the day, in the
same sense that the leaflets of the sensitive plant do,
but wither; and therefore the difference may be
accounted for by a greater sensibility in these plants,
the nocturnal stimulus being sufficient to awaken life,
while, on the other hand, the full beams of the sun
may be said to scorch and destroy the mobile textures.
Indeed, in some cases it may appear that the plants
which exhibit these exceptional peculiarities are those
which have been brought from climes less genial than
ours, to whose days our nights may be nearly equi-
valent, and it is possible, if the phenomena of motion
were observed in their own homes that these would
cease to differ from others.

56 OF VITAL MOTION.

Under any circumstances the general phenomena
of motion in plants conform to the law which rules in
the sensitive plant, and as to the rest, it may be
doubted whether there are any exceptional cases that
are truly so.

2. Of intra- organic force as the agent in these
movements.

Of these agents we have little knowledge, but there
is reason to believe from the history of other move-
ments of the plant, with which we have already been
occupied, that they are of comparatively trifling
importance. At present, indeed, we must be content
to understand that the agency of extra-organic force
is sufficient to account, in some measure at least, for
the phenomena under consideration, and we must
leave the darker and more mysterious operations of
vitality until we can study the clearer manifestations
which occur in animal bodies.

Section II.

OF VITAL MOVEMENTS SUCH AS ARE SEEN IN THE
COATS OF THE ALIMENTARY CANAL, AND IN VOLUN-
TARY MUSCLES.

Preliminary Considerations.
In relation to these phenomena there are two initial
considerations which demand our attention. The
first is, — that all modes and forms of the contractile

OF VITAL MOTION. 57

state are related to each other, — that the mode to
which the term irritability is applied, where the con-
traction is sudden and transitory, and the mode called
tonicity^ where the contraction is gradual and its
duration indeterminate, are but varieties of the same
state. This opinion has been gaining many sup-
porters of late, and it is advocated in one of the most
recent and important text-books of physiology.*

The second and more important of these consi-
derations is, that the state opposed to muscular
contraction is something more than mere passive
relaxation.

This view has been advocated by more than one
writer, and it is distinctly enunciated in the works of
Bichat. In regard to the voluntary muscles, how-
ever, the opinion of this physiologist is somewhat
obscure, for he speaks of these muscles being restored
to the state in which they were previous to con-
traction by the action of the antagonist muscles.
But at the same time, he cites some facts which show
the presence of a positive power of extension : — thus,
he speaks of the contraction and subsequent dilatation
of a muscle after its removal from the body, when
there can be no extraneous traction, and of the con-
vulsive movements of a similar character which may
be seen in divided muscles when these have been

* Physiological Anatomy and Physiology of Man: Todd and
Bowman, vol. ii. p. 172 — 1845.

58 OF VITAL MOTION.

exposed during surgical operations; and he further
instances, as of similar significance, the existence of
certain hysteric convulsions in which all the muscles
are hard and expanded, so that those which (from
the position of the part) ought to be relaxed, are as
firm and unyielding as those which ought to be
contracted.

In relation to the involuntary muscles the existence
of a twofold mode of action is very apparent, and it
is found that there is a power of expansion in these
structures altogether independent of extraneous force.
In some degree the contents of the viscera — in whose
walls these muscles are seated — may oppose and
partly counteract the state of contraction, (and in the
absence of all antagonist fibres in the muscles them-
selves, this is the only extraneous power which could
be productive of this result,) but any counteraction of
this character is more than doubtful. Be this as it
may, however, Bichat's arguments show that there is
something more than this in the relaxation of these
muscles.

In the first place, this conclusion is necessary from the
fact, that the walls of the alimentary canal alternately
contract and dilate, when the contents are artificially
removed, or when the passage is emptied. In the
second place, a similar conclusion is necessary from
the fact, that alternate and rhythmical changes of an
analogous character may be observed in the heart and

OF VITAL MOTION. 59

neighbouring great vessels when completely evacuated
of their contents. It is also observed, that on irri-
tating a heart with the point of a knife, or any other
instrument, the first change was the production of
dilatation ; and further, as showing the activity of this
state, it is said that the force of the diastole as felt by
grasping the heart, and the force of the systolic con-
traction as felt by placing the fingers in the ventri-
cular cavities, are equally great so far as may be
judged by this coarse experiment. This fact had
been observed before Bichat's day, and it has been
since corroborated by Cruvelhier, and other observers
of considerable authority.

In each system of muscular structures it would
appear therefore that there are two modes of motion,
one of contraction, and another of an opposite cha-
racter. And to show the definitiveness of the idea
which Bichat possessed in relation to the latter mode,
he concludes his remarks on this important subject by
hinting at some analogy between this quasi-state of
expansion, and that more conspicuous movement of
this character which is seen in the iris and in the
several forms of erectile tissue.

The actual nature of this twofold change,
however, is only to be understood after a careful and
particular examination of the individual phenomena of
muscular action ; but before we proceed to this there

60 OF VITAL MOTION.

are still two preliminary considerations which deserve
attention as well calculated to facilitate our future
inquiries.

It may be supposed, in the first place, that the
mystery of muscular action will receive some explana-
tion from the history of the fibrine dissolved in the
blood, for this substance is analogous, in essential
particulars, to that which occurs in muscular tissue.
Now the history of the two is indeed parallel in some
respects. As to the fibrine of the blood, it is found
to remain in a fluid condition during life, and to
solidify after death, so that we may properly argue
that the latter in relation to the former is the passive
state, and that the influence of life — be this what it
may — is exerted in counteracting the state of solidity.
In the fibrine of muscular tissue there is also a two-
fold condition, and from the solidification which takes
place after death we may argue that there is during
life, if not a condition of fluidity, a quasi-softness
approaching to this state. In addition to the solidifi-
cation which supervenes upon death, there is also
another form which occurs during life, and the ques-
tion is as to what is the meaning of this. Is it, we
may ask, in any way related to the phenomenon
which occurs in the fibrine of blood and muscle after
death ? If it is, then the inference will be that mus-
cular contraction in relation to the opposite condi-
tion is a phenomenon which, like the coagulation of

OF VITAL MOTION. 61

the blood, is determined by the withdrawal and not
by the communication of a stimulus.

It may be presumed, in the next place, that the
dartos will contribute towards the knowledge of mus-
cular action, for this tunic is closely allied to true
muscle both in structure and function. In the dartos,
moreover, there are few nerves and vessels, and there-
fore the phenomena of irritability may be supposed to
be simple and intelligible, and not complicated by
those agencies which obscure the secret action of true
muscle. Here, indeed, it seems as if the problem of
mobility were stated in the simplest terms, and
the result made known as clearly as possible. What
these are we may learn in the first chapter, where it
is shown that the state of contraction is associated
with the operation of cold, and the state of relaxation
with the presence of warmth. Contraction, indeed,
in relation to the antagonistic phase of relaxation,
is seen to be a phenomenon connected with the
withdrawal, and not with the communication of a
stimulus. The true connexion of contraction in the
dartos with the analogous phase of muscular activity
cannot now be determined, but if it is such as may
be presumed from the anatomical relation of the
two structures, the result is very significant, — and
the more so as it harmonises with what is deduced
from the changes in fibrine.

Under any circumstances the histories of the dartos

62 OF yiTAL MOTION.

and of the fibrine of the blood cannot be altogether
without relation to the mystery of muscular action,
and it is necessary that the deductions which have
arisen during their consideration be borne in mind in
the inquiries upon which we now enter.

I. OF MOVEMENTS SUCH AS ARE SEEN IN THE
COATS OF THE ALIMENTAKY CANAL.

" Wherever the striated structure occurs, we wit-
ness an aptitude for quick, energetic, and rapidly
repeated movements ; while, where it is deficient, they
are sluggish, progressive, and more sustained."* Now
the non-striated muscles, which belong to the system
of organic life, are much more sparingly supplied with
nerves and bloodvessels than the striated muscles of
the voluntary system; and as the phenomenon of
contraction is most conspicuous in the variety most
sparingly supplied with nerves and vessels, it would
seem to be a legitimate inference that the nervous and
vascular influence, be this what it may, is intended to
counteract, rather than to induce, contraction. But
let us examine the subject in detail.

* Todd and Bowman, op. cit vol. i. p. 185.

OF VITAL MOTION. 63

1. Of intra-organic force as the agent in these
movements.

(a.) Of the nervons influence as an agent.

In a state of fear, when the blanched skin,
the faltering heart, and the occurrence of fainting,
show how greatly the supply of nervous force has
been repressed, the condition of the organic muscles
is one of contraction. The pallor of the countenance
and the smallness of the pulse is a sufficient proof that
this is the case in the fibrous tissues which enter into
the walls of the vessels. In parts, also, where the
muscular fibre is more developed, as in the coats of
the several visceral cavities, the result is the same ;
and thus, during the continuance of fear, there is a
tendency to contract and expel their contents — a fact
which is equally apparent in the alimentary canal, in
the bladder, and in the uterus. In the first instance, it
may be supposed that fear operates by inducing a
state of paralysis in a sphincter muscle ; but in the
bladder and uterus no doubt of this nature can exist,
inasmuch as the openings of these organs are desti-
tute of sphincter fibres. Moreover, in the case of
the alimentary canal, it must be observed that the
tendency to evacuation, under the operation of fear,
involves a powerful and sudden contraction of the
coats ; for the mere paralysis of the outlet, which is

64 OF VITAL MOTION.

itself supposititious, is not sufficient to account for the
results.

In maniacal frenzy, on the other hand, where there
is a superabundant generation of nervous force, the
results would seem to be entirely opposed to those
which have just been considered. The hot and red-
dened skin, and the full pulse, necessitate, indeed, a
distended state in the fibrous elements of the vascular
coats; and the obstinate constipation of the bowels,
and the retention of urine, which are such frequent
symptoms of this condition, are facts which argue the
existence of a state opposed to contraction in the walls
of the viscera concerned.

(b.) Of the organic forces, not of a nervous cha-
racter, as agents in the movements under
consideration.

The influence of the blood upon the coats of the
small vessels, and consequently upon the muscular
fibres contained in these coats, has been considered in
the last chapter ; and it has been seen that this in-
fluence, whatever it may be, does not give rise to
contraction. Wherever the blood possessed peculiarly
stimulating properties, whether in consequence of a
formation from rich pabulum, or as the result of
perfect oxygenation, on these occasions the vessels
are freely distended ; and, on the contrary, whenever
the blood is pale and watery, and the respiration

OF VITAL MOTION. d5

faulty, then the vessels are shrunken and collapsed.
In so far, therefore, as concerns the muscular tissue
present in the coats of these vessels, it is evident that
the state of contraction is not induced by the stimu-
lant properties of the blood.

In nature and office the bloodvessel is very inti-
mately related to the alimentary canal ; and hence it
may be expected that the influence of the food and the
blood, upon the passages with which they are severally
related, will present many points of correspondence
and analogy. And such indeed is the fact.

The food is said to stimulate contraction in the
coats of the alimentary canal; but let us examine
what is involved in this supposition. If a morsel
acts in this manner, how is it, we may ask, that the
act of contraction does not prevent its admission into
the gullet ; or if by chance it be admitted, how is it that
it is not immovably fixed there? There is no phy-
sical necessity that the muscular acts should follow in
a certain and definite order ; for, in the ordinary peri-
staltic movements, an impulse which passed in one
direction at first may the next moment be entirely
reversed. Again ; in the movements of the guUet in
the cow, or in any other ruminant animal, we have
a simple proof of this fact ; for, during the process of
rumination, the morsel is seen to ascend and descend
alternately, where the gullet lies superficially at the
side of the neck. There is no reason, therefore, so

F

66 OF VITAL MOTION.

far as we may perceive, why the food should pass in
one direction rather than another, or why the act of
contraction, which is supposed to be excited by the
food, should, in the natural course of things, be
behind^ and not before the morsel.

The entire history of the assimilative function, how-
ever, is at variance with the idea that the food induces
contraction in the alimentary canal : indeed the con-
stant lesson is that the food remains within the diges-
tive apparatus so long as any molecular changes
are unaccomplished, and that expulsion takes place,
and the effete matter is expelled, only when these
changes are at an end. The ingestion of food into
the stomach does not cause this organ to contract,
nor does any contraction interrupt the process of
digestion ; and it is only when the gastric juices have
effected their office and the food is dissolved, that the
contraction takes place, by which the food is trans-
posed to the duodenum. In the small intestines, the
food remains during the continuance of the processes
of ulterior digestion, and it is transmitted onwards,
only when these are at an end And lastly, there is
no contraction in the large intestines, until the di-
gestive changes are completed. So long, therefore,
as there are any evidences of the continuance of
molecular changes, by which the food could act as a
stimulus to the muscles of the alimentary canal, so

OF VITAL MOTION. 67

long is there an absence of contraction in these
muscles.

Nor can the germ be supposed to excite contraction
in the uterus, — for if so, how is it that these phenomena
are deferred to the close of the period of gestation ?
The fact is, that the uterus has grown and expanded,
so as to adapt itself to the increased size of its con-
tents, so long as the mother was able to provide food
for the development of her offspring, without pre-
judicing the supply necessary for her own system;
but when this bound is passed, and the foetus has
attained to such a magnitude as to become a source of
exhaustion to the mother, then the walls of the uterus
begin to contract. The immediate effects of this
change will be to constrict the vessels connected with
the placenta, and to lower in a proportionate degree
the vitality of the foetus, by this check upon its respira-
tion. And this lowering of the vitality of the foetus
may be supposed to give rise to further contraction in
the uterus, — for if during the previous nine months,
the increase of the womb has been proportionate to the
increasing vitality of the foetus, and to all appearance
consequent upon this increase, so we may infer that
contraction will be commensurate with the decrease.
By this uterine contraction, the placental vessels will
suffer constriction, and the vitality of the foetus be
proportionately reduced, while this reduction will

F 2

68 OF VITAL MOTION.

react upon the uterus, and cause further contraction,
further constriction of the placental vessels, and further
depression of the life of the foetus, — and this latter
change, reacting upon the uterus, will bring about the
same train of results. And thus it must be, that
when once the disposition to contraction is set up
in the uterus, whether this be from the foetus having
attained to a size disproportionate to the powers of
the mother, or from any other and accidental cause,
the necessary consequence will be an ever increasing
contraction, until the completion of birth. The his-
tory of gestation, therefore, so far as we can see, would
seem to justify the conclusion, that the contractions of
the uterus are owing to the withdrawal of that influ-
ence which the living and growing foetus exerts upon
this organ.

A similar objection opposes the notion that the
urine stimulates contraction in the bladder; for if so,
how is it that the organ fills with the secretion ? On the
contrary, contraction takes place when an impediment
is opposed to the further admission of urine by the me-
chanical resistance of the coats of the bladder, or by the
antagonizing pressure of neighbouring parts, and it is
rather in harmony with the facts of the case, to sup-
pose that this phenomenon is occasioned by the want^
and not by the direct operation of a stimulus.

So far, therefore, we find no reason to suppose that
the changes in these muscles differ from those which

OF VITAL MOTION. 69

are seen in the coats of vessels. There is no evidence
as yet of the introduction of any new and mystical
agent in these movements, and the eflfects of the
nervous influence, so far as we may at present see,
are strictly analogous to those which mark the opera-
tion of the forces, which have their origin in the
various molecular changes of the organism.

2. Of extra-organic force as the agent in the move-
ments under consideration.

In the rudimentary forms of organic muscle which
occur in the coats of bloodvessels, facts have already
been stated which show that the state of contraction
is consequent upon the abstraction of heat. In the
higher forms of these structures, however, the influ-
ence of external heat is greatly masked by the opera-
tion of the organic forces ; but at the same time there
are facts which show that contraction is produced here,
as in the simpler tissues, by the operation of external
cold. Such a fact is the action of the intestines, which
is very apt to happen in delicate persons on a draught
of cold water.

The influence of light, as a special agent, is
well seen in the iris, which may be said to represent
an intermediate structure, connecting the simpler
variety of organic muscle found in the coats of vessels
with that more perfect form, which occurs in the

70 OF VITAL MOTION.

hollow abdominal viscera; and here it may be said,
that the state of contraction is expressive of the
absence or dimunition of force. It was the opinion of
Bichat, that the closure of the pupil was occasioned,
not by the contraction of the mere rim, but by the
general dilatation of the iris ; and if this be true, then
the absence of light induces contraction, and its pre-
sence, dilatation, or whatever else we may agree to call
this state. And under any circumstances, there is
quite as much probability in this opinion as in the
hypothesis which at present prevails on this subject.

Electricity, also, is directly concerned in
these phenomena, but it is difficult to estimate its
mode of operation, until we are able to study it in con-
nexion with the voluntary muscles. The facts which
more especially point to this agency, are those con-
tractions which happen in the coats of the alimentary
canal, when these are touched by any foreign body,
and which movements are said to be stimulated by the
contact. As in the case of the sensitive plant, how-
ever, it may be argued with an equal share of pro-
bability, that something has been abstracted in this
case, and that the contraction is the result of this
abstraction; and as in all those cases which have
already come under consideration, the phenomena of
contraction are connected with the withdrawal of
force, so also in these facts we may find a strong argu-

OF VITAL MOTION. 71

ment in favour of there having been an actual abstrac-
tion, and not a communication of force on the contact
of any foreign body. And if there has been such an
abstraction, then the fact points to electricity, for this
is the only known agent which could be abstracted in
this instantaneous manner.

This question, however, is intimately connected with
the phenomena of muscular action in the system of
animal life, and its solution must be deferred until we
can consider this subject.

II. OF MOVEMENTS IN THE VOLUNTARY MUSCLES.

The muscles of this system are chiefly distinguished
by the ready manner in which they are affected by the
nerves; and under this head the relation of nervous
influence to muscular action wiU be a very important
subject of inquiry.

1. Of intra-organic force as the agent in these
movements.

(a.) Of the nervous influence as an agent.

Comparative anatomy furnishes a fundamental
objection to the idea that nervous influence is neces-
sary to the state of contraction in the voluntary
muscles, for it is found that this phenomenon is more
vigorous and perfect in reptiles, and in animals whose

72 OF VITAL MOTION.

nervous system is rudimentary, than in creatures more
elevated in the scale of being, and better furnished
with nervous organs. Instead of being necessary to
contraction, therefore, it would rather appear that
nervous influence is concerned in the counteraction of
this state; its office being to induce those transient
relaxations which are necessary to that rapidity of
muscular action which is distinctive of the higher
animals.

The dictates of comparative anatomy are also sup-
ported and elucidated, when we study those phenomena
of disease which betoken a suppression of nervous
power; for in these cases muscular contraction is a
frequent symptom.

The spasm which is characteristic of ramoUissement
of the brain is an important argument against the
idea that nervous influence determines a state of
muscular contraction by the impartation of a stimulus.
In this disease there is atrophy of the cerebral sub-
stance, and partial paralysis of the sentient and
motive energy ; and therefore the spasm, in so far as
it may refer to the nervous system for its cause, must
be supposed to be symptomatic of diminished, and not
of exalted innervation. It is, indeed, as if man was
degraded in the scale of being to a point where his
muscular acts became long and energetic as in reptiles
— ^and for the same reason.

The ordinary tremulous movements of old age, or

OF VITAL MOTION. 73

the more marked shakings of paralysis agitans, (both
of which involve an unusual disposition to contraction
in the muscular system,) are connected with a period
in which the nervous power is rapidly on the wane,
and often with a state of brain in some degree analogous
to the disease last mentioned.

The causes of convulsive diseases are still very
obscure, but in many cases there is reason to believe
them associated with signs of debility, and not of
strength. This doctrine was very ably advocated by
Dr. Todd in the Lumleian lectures, delivered at the
College of Physicians during the past and present
years, on which occasion it was shown that the
muscles were often flaccid and pale, and not firm and
of a deep red colour as in health, and the brain much
more white and bloodless than natural. This latter
condition — pallor of the brain — was particularly in-
sisted upon as a common sign in epilepsy ; and hence,
in this disease, which is the worst of the class, we
may argue defective innervation, for it is well known
that the nervous activity is proportionate to the vas-
cularity of the brain.

The grand and conclusive argument, however, in
favour of this view, is to be found in the general
spasm of the body which succeeds the departure of
life. In this case the phenomenon cannot be owing
to increased innervation, for it does not occur until
all signs of activity are withdrawn. Nor is this

74 OF VITAL MOTION.

rigid spasm a transient state connected with the last
flicker of life (as some suppose), but it endures, un-
tiring and unrelaxing, until the fibres break up in
the ruin of final decay. Like the coagulation of the
blood, it is the consequence of an abstraction from the
influence of life, whatever the influence may be.

The connexion of muscular contraction with a
diminished supply of nervous force may also be seen
in certain conditions of the system in which there is
great prostration.

The subsultus and convulsive jerkings, of extreme
typhoid depression, are connected with a state of the
nervous system, in some respects similar to that which
supervenes gradually in old age, and gives rise to the
tremulous shakings of this period.

In cholera, also, the spasm which begins in the
involuntary muscles, and gradually extends to those
which are subject to the will, goes hand in hand with
collapse; and he who has stood by the bedside of
patients in the last epidemic, and regarded the blue
and icy skin, the shrunken countenance, and the
hopeless prostration of mental and nervous energy,
in extreme cases, and noticed the occurrence of fierce
and untiring spasm along with this fearful depression,
need have little difficulty (if he will remember these
things) in dispossessing his mind of the idea that
the spasms were owing to the operation of a vital
stimulus. So far from supposing this, he will imagine.

OF VITAL MOTION. 75

what was actually the case, that death was prematurely
binding his victim, and that the cramp was a true
rigor mortis in vitd. In such a case, we may indeed
suppose that the muscular contractions in many
instances passed at once, and without any interval,
into the rigidity of death; for though there is no
direct evidence on the subject, yet it may be argued
from analogy that it might be so. Indeed, in cases
of extreme typhoid depression, where the condition is
very closely allied to malignant cholera, (as was
pointed out by Dr. Billing,) the subsultus and con-
vulsive twitchings of the moribund state at once pass
into rigor mortis when life has fled : and therefore a
similar transition in cholera, where the subsultus is
exaggerated into spasm, is not only possible, but even
probable.

The fact that paralysis of motion is a most familiar
consequence of the cutting off of nervous influence, is
not a fatal objection to the view that muscular con-
traction is a negative phenomenon. In this case we
must not deceive ourselves by supposing the possibility
of contraction to be lost. Twitchings in the muscles,
convulsion, and tonic spasm, are in fact not uncommon
accompaniments of paralysis of motion ; and there is
most generally — and especially where the disease has
been of long continuance — a certain rigidity, parti-
cularly in the flexors, by which the limbs are partly
bent. The occurrence, also, of excito-motory con-

76 OF VITAL MOTION.

tractions on irritation, and of rigor mortis, are facts
which show that the muscles still preserve the power
of contracting. There is no reason for supposing that
the paralysed part is more relaxed than it was when
the nerves retained their integrity; indeed, so far
from this, the contrary may be argued from the
atrophy and shrinking of the tissues, which date
from the time of the lesion. It is the same also in
regard to the paralysis of motion which has been
induced experimentally by the division of nerves, or
by the removal of nervous centres. Tonic rigidity
of the muscles is a common consequence of violent
destruction of the cerebro-spinal ganglia; and where
this is not the result there is no reason whatever for
supposing the muscles to be more relaxed than they
were before the operation. The contractions which
take place under the operation of galvanism, and after
death, are sufficient proofs that there is still a possi-
bility of contraction in the paralysed muscle. And,
lastly, it is shown, in the last paper contributed by
Matteucci to the Transactions of the Royal Society,
that the contractions induced by galvanism in the
hinder limbs of a frog, after the division of the spinal
cord, are more powerful than in an animal of similar
magnitude and strength in which the cord is intact :
an observation which is calculated to show in a very
strong light the non-necessity of an additional supply
of nervous influence in the phenomena of contraction.

OF VITAL MOTION. 77

We are able also to form some conjecture as to the
reason why complete contraction should not be the
inevitable consequence of the cutting off of nervous
influence. We learn, indeed, on the authority of
Longet and other experimental physiologists, that the
irritability of a muscle continues for a much shorter
time after the ligature of the artery, than after the
division of the nerve; and we may infer, therefore,
that so long as the circulation continues there may be
a sufficient amount of vital activity to prevent con-
traction, notwithstanding a complete interruption in
the supply of nervous influence. And this conclusion
is the more probable when it is considered that the
phenomenon of rigor mortis does actually occur in
paralysed muscles when the circulation is suspended
by death.

It need be no fatal objection, therefore, that para-
lysis of motion, instead of contraction, should at times
mark the suspension of innervation ; for a slight varia-
tion in the condition of the circulation may be suffi-
cient to produce this difference in the result. Indeed,
paralysis may after all be the first phase of con-
vulsion.

78 OF VITAL MOTION.

(b.) Of the organic force ^ not of a nervous cha-
racter^ as an agent in the movements of
voluntary muscles.

A free supply of blood is essential to muscular
activity, and here also the freedom of the supply
would seem to be related to the state most opposed to
contraction. It has been shown by Mr. Bowman,
that the number of capillaries in muscular tissue cor-
responds very closely to the number of elementary
fibres, and " consequently the same amount of mus-
cular tissue, arranged as a large number of small
fibres, would be supplied with a larger absolute
number of capillaries than if arranged as a small
number of large fibres."* In the voluntary muscles,
therefore, where the fibres are much more delicate
and numerous than in the involuntary muscles, it
follows that the supply of blood must be greater in
the same ratio: and thus the system in which con-
traction is the most transient phenomenon, is found
to receive the greatest supply of blood.

It is found, moreover, that voluntary contractions
become more prolonged and enduring as the activity
of the circulation in the muscles diminishes ; and thus
the manifestations of this form of irritability in

* Todd and Bowman, op. cit. vol. i. p. 107.

OF VITAL MOTION. 79

mammals during a state of hybernation continues
almost to the same length of time as in reptiles.

In sloths and lemurs, also, where the contractions
of the limbs continue a long time with little fatigue,
it would appear that this faculty is to be partially
ascribed to a peculiar division of the principal arteries
into a number of very small branches, by which means
the current of blood is broken, and the supply ren-
dered more defective than it would be if the main
channel remained pervious.

A somewhat analogous fact to the one last cited is
to be found in cases of aneurism after the chief supply
of blood has been cut off by the ligature of the
vessel ; for there is a strong tendency to cramp of the
limb until the collateral circulation is established.

The nature of the relation which exists between
the circulation and muscular action, however, is
exhibited with greater clearness in heemorrhage than
in any other case; and here it would appear that
spasm is the direct consequence of loss of blood, the
one being proportionate to the other : — thus, when an
animal is bled to death by the butcher, it first passes
into a state of extreme jactitation very like chorea,
and then into epileptiform convulsions, which become
more and more decided as death draws nearer. Now
in this case it cannot be supposed that the convulsions
are dependent upon the operation of a stimulus, for
the generation of all organic force, whether nervous

80 OF VITAL MOTION.

or otherwise, bears a strict relation to the supply of
blood, and it must fail therefore as the haemorrhage
progresses to a fatal termination. In no way indeed
can we suppose the spasms of haemorrhage to be the
result of an exaltation in organic force.

On the contrary, the absence of a disposition to
muscular contraction is a conspicuous phenomenon in
cases where the normal supply of blood is exaggerated.
Thus, for example, there is no unusual tendency to
cramp in the congested and inflammatory condition
of the parts in muscular rheumatism, as we might
anticipate if the activity of these vessels was likely to
excite contraction ; but the reverse is the case, and
the parts are swollen and immobile. In plethoric
persons, also, where it may be supposed that the
muscular tissues participate in the general state of
vascular repletion, an indisposition or inaptitude to
muscular action is a frequent phenomenon. It is
known, also, that the circulation in a muscle is
quickened during exercise; and, at the time when it
ceases to respond to the will in consequence of fatigue,
there is reason to believe that the vessels are most
congested.

A further argument in favour of the previous views
may be deduced from the action of blood upon the blood-
vessels, for if these vessels expand or contract according
to the communication or withdrawal of organic force,
(and these results are general,) such we may argue

OF VITAL MOTION. 81

to be the effects of the same force upon the rich
vascular web in muscular tissue. A part of muscular
contraction must therefore be consequent upon the
abstraction of force from the vessels, and that the rest
of -the phenomenon is of a similar character we may
argue from the affinity which exists between the
fibrous elements of the coats of the vessels and true
muscular fibre, — an affinity which affords a strong
argument in favour of a common law of action in
these fibres.

From these and similar facts it would appear that
voluntary muscle is affected by the non-nervous
varieties of organic force, in the same manner as the
subordinate textures which were previously consi-
dered. The presence of the force — that is to say —
determines a state of dilatation in the subject of
it; — the absence allows the opposite condition of
contraction.

2. Of extra-organic force as the agent in the
movements of voluntary muscles.

In the higher phenomena of muscular action the
special powers of the organism have masked and
superseded all others, but still we may detect the
agency of foreign force, and perceive the sameness of
its law of action.

G

82 OF VITAL MOTION.

The connexion of the state of contraction
with the direct operation of external cold may be
illustrated by two familiar facts, which facts also are
well calculated to show one cause at least why cold
does not always produce this result. In the process
of crimping^ for example, the fisherman produces the
contraction which imparts the requisite firmness to
the flesh, by first gashing the sides of a fish with a
knife, and then dashing them with cold water. In
cases of amputation, also, where the blood oozes obsti-
nately from the stump, the surgeon causes contraction
in the muscles and vessels (and in this way arrests
the haemorrhage) by the application of a sponge
soaked in cold water. In both these cases the con-
traction is attended with the escape of blood from the
vessels, and hence we may find a reason, perhaps, why
contraction is not induced when the free movements
of the blood are interfered with, whether by coagula-
tion, by removal from the sphere of the circulation, or
by any other means. We may conjecture further,
that free mobility of the blood is necessary to mus-
cular action, in the same way that it is to the changes
which take place in erectile tissue, and that the filling
or emptying of the vessels is as necessary in the one
case as in the other. In other words, we may con-
jecture that the causes of muscular action operate
upon the fibrous coats of the vessels, as well as upon
the other fibrous textures.

OP VITAL MOTION. 83

As an objection to the notion that the voluntary
muscles may be made to contract by the direct opera-
tion of external cold, we must mention, however, a
statement often made by physiologists, that heat is
given out during the state of contraction. The fact
upon which this opinion is founded is the small increase
of temperature which takes place during violent exer-
cise, as of the forearm in the act of sawing, — and this
fact is undeniable. The conclusion, however, is alto-
gether gratuitous. In an act of this kind, indeed, it
is not with mere muscular contraction that we have
to do, but with an alternate series of contractions and
dilatations ; and it is quite as probable that the eleva-
tion of temperature is connected with the latter phe-
nomena as with the former. Nay, it is more so : —
for when the limb is wearied and the action at an
end, and when also the temperature is highest, the
condition of the parts is much more nearly allied to
relaxation than to any other state, while the fact that
the increased heat continues for some time after the
cessation of the contractions, shows that it is not to
these that we must look for its immediate cause.

It is difficult to procure any direct evidence
of the action of light upon the voluntary muscles, for
this is so mixed up with other actions : but, at the
same time, we may notice two circumstances which
seem to bear upon the question. The first of these is

g2

84 OF VITAL MOTION.

the more frequent occurrence of spasmodic attacks at
night than during the day time. The second is the
pale and flaccid appearance of the muscles, which is a
common condition in convulsive diseases — a fact which
may possibly show that the absence of light (for light
is infinitely concerned in healthy nutrition,) has had
something to do in inducing that state of muscular
fibre in which there is a proneness to contraction.

The influence of electricity in muscular
action is very marked, but the manner of operation is
difficult and hard to be understood. If, however, we
investigate the late discoveries in this department of
science, and especially those of Matteucci, we find
reason to believe that the action of electricity, when
more fully known, will present no essential difference
from that of the correlative agents with which we are
already familiar.

It is an initial fact in these inquiries, and one that
may very easily be tested, that there is in the muscles
of an animal during life, and so long after death as
the irritability continues, an electric current from the
interior to the exterior of the muscles, and in the
limbs, from the extremities towards the head. The
latter current, which is particularly conspicuous in
the hinder limbs of the frog, is of infinite importance
in the interpretation of the influence of electricity in
muscular action, and our first step must be to acquire

OF VITAL MOTION. 85

an adequate idea of its existence and reality. In
this there is no difficulty. We must take a number
of the hind legs of the frog, amputated at the pelvis,
and stripped of their skin, and arrange them in a
series of wine-glasses half filled with water, each leg
being bent over the edge of the two contiguous glasses
in such a manner that the foot is immersed in one
glass and the thigh in the other. A foot and thigh
of difierent limbs are thus in every glass, except the
terminal ones, in the one of which there is (as must
needs be) only a foot, and in the other a thigh. On
plunging the poles of a galvanometer into the water
contained in the glasses which hold the extremities of
this muscular pile, there is a contraction of all the
limbs, and a divergence of the needle of the instru-
ment in such a direction as to show that a current of
electricity has passed from the feet towards the thigh.
By adding or diminishing the number of limbs, the
divergence of the needle may be increased or lessened,
and thus it is found that the intensity of the current
is proportionate to the size of the pile. It is found
also that the muscular contractions cease after a time,
and with them the divergence of the needle ; and in this
way we may satisfy ourselves that the development
of the electricity is dependent upon the conditions
which preserve the muscular irritability, and not upon
the mere contact of the limbs as masses of inorganic
matter. The nerves would seem to have little to do

86 OF VITAL MOTION.

in this process, nor are they necessary to connect one
limb with another, for it is found that a metal con-
ductor, or pieces of moist paper, will answer this pur-
pose quite as well, if not better ; and in this way we
may be more fully satisfied that the influence which is
generated is electrical in its character.

In this experiment contraction is induced in the
limbs which form the pile, and in them we might in-
vestigate the operation of the electric agent. It is
better, however, to prepare an additional limb in the
same way as the others, and to induce action by
bringing it within the circuit. In this case also it is
of no moment whether the nerve be left to serve as a
conductor, or whether we use metal or moist paper
for the purpose.

On considering the contractions in this limb when
it is connected with the pile, they are found to take
place at different times, according to the direction of
the current. At first there is contraction both on
making and breaking the circuit. If the current pass
from the thigh towards the foot, there is a powerful
contraction on completing the circuit, and a far
slighter one on breaking it ; but if the current pass in
a contrary direction, — namely, from the foot to the
thigh, there is a slight contraction on completing the
circuit, and a powerful one on breaking it. There is
a change, however, if we continue to transmit the
electric influence, and eventually the slighter contrac-

OF yiTAL MOTION. 87

tions disappear, — there being only contraction on
closure of the circuit when the current passes towards
the foot, and on disruption when it passes towards the
thigh.

Now these results are not altogether unintelligible,
if we attentively consider all the premises. It may
be granted, in the first place, that there is a current
of electricity in the limb which is used to test the
activity of the pile, in the same direction as in the
limbs which compose the pile, — namely, from the foot
towards the thigh. It may be granted, also, that by
adding this limb to the pile in the proper manner, the
activity of the electric current would be intensified;
and if it were inverted so that the thigh were added
to the thigh — instead of to the foot — extremity of the
pile, it may be granted also that this mal-arrangement
will neutralize to a certain extent the energy of the
current, just as would be the case if we were to add a
pair of plates to a galvanic battery, in such a manner
that platinum faced platinum, or zinc zinc, instead of
observing the natural order and causing the zinc and
platinum to oppose each other. And further, it may
be granted that the limb which is made the subject of
the experiment is virtually a part of the pile, though
it be only connected by conductors, and that it must
neutralize or intensify the energy of the electric cur-
rent, just as much as if it were more obviously a part
of the pile.

88 or VITAL MOTION.

When, therefore, the electric influence from the pile
is transmitted through the limb in question, from the
thigh towards the foot, the direction must oppose the
natural current of the limb ; and in this case we must
suppose that the intensity of the current will suffer
diminution on the completion of the circuit. The
powerful contraction, therefore, which takes place
under these circumstances, if it be connected with the
electricity at all, must be the consequence of the
neutralization or diminution, and not of the intensifi-
cation of the agent. Nor is it any objection -to this
view that a -slight contraction should take place on the
disruption of the circuit, as may be seen if we call to
mind the nervous conformation of the limb with which
we have to do. It is provided with a nerve of mixed
fibres, of which some convey the peculiar influence
with which they are charged from the thigh to the
foot, and others in a contrary direction, from the foot
to the thigh. During the passage of the electricity,
therefore, we may suppose the nervous current (if we
may so speak) to have been neutralized in the fibres
which opposed the electric current, and to have been
intensified in the others which coincided; for there is
no doubt that there is an affinity and possibility of
reaction between the two agents. There are fibres,
therefore, as we may suppose, where the molecular
activity would be stimulated during the passage of the
electric current, and where the increased activity must

OF VITAL MOTION. 89

cease on the breaking of the circuit; and hence the
contraction which takes place at the time may be the
natural consequence of this cessation. The slightness
of the phenomenon argues the operation of a more
partial agent than that which produced the more
violent contraction when the circuit was closed. The
short duration, also, favours the notion that it depends
upon some change in the nerves ; for when these cords
cease to convey any motive influence to the muscles,
we cease to have any contraction on the disruption of
the circuit when the current passes towards the foot.

When, on the other hand, the influence of the pile
is transmitted through the limb in a contrary direc-
tion,— namely, from the foot towards the thigh, and
when, therefore, the proper current of the limb coin-
cides with that of the pile, then the major contraction
follows the breaking and not the completing of the
circuit. Now, in this case, the electric tension must
have been increased during the continuance of the
current; for the limb forms a true additional element
of the pile, and yet the principal contraction does not
take place on the completion of the circuit, as we
might expect if this phenomenon was the consequence
of an impartation of the electric agent. Instead of
this, it supervenes when the circuit is broken, and
when there is a removal or partial neutralization of
force. Nor is it any objection that there is on closure
of the circuit the minor contraction, which disappears

90 OF VITAL MOTION.

eventually ; for in this instance, as in the other, we
may argue that it is owing to a neutralization of
motive influence in the nervous fibres, the molecular
arrangement of which is opposed to the electric cur-
rent; for all the arguments in favour of this view
which were applicable then, are so now.

Granting, therefore, the existence of a definite
electric current in this limb, and the nerve of mixed
fibres, it seems necessary to suppose that there is a
certain annihilation of electric influence whenever
contraction takes place in these muscles.

In the original experiment of Galvani, also, in which
contraction is excited in a frog's limb that is allowed
to remain connected with the trunk only by the
sciatic nerve, whenever the foot is brought in contact
with the lumbar plexus, it is possible to meet with
the same explanation. In this case, indeed, it is
necessary to suppose that the electric current in the
limb is neutralized when the opposite poles are brought
in contact, whether this be by bending the limb upon
itself, as Galvani did, or by employing a conductor of
metal or moist paper.

The results of which we have been speaking are
rendered more complicated, when the limb which is
experimented upon is allowed to remain in connexion
with the living animal by removing the pelvis without
destroying the nerves. Under these circumstances
the muscles of the loins contract powerfully at the

OF VITAL MOTION. 91

time when the slight contractions take place in the
limbs. These contractions, however, are accompanied
with signs of pain and suffering, and Matteucci has
shown that they are due to the reactions of the nervous
centres, and not to the direct agency of electricity,
for they cease when the nervous communication with
the spinal cord is destroyed.

In all these experiments, where free electricity is
used, it is immaterial whether it be procured from a
metallic battery or from the muscular pile. In each
case the effects are the same, and the contraction
would seem to be coincident with the removal or
neutralization of the agent.

There is some reason also for supposing that the
operation of galvanism and of nervous influence har-
monizes more closely than would appear at first sight.
It seems, indeed, as if the galvanism gave rise to
instant contraction when passed in the same direction
as the motive nervous influence ; but it must be re-
membered that we have found some reason to believe
that the nervous influence is abstracted during con-
traction and not communicated, — and hence it may be
necessary to change our ideas in relation to the transit
of nervous fluid in the motor nerves, the current being
to and not from the brain, — that is to say, in the same
direction as the natural electrical current. Be this as
it may, however, it is not with nervous influence that
we are concerned when speaking of the effects of elec-

92 OF VITAL MOTION.

tricity upon the system, for we have no right to
assume the identity of these forces. We have to do
with electricity and electricity alone, and we have to
study any peculiar constitution of the animal which
may favour or oppose the operation of this force,
and this being the case, we must conclude, for
the reasons that have been given, that muscular con-
traction is consentaneous with the abstraction, and not
with the communication of electricity.

These results are taken from the history of the frog,
but there is no reason to suppose them confined to this
animal ; indeed, there is evidence (though much more
obscure) of currents of natural electricity in other
animals. It is found, also, where the question has
been examined, that the muscles respond to electricity
in the same manner as in the frog, and this is an im-
portant argument in favour of the same electrical
constitution in the subject of the experiment as in the
frog.

In connexion with this part of our subject, it is
necessary to refer once more to another order of phe-
nomena,— namely, the effects of mechanical irritation ;
but a passing allusion is sufficient after what has
been said elsewhere. Previously it was argued that
the contractions produced by any simple irritant were
not proofs of the communication of a stimulus, and it
was shown to be equally probable that a something
had been abstracted, as that anything had been im-

OF VITAL MOTION. 93

parted. Indeed, the presumption in favour of the
latter hypothesis had the advantage, inasmuch as the
state of contraction under other circumstances was
seen to be expressive of a change of this character.
In voluntary muscles, also, the same arguments hold
good, for so far as we have gone we have been able to
trace the operations of a common law of action ; but
here also are found other arguments in favour of the
same view, in the presence of an actual electrical
condition of the parts, the equilibrium of which may
be disturbed by the contact of any foreign body.

Under these circumstances, it may be presumed that
the effects of mechanical irritation are more intelli-
gible on the presumption of a stimulus having been
abstracted than the reverse ; and from the known elec-
trical condition of the part it may be said that there
is a process of discharge at the instant of contact, just
as is the case on touching a charged electrometer, and
that the process of contraction in the one case is a
phenomenon analogous to the collapse of the metal
blades in the other.

That there is an actual discharge of this kind
during mechanical irritation we may further argue
from the intimate analogy which exists between a
mass of muscle and the organ which produces free
electricity in certain fishes, as the Torpedo and
Gymnotus. Owen, Faraday, and Matteucci have all
contributed important arguments in proof of this

94 OF VITAL MOTION.

analogy. The organization and the mode of action
alike present many similarities. There is nothing
which favours or suspends muscular contraction which
does not operate in the same manner upon the elec-
trical discharge. It has been shown indeed, that when
the fish is acted upon by galvanism, the discharge
accompanies the closure of the circuit when the cur-
rent passes along the nerve towards the electrical
organ, and the disruption when passed in a contrary
direction. On the strength of this analogy, therefore,
we may reason as to the operation of mechanical irri-
tation in muscle, and as we know that a discharge is
produced by irritating the electric organ, we may infer
that there is a similar, though less sensible discharge
when a muscle is subjected to the same treatment.

The return of the muscle to the relaxed state after
contraction, when the vascular and nervous systems
retain their integrity, is readily ascribed to the great
molecular changes which these involve. Under these
circumstances the generation of force is as necessary
and inevitable as in a galvanic apparatus where the
plates and fluids are in contact; and it is easy to
understand that the amount will be altogether im-
measurable. When the muscle is detached from the
body, and the flow of blood and nervous power
arrested, it is still possible to suppose a free extrica-
tion of electricity, for the atmospheric influences will
induce very perceptible changes. It is not, indeed, as

OF VITAL MOTION. 95

if we had to do with a solid mineral, where under
these circumstances the action would be inconsiderable,
and where careful isolation is necessary to render it
sensible, but it is rather with a galvanic apparatus in
slow action, where there is large amount of sensible
force, notwithstanding the immense quantities which
steal off to the earth without any manifest trace.

It is not difficult, therefore, to account for the effects
of mechanical irritation upon an electrical hypothesis,
without having recourse to any other law than that
which has been traced throughout these researches.

The phenomena of muscular motion, in rela-
tion to the chemical aspect of the general force of
which heat, light, and electricity are correlative ex-
pressions, are mixed up with a large mass of dubious
theoretical notions; but at the same time we may
obtain some insight into this part of our subject from
the action of oxygen and carbonic acid upon the re-
spiratory organs, for while these gases are intimately
concerned in the normal workings of life, they at the
same time typify the two grand classes of chemical
agents which depress or exalt the vitality of the
system.

In respiration the air passages alternately dilate
and become filled with air, and contract and expel
their contents; and these changes are excited by
certain vivifying properties of the atmosphere, which

96 OF VITAL MOTION.

depend chiefly upon the presence of oxygen. It is
difficult, however, to suppose that the contractions are^
due to this presence. On the contrary, we find that
the air effects an entrance, remains for some time,
and is not expelled until a considerable quantity of
the vital element has been absorbed and replaced by
carbonic acid; and hence it would appear that the
contractions (if due to the air at all) are rather to be
ascribed to the last-named gas than to the oxygen.
In opposition to this notion, however, we find that the
respiratory passages of the foetus remain in a con-
tracted state in absence of any aeriform stimulus, and
also that there is a similar condition in the adult, in-
dependently of any direct stimulant, when an attempt
is made to inhale an irrespirable gas. When, there-
fore, we consider that the air passages, both before
and after birth, may remain in a contracted state, in
absence of any gaseous stimulant, and when we con-
sider that they immediately take in vital air, and
remain expanded until this is partly devitalized, the
natural conclusion appears to be that the atmosphere
produces, by virtue of its oxygen, a state the reverse
of contraction, and that this expansion disappears
when the efficient cause is removed by the require-
ments of respiration.

In objection to this view it may be said, that the
lungs are filled or emptied in consequence of the move-
ments of the walls of the chest, and that the seeming

OF VITAL MOTION. 97

dilatation of the respiratory passages is occasioned by
the descent of the atmosphere into the space which
has been formed by the contraction of the diaphragm
and thoracic muscles ; but, if we reflect a moment, we
may perceive that this explanation will not meet the
whole requirements of the case. The consideration,
indeed, that the chest cannot be filled with irre-
spirable air is sufficient to show that the efficient cause
of inspiration is something more than mere atmo-
spheric pressure. From the difficulty which is expe-
rienced under these circumstances, it seems almost as
necessary that the air should possess certain qualities
by which it could overcome the contracted state of the
respiratory passages, as that the blood should possess
certain properties in order to secure a free entrance
into the bloodvessels. Indeed, the consideration that
the blood exerts this action upon the vessel is a strong
argument that the air acts upon the respiratory
passages in the way we suppose, — for in each case the
activity is mainly to be ascribed to the oxygen, and in
each case the action is exerted upon an irritable tissue,
which presents many grounds of affinity and analogy.
Be this as it may, however, the necessity of oxygenated
air to inspiration is a sufficient proof that there is an
active dilatation of the respiratory passages, in addi-
tion to the passive distention which will result from
the mere weight of the incumbent atmosphere.

When, therefore, we find that an expanded state of

H

98 OF VITAL MOTION.

the muscular fibres of the tubes in question is asso-
ciated with oxygenated air, and the contracted state
with air in which the stimulant properties are replaced
by others which are directly sedative, we may argue
(and with some pretence of reason) that the contrac-
tion is not stimulated by the oxygen ; and from the
occurrence of contraction, independently of the pre-
sence of carbonic acid, we may argue also that this
gas is not to be regarded as the efficient cause of this
phenomenon. In this case, indeed, as in those with
which we are already familiar, the contraction would
seem to mark the want, and not the presence of the
agent.

It is not intended to say that some gases have no
positive action in inducing contraction. On the con-
trary, such a result is not unlikely to follow the con-
tinued inspiration of dilute sulphuretted hydrogen ; for
it would seem as if the action of this poison was to
unsettle the unstable equilibrium of the organic solid,
and favour the formation of a similar gas from the
decomposed materials, — to favour, in other words, a
putrefactive change of solids into gaseous matter,
which must be attended with the lowering of organic
heat. Under these circumstances, therefore, the con-
traction of muscular fibre may be the direct conse-
quence of the operation of the gas ; but under other
circumstances, where the quantity of the poison is
larger, and the respiration at once arrested, it is more

OF VITAL MOTION. 99

easy to believe that the air passages remain contracted
in consequence of the absence of a vital stimulus —
the natural operation of which is to produce dilata-
tion, than that they are stimulated to this state by
any positive action of the gas. It is difficult, indeed,
to suppose that the gas has produced contraction in
passages into which it has not entered.

In relation to the effects of other chemical agents
we know but little. We know, however, that in order
to the proper mobility of muscle, the peculiar state
and constitution of the fibre, in relation to moisture,
must be preserved, and that in absence of this the
mobility will be nullified. When a fibre is macerated
in water it is found to become pulpy, changed in colour,
and otherwise altered. It is no longer with a normal
fibre that we have to do, and we must not reason as
if it was so; and if, therefore, under these cir-
cumstances, the mobility be lost, we may argue that
this result is the natural consequence of the altered
constitution of the fibre. Alcoholic, alkaline, or acid
solutions are also found to alter the quality of the
fibre in a peculiar way. In speaking, therefore, of
the effects of a solution of opium or any other drug,
the effects of the menstruum are not to be forgotten ;
and as this has been the case in too many instances,
it is necessary that more careful experiments be insti-
tuted before we can be satisfied that we possess a
proper knowledge of the true action of these drugs.

H 2

100 OF VITAL MOTION.

A word, however, may be said upon the two agents
that especially concern muscular irritability, — viz.,
opium and strychnia. Now, we know very well that
a tetanic state is very apt to happen in frogs that are
poisoned by these drugs, and the question is as to the
cause of these spasms. Are they stimulated ? Against
this view it may be said that opium produces direct
depression of all the vital faculties, of which depression
it is not unreasonable to suppose that the spasm may
be one of the signs. And in relation to strychnia, it
may be asked if it is not begging the question to say
that it acts by stimulating the nerves. If spasm is
the only proof, then all the previous arguments upon
muscular action are against the conclusion ; moreover,
there is undoubted evidence of the existence of severe
convulsive diseases in which there is no such irrita-
tion, and in which the system is torpid, and in every
respect the reverse of — what is called — excitable.

The whole subject, however, is so obscure that we
must be content to wait the results of future investi-
gation. Meanwhile, however, we may contend that
there is at least an equal amount of reason for the
supposition that the muscular contraction, which is the
result of the operation of chemical agencies, is the sign
of a negation and not of a communication of force.

We have now studied the phenomena of
muscular action in relation to every aspect of physical

OF VITAL MOTION. 101

force save one, and in every case we have found con-
traction to mark the abstraction of a stimulus. The
remaining question, however, opens out, or seems to
do so, a serious objection to this view ; for on studying
the motion^ which is the effect of the operation of
force, and at the same time a correlated expression of
force, it appears that the law of vital contraction in
muscular tissues, is altogether different from that of
ordinary contraction in inorganic bodies.

This objection is chiefly founded upon some experi-
ments of M. Schwann, which were instituted for the
purpose of testing the force of muscular contraction in
different degrees of this state. In these researches,
the experimenter employed a frog, and an apparatus
consisting of three parts — a stage or platform, — a
balance, with one arm free and the other connected
with an ordinary scale, — and a moveable pin, which
might be placed over the balance-beam in such a
manner as to prevent the ascending movements with-
out interfering with those in a downward direction.
The frog was prepared by dividing one of the ischiatic
nerves, and the principal tendon of the same leg close
by its attachment to the heel ; and when this was done,
the animal was secured upon the stage, with the divided
tendon attached to the empty arm of the balance by a
piece of string, and with the nerve drawn out and
placed in such a manner that it could readily be

102 OF VITAL MOTION.

brought in contact with the wires of a pair of galvanic
plates.

This arrangement being completed, the wires of the
battery were applied to the nerve, and the muscles
made to contract ; and having done this, the pin was
placed so as to keep the balance-arm attached to the
tendon at the depressed position to which it had been
brought by the contraction.

The arm of the balance connected with the tendon
being in the position to which it had been brought by
the contraction, a small weight was added to the empty
scale which depended from the other arm, and the wires
again applied to the nerve. At this time, however, the
muscle gave no evidence of contraction. The pin was
then removed, and the galvanic current renewed : and
on this occasion the beam was seen to ascend, and the
muscle to exhibit signs of action after it had attained
to a certain degree of extension. At the former state
of contraction, therefore, M. Schwann concludes that
the muscle was not able to move the weight, and that
it did not acquire this power until it had become
extended and relaxed to a certain degree. He notices,
however, that the contractions which took place under
these circumstances did not depress the beam as much
as before.

The experimenter then fixed the balance-arm in the
position to which it was brought in this second phase

OF VITAL MOTION. 103

of contraction, and proceeded to notice the effects of
an additional weight. He proceeded as before, and
found a similar train of results. There were, indeed,
no signs of action so long as the pin remained ; but
on removing this, the beam once more ascended, and
the muscle began to contract, after a certain degree
of extension. It was the same, also, in relation to the
degree of contraction, for the beam was not depressed
as much as when a lesser weight was in the scale.

From these experiments, M. Schwann concludes
that the power of contraction is greater when the
muscle is least contracted, and therefore (he argues)
that the force of vital contraction cannot augment in
an increasing ratio as the particles approximate, as
would be the case if the law of attraction were of the
same nature as that of gravity, or any other physical
force.

It is difficult, however, to understand by what pro-
cess of reasoning M. Schwann is led to this conclusion.
In respect to the law of universal attraction, there is
no doubt that bodies will move towards each other
with an energy increasing in the ratio of the square
of the distance, if these bodies are free to move ; and
such a law seems to be involved, of necessity, in the
very idea of force. When, however, the bodies acted
upon are not free to move, and a force of resistance is
opposed to that of attraction, the case is entirely
altered. Do away with resistance, and bodies will

104 OF VITAL MOTION.

move towards each other with increasing velocity,
according to a certain and definite law, until they
merge into one ; but concede the antagonistic force,
and the results of the pure law of attraction are at
once masked. That law, therefore, which M. Schwann
requires in muscular contraction is impossible, except
he could do away with the matter of the muscle, and
all opposing force in other quarters.

Instead of being a valid objection, therefore, the
experiment under consideration merely shows that
the normal manifestations of the law of attraction in
muscles, as in other bodies, is masked by a force of
resistance ; and hence the only value of the experi-
ment is as a measure of the degree of this resistance.
Alter, indeed, the manner in which the facts are
stated, and the result is simply this — .that a muscle
contracts to a certain degree when it has a given
weight to raise, to a greater degree when the weight
is lessened, and to the greatest degree when the scale
is emptied, and when the antagonizing influence is
only that which is furnished by the substance of the
muscle itself.

M. Schwann would have had reason for his con-
clusions, if he had found the muscle to contract to the
same extent in each of these differing circumstances ;
but this was not the case, and the amount of shorten-
ing was always inversely proportionate to the resist-
ance. There is less reason, also, for the arrival at

OF VITAL MOTION. 105

this conclusion, when it is remembered that elastic
bodies follow precisely the same law ; and lastly, as
another argument against his conclusions, it must be
remembered that these movements are not nervous
and vital, but the results of the workings of the gal-
vanic force.

All, therefore, that we learn from this experiment
is, that attraction and the antagonizing forces occupy
an inverse relation to each other — and this is a truth
of universal extent. The deductions of M. Schwann
are altogether gratuitous, and so far from the expe-
riment being an objection to the idea that vital
and physical contraction are obedient to the same
law, it furnishes evidence in favour of this view,- by
showing, that the force of attraction in each case is
affected in the same manner by resistance.

In conclusion : we have reviewed the phenomena of
voluntary muscular action in relation to the several
correlated aspects of physical force, and from this
examination it appears that the muscles are subject
to each and all of these agents, as inorganic bodies are
subject. Heat, light, electricity, and chemical agency
are all correlative of motion, and this latter aspect of
force, so far as we may judge, is not different from the
motion which is correlative of these forces in inanimate
nature.

106 or VITAL MOTION.

CHAPTER IV.

C. OF VITAL MOVEMENTS IN THE HEART.

Preliminary Considerations.

If we examine the heart, we find many reasons to
believe that it is subject to the law which rules the
rest of the muscular system.

The existence of the sigmoid valves at the outlets
of the ventricular cavities, is a fact which testifies
as to the existence of a power in the heart whose
operation is to produce regurgitation of blood : and
in those cases, where these valves have been altered
by disease, so that the arterial openings are imper-
fectly closed, the stethoscope reveals to us the reality
of such a regurgitation. Now it is certain, that the
force by which the blood is made to rush back in
this manner is not owing to the resilience of an
elastic tissue seated in the walls of the ventricles.

OF VITAL MOTION. 107

which tissue had been compressed during the systole,
for no such structure is to be found : and therefore
we are led to suppose that the ventricular diastole
must be more nearly allied to dilatation than
relaxation.

Again: the peculiar construction of the heart in
insects, and other articulate animals, is in favour of
the existence of a state of active dilatation in this
organ. In these creatures, the heart lies in the
general cavity of the body, and floats in the blood-
like liquid with which this cavity is filled. There are
no venous trunks, but the blood at once finds entrance
into the ventricle through simple valved slits. The
heart, moreover, is not a dense muscular viscus, as in
the higher animals, but it is a lax membranous tube,
little, if at all, superior to the condition of an ordi-
nary small vessel. Notwithstanding this peculiarity,
however, the beats follow the characteristic rhythm.
The action, in fact, is perfect with the conditions sim-
plified. Here, for example, the diastole cannot be a
state of mere relaxation originating in the operation
of a vis-a-tergo, for in a heart without veins, and
lodged, as it were, in an immense auricle where the
blood moves in no definite current, there can be no
such force. Here, moreover, the diastole cannot be
the consequence of the resilience of elastic tissue, for
the walls of the organ are lax and membranous. In
such a heart, indeed, there can be no passive cause of

108 OF VITAL MOTION.

dilatation, and hence it seems necessary to suppose
that there must be something more than mere
relaxation in the diastole.

Another argument in favour of the same conclusion
may be found in a case of cardiac-hernia, recorded by
Dr. Cruvelhier, in which it is stated that the hand
which grasped the protruded heart was opened during
the ventricular diastole, notwithstanding a considerable
effort to the contrary on the part of the experimenter,
— a fact which is altogether at variance with the idea
that this state is one of mere relaxation.

These considerations are sufficient to prepare us to
expect that the movements of the heart form no
exception to other vital movements, and to make us
doubt that the ventricular diastole is a condition of
relaxation, marking fatigue or weariness after an act
of mysterious and exhausting contraction. What,
however, is the true nature of this state, and of the
systole, will appear if we proceed to examine the
heart in relation to its causes of action.

1. Of extra-organic force as the agent in the
movements of the heart.

The effects of the agents which belong to this class
are somewhat obscure, but they are most apparent in
the rudimentary phases of life. Low in the scale of
creation, in " exsanguine animals, such as the snail,"
we learn, on the authority of the great Harvey, that

OF VITAL MOTION. 109

the rhythmical movements of the heart are suspended
in winter, or else repeated so slowly as to escape the
attention of an ordinary observer, and the organ itself
so shrunk and contracted as to be little more than
an ordinary vessel, — a change which, when compared
with the state in summer,- would seem to argue that
the heart has suffered contraction in consequence of
the coldness and inclemency of the season.

The influence of extra-organic agents may also be
seen in the heart of a chick, if a visit be paid to the
hydro-incubating establishment of M. Cantello. The
other day, for example, I had ocular demonstration
of this, along with my friend Dr. William Addison.
On opening an egg of the third day the heart was
seen to pulsate regularly, and to continue to do so for
some after the embryo was separated from the vas-
cular area, and placed upon a slip of glass. When
the heart became still, which it did in a few minutes,
we found it possible to renew the action by placing
the lower surface of the glass in light contact with
the warm water which is used to hatch the eggs;
and when it was still a second time the rhythm was
renewable in the same manner. Indeed it was found
possible by this application of warmth to revivify the
heart when it ceased to act, until the organ and the
rest of the gelatinous embryo were half dried up by
exposure to the atmosphere. It was the same also
with an embryo-chick of the sixth day, which was

110 OF VITAL MOTION.

subjected to the same treatment. On examining the
heart in these cases, after it had ceased to act, it was
shrunken and collapsed, and the immediate operation
of the heat seemed to induce the diastole ; but owing
to the minuteness and indistinctness of the parts it is
not easy to speak positively upon this point. Be this
as it may, however, the influence of extra-organic
agents is clearly exhibited in these experiments.

The same influence is also seen in the heart of a
cold-blooded animal — of a frog, for example ; and here
we may obtain a distant glimpse of the causes which
induce the rhythm. It is well known that a heart of
this kind will pulsate for some time after removal
from the body, taking air into its cavities and expel-
ling it again, as it might be blood, — the reactions
between the air and the heart being the chief source
of the force which is concerned in this action. Now,
at first sight, we have no more reason to suppose that
the air excites the systole than the diastole; but, if
we reflect awhile, we find it easier to entertain the
latter supposition than the former. There is no
elastic tissue to restore the diastole by its resilience
when the systole ceases, and on this account it is
difficult to suppose that the air can find entrance,
unless it possess some power by which it can resolve
the contracted state. Moreover it may be supposed,
that a certain generation of force must result from
the combination of the atmospheric oxygen with the

OF VITAL MOTION. Ill

tissues with which it comes in contact. And, further,
if the air finds entrance into the heart by this means,
it follows that it will be less able to retain its position
after a portion of its vivifying ingredients have been
expended, as they must have been if the diastole is
induced in this manner, and we may infer, therefore,
that the systole will occur and expel the air, as the
natural consequence of the altered and deteriorated
quality of this air. But let the explanation be as it
may, we may return to the original assertion, and
say, that there is no more proof that the air excites
the systole than the diastole. The question, however,
is extremely complicated, and we must be content to
deduce an indirect answer from the more evident
operation of intra-organic agents.

2. Of intra-organic force as the agent in the hearfs
action.

(a.) Of the nervous influence as an agent.

The effects of fear upon the heart are very well
marked, and these may serve as the first subject for
inquiry. In this state the extreme pallor of the skin
and the tendency to evacuation in the several visceral
cavities, argue, as we have seen, an actual contraction
in the rudimentary muscular structures, and it is the
same also in the walls of the heart. When, for
example, fear verges upon syncope, and the contrac-

112 OF VITAL MOTION.

tions of the heart are very hurried, and when, at the
same time, the paleness of the skin shows how small
a quantity of blood is forced into the vessels, the only
manner in which it is possible to account for the
inconsistency of these phenomena, is to suppose that
the walls of the ventricles have become contracted, —
for if these cavities preserved their natural dimensions,
the increased number of systolic contractions must
produce an equivalent distention of the vessels, by
which the skin would become hot and flushed, instead
of being, as it is, cold and pallid. And hence it may
be presumed, that a state of contraction has been
induced under the influence of fear, in the walls of the
heart, as in other muscular structures.

In the natural action of the heart, also, there is
strong presumptive evidence that the systole is
cotemporaneous with an interruption in the supply of
nervous influence, and not with any increased supply.
We know, indeed, that the development of this agent
is proportionate to the flow of blood to the sources of
innervation ; and hence we may conclude that this de-
velopment must follow an intermittent law in animals
provided with hearts. At the systole, indeed, a gush
of blood will pass to the nervous organs and produce
signs of activity in them; and as the distribution of
force will be consentaneous with its production — for
in subtlety this agent is analogous to electricity — it
follows that the heart is most freely supplied with

OF VITAL MOTION. 113

nervous force during the period of diastole; while,
according to the same rule, the period of feeblest
innervation will be during the systole, and the short
space of rest immediately antecedent.

It may be objected, however, that the flow of blood
in the capillaries is uniform and regular, and not
intermittent, as is here supposed, and it is not to be
denied that this objection is of great importance. At
the same time it will be admitted that this uniformity
is only comparative. Whatever, indeed, may be the
case in muscular and firmer textures, it is difficult to
imagine uniformity in the softer nervous structures,
where the vessels are extremely delicate, and com-
paratively destitute of extraneous support. On the
contrary, the powerful pulsatory movements of the
brain that are consentient with the beats of the heart,
and which are seen when a portion of the skull is
removed, and felt in the throbbing torments of head-
ache, are arguments in favour of some variations in the
supply of blood — to the brain at least, such as might
determine an intermittent development of nervous
influence.

From the manner in which the blood is sent from
the heart, therefore, we may infer that the develop-
ment of nervous energy will be in corresponding
intermittent gushes: and here we begin to catch a
glimpse of the causes which operate upon the heart,
and produce its mysterious rhythm. Let us suppose,

I

k

114 or VITAL MOTION.

indeed, the heart to pass from diastole into systole,
and one of the effects will be the sending of a flood of
blood to the sources of innervation. There this flood
will excite a free development of nervous influence,
which being directed to the heart through the proper
channels will induce the state of diastole. In conse-
quence of this change the arterial stream is cut off,
and the blood sets in to the heart from the auricles
and veins. The stoppage of the supply of blood
arrests for the moment the free development of nervous
energy, and hence one influence is withheld which
induced the diastole, and the heart, therefore, returns
to the systole. And so we get round the circle. The
arterial stream again sets out in consequence of the
systole, — the blood causes the renewal of nervous
energy, — the nervous energy induces the diastole,
and in this way, the blood being again withheld from
the vessels, we arrive at the cause of that suppression
of force which occasions the systole. And so, in a
regular series, systole will give rise to diastole, and
diastole be followed by systole, so long as the vascular
and nervous systems retain their integrity.

No mention is here made of the share which the
auricles have in the action of the heart, and it may be
thought that this must be directly contradictory to
that of which we have been speaking, inasmuch as the
diastole of the auricle, and the systole of the ventricle,
are cotemporaneous changes, and, vice iiersd^ the sys-

OF VITAL MOTION. 115

tole of the auricle is related in point of time to the
diastole of the ventricle. But a careful examination
of the question is sufficient to disarm this difficulty.

It cannot be doubted that the auricles, as well as
the ventricles, possess a proper power of contracting
and dilating, but it is a fallacy to suppose that these
states — at least in the rapid rhythmic order in which
they occur — are distinct in themselves, and altogether
independent of the movements which have taken place
in the ventricles. There is good reason, indeed, to
doubt the actuality of auricular-systole as a state of
positive and independent contraction, and to suppose
it to be, as it were, a pseudo-systole^ consequent upon
the sudden emptying of the auricle by the rapid dia-
stole of the muscular ventricle. And to this opinion
we are led by the anatomical peculiarities of the coats
and cavities of the auricles. In the cavities^ the
absence of valves to prevent a reflux of blood into
the veins, and the want of all evidence of any such
reflux (except in patency of the auriculo- ventricular
valves, where, indeed, the cavities of the auricles and
ventricles are continuous), afford a strong argument
against there being any true systole in the auricles.
The history of these cavities also, as gathered from
the records of comparative anatomy, tends to show
that they are mere cisterns calculated to hold the
blood necessary to the wants of the ventricles, rather
than organs destined to aid in the circulation by systolic

I 2

116 OF VITAL MOTION.

contractions. In the structure of the coats of the
auricles^ also, there is reason for the same conclusion.
This is different from that of the ventricle, for though
truly muscular, yet it is that unstriped variety which
is more closely allied to what is found in the coats of
the veins, than in voluntary muscle and the muscle of
the ventricle. Now, in veins there is an absence of
any rapid rhythmic changes, though there is a capacity
for slower and more prolonged movements, and hence
it may be doubted whether there are any rapid changes
in the auricles. It is the same, also, in the coats of
the alimentary canal, and hence another and con-
firmatory reason for the same conclusion. In relation
to structure, indeed, the two cavities of the heart are
widely different : on the one hand, the ventricles are
composed of muscle which, from its striped character
and close analogy to voluntary muscle, may be sup-
posed to be extremely apt to rapid and energetic
movements, especially under the agency of nervous
influence; and on the other hand, the auricles, like
the coats of the veins and alimentary canal, are com-
posed of the unstriped variety of muscle, — and hence
we may infer that their movements, like those of the
veins and intestines, are slow and not likely to respond
with readiness to a nervous stimulus.

In this manner, therefore, the problem of the heart's
action may be greatly simplified, and we may find
some reason why the auricle should contract at a time

OF VITAL MOTION. 117

when, judging from the state of the ventricle, there
is the freest innervation. In harmony with these con-
siderations, we may suppose that the filling of the
entire side of the heart is a single act, though it ap-
pears twofold. Owing indeed to the decided and rapid
diastole of the ventricle, we may suppose the blood to
be suddenly drawn away from the auricle, and not sent
away ; and so the apparent contraction of the auricle
at this time may be collapse of the thin walls of the
organ, instead of true and positive systole.

We may consider, in short, that the movements
observable in the auricles are secondary and not pri-
mary. The systole we may consider as complementary
to the arterial pulse, each phenomenon being dependent
upon actions which take place in a remote seat — namely,
in the ventricles. The diastole also we must regard as
mainly dependent upon the general current of the
blood, which, proceeding from the pulse and capillary
power, flows onwards from the veins. There is indeed
more confirmed activity in the auricles than in the
neighbouring veins, but when the activity is compared
with that of the ventricles, it becomes insignificant and
scarcely appreciable.

118 OF VITAL MOTION.

(b.) Of the organic force^ not of a nervous cha-
racter, as an agent in the action of the heart.

The immediate influence of the blood in this case
is not readily illustrated ; but it is not difficult to per-
ceive that the present theories upon this subject are
very unsatisfactory. That the blood does not stimu-
late contraction may be argued from the histories of the
common bloodvessels and visceral cavities, which have
been given in a former page, between which histories
and that of the heart there is an intimate connexion, —
for whatever the diiFerences in form and function when
fully developed, they all spring from the same origin.
To suppose that the blood excites contraction in the
heart, moreover, is to create a difficulty which has
already been insisted upon ; for, if this were the case,
how is it that the blood finds entrance into the organ ?

There need, however, be no doubt upon this ques-
tion if we institute once more a comparison between
the opposite conditions of plethora and anaemia. In
anaemia, for example, (especially in the variety which
is associated with the consumptive habit of body,) we
find rapidity and smallness of the pulse, together with
other signs of emptiness in the vascular system. There
is in fact the same evidence of contraction in the ven-
tricular cavities as was found in the state immediately
antecedent to syncope, for as we argued in this case, a
proportionate flood of blood must be sent into the

OF VITAL MOTION. 119

vessels if these cavities were fully dilated. In ple-
thora, on the contrary, the pulse is generally full and
slow ; and hence we should argue, in the first place,
that the diastole is perfect, and a large quantity of
blood taken into the heart at this time ; and secondly,
that the presence of the blood does not immediately
and of necessity give rise to a systole. Comparing,
indeed, the state of plethora with that of anaemia, the
contrary would seem to be the fact, — and the rapid
systole in the one case would seem to be ascribable to
the small quantity of blood which is taken into the
heart, together with its impoverished and watery
quality ; and the deferred systole, in the other case, to
the presence of a larger quantity of richer and more
genial blood. The effects, indeed, are analogous to those
witnessed in the vessels under similar circumstances,
and it must be admitted that the heart has a greater
capacity of dilatation in plethora than in anaemia.
And so clear in other respects is the significance of the
same facts, that it seems as reasonable to suppose that
the blood excites the vessels of erectile tissue to contrac-
tion, as that it has this influence upon the heart, which
after all, is but one of many forms of bloodvessel.

It would appear, also, on further examination that
the influence of the blood is an agent of extreme
importance in determining the rhythmical action of
the heart. At the ventricular systole the blood is
distributed to the vessels, and among the rest to the

120 OF VITAL MOTION.

coronary arteries: and this abundant supply of the
vivifying stream cannot be without its influence upon
the walls of the heart. We cannot suppose it to
excite the systole, however, for the rush is absolutely
simultaneous with the opposite condition, — namely,
with the swelling out of the heart into the diastole.
Moreover, there is a short pause before the super-
vention of the systole. The blood, in fact, rushes into
the walls of the heart at the instant when the diastole
commences, remains during the continuance of this
state, and throughout the short pause which super-
venes,— and hence the flood of new blood can scarcely
be supposed to be the cause of the systole. There is
no difficulty, however, in believing that it is one of
the causes of the diastole. The very rushing into
the vessels may contribute to this. The reaction,
also, which takes place between the oxygen of the
blood and the vascular coats, which we know to be
one main cause of the capillary force, will co-operate
with the arterial tension in producing the same
result, for a definite extrication of force is the direct
consequence of this reaction. When, therefore, we
consider the rush of blood in the coronary arteries,
and the attendant actions in the capillaries, we may
easily understand that the pulse of blood in the
vessels of the heart may be an important coagent
with the pulse of nervous influence which takes place
at the same time, in bringing about the diastole. But

OF VITAL MOTION. 121

this is not all that concerns the action of the blood
upon the heart : and on further examination we may
find, in the same quarter, a reason why the systole
should follow the diastole. The jet of blood in the
coronary arteries is withheld, as we know, in con-
sequence of the diastole, and hence the arterial tension
must be less perfect. The blood, also, at the same
time is passing, or has already passed, into the veins,
and become deprived of its arterial character. It
has in fact given up, in great measure, the principle
which is the main stimulus of activity and life, —
namely, the oxygen ; and therefore it is less fitted to
sustain the diastole, than it was when freshly injected
into the vessels. The arterial tension and capillary
action are in fact reduced, if not removed ; and hence
we may conclude that as this tension and action was
a cause of the diastole, so the removal will tend to
bring about the systole, by allowing, that is to say,
the heart to return to its former condition of
contraction.

To this explanation it can scarcely be objected, that
there is no intermittent variation in the quantity of
blood contained in the walls of the heart. At each
systole the blood is expelled from the cavities, and we
can hardly suppose that this contraction should take
place without expelling some of the blood in the
walls as well. Indeed, if we watch the action of the
heart in a frog, in which the sternum has been

122 OP VITAL MOTION.

removed, without doing any injury to the vessels, we
may be convinced of this; for at each diastole the
organ becomes turgid with blood, not merely in the
cavity, but in every vessel of the coats ; while at the
systole the walls are pale and the cavity emptied.

It is possible, also, that there may be a pulsatile
generation of force in the pulmonary and some other
tissues, where from the looseness of the structure,
and the comparative absence of the pressure or sup-
port of surrounding parts, the flow of blood may be
intermittent rather than continuous. Any pulses of
vascular force originating in this way may react
with the pulse of nervous influence (either through
the nervous circle, or else by direct conduction
through contiguous tissues), and with the pulses of
vascular force belonging to the coronary system, in
the induction of the diastole ; while the common pause
in the generation of force in all these quarters which
is necessitated by the cessation of the jet of blood
into the arterial system, may bring about the systole.
It is possible, also, that the blood within the cavities
of the heart, in so far as its surface is concerned,
may act upon the lining membrane, just as it does
upon the coats of the capillaries; but this action
must be very insignificant when compared with the
immense surface acted upon in the walls of the heart
itself. Moreover, on the one side of the heart the
cavities contain venous blood, and on the other side,

OF VITAL MOTION. 123

arterial; and unless we had some common cause in
operation (as we have in the general distribution of
new blood through the coronaries) it is difficult to
account for the simultaneous occurrence of diastole
and systole in these two sides. It is an assumption
without any proof, that the right side of the heart is
more sensitive than the left, and that, by reason of
this, it is able to respond to the feebler stimulus of
venous blood : indeed this assumption is in opposition
to the known law, that the acuteness of sensibility is
in direct relation to the arterialized condition of the
blood. We may conclude, therefore, that the action
of the blood in exciting the heart, is exerted upon
the vessels and fibres of the walls of the organ (and
perhaps in certain additional reactions in the vessels
elsewhere), rather upon the lining membrane of the
cavities, — although we are not prevented from sup-
posing that there is a certain and definite action of
the same kind in the latter quarter.

In the action of the heart, therefore, we detect the
harmonious co-operation of extra-organic and intra-
organic agents, with which we are already familiar,
but the theory is not complete except it will account
for the presence of the rhythm in the heart, and the
absence in all other muscular structures. Why it is
present in the heart we may find on examination. The
valvular construction of the organ may be one reason,
for this necessitates a continual admission of fresh

124 OF VITAL MOTION.

supplies of blood. By this arrangement it may be
supposed that the fibre of the heart is placed in the
conditions most favourable to the exaltation of its
mobility, — for in other muscles we see that this
faculty is directly proportionate to the free supply of
oxygenated blood. A chief cause, however, may be
supposed to be the intimate relation which exists
between the heart and the blood, — a relation which is
rather what it might be imagined to be in a structure
intermediate between erectile tissue and muscle, than
in ordinary muscle. This is not only seen in the phe-
nomena which have been noticed as occurring in the
heart of a frog during action, but also in the peculiar
vascularity of any heart, when compared with the
other muscles of the same animal. As contributing to
the peculiarity of the action of the heart, we must
also mention the shortness of the vessels, and the
existence of the foramina thesbesii, all of which are
favourable to the speedy entrance and escape of blood ;
and finally, we must notice the great variations in
the quantities of blood contained in the walls and
cavities of the heart. Now, on comparing voluntary
with involuntary muscle, there is good reason to be-
lieve that the more abundant vascularity of the former
is a chief cause of the greater readiness and rapidity
of action ; and for the same reason, therefore, we may
suppose the heart to possess a greater mobility than
either; hence there is no great difficulty in supposing

OF VITAL MOTION. 125

that the heart is able to respond to the rhythmical
variations of force which can be pointed out as acting
upon the organ. On the other hand, the very reasons
which enable us to suppose that the heart may have
a rhythmical action, prevent us from expecting this
elsewhere. In other muscles, the more scanty supply
of blood-vessels argues a duller mobility, and the
absence of such marked variations in the contents of
these vessels — the circulation in them being continuous
rather than intermittent — argues also a feebler mani-
festation of the rhythmical variations of force In
other muscles, therefore, we have a feebler rhythm of
force, and a duller capacity of responding to this
rhythm ; and therefore the comparative absence of the
conditions which determine the rhythm of the heart
may be the reason why such a rhythm is absent else-
where.

In conclusion: the heart is subject to the laws
which govern other mobile fabrics, and its history
would seem to offer no exception to what has gone
before. The systole refers to the common causes of
contraction; the diastole to the common causes of
dilatation. The rhythm also may be supposed to be
nothing more than the obedience of a natural suscep-
tibility to certain periodical variations in the supply
of intra-organic force, the existence of which variations
can be satisfactorily demonstrated.

126 OF VITAL MOTION.

CHAPTER V.

OF THE NEKVOUS INFLUENCE AS AN AGENT
IN VITAL MOVEMENT.

In the preceding chapters, it has been found that
nervous influence, and the other forces of organization
agree in their mode of action, and that all these vital
and physico-vital agencies co-operate harmoniously
with the several varieties of extra-organic force, —
and hence we may infer, with very sufficient reason,
that nervous influence is nothing more than a modifi-
cation of cosmical force.

In another work,* it has been shown that the
nervous system is formed upon the same archetypal
plan as the other parts of the body, and even of the
body itself, and that the same plan is extended to
what are called inanimate bodies ; and in this unity
of the material framework of things there is another

* See "Proteus," p. 65, &c.

OF VITAL MOTION. 127

reason for supposing the nervous influence to be a
variety of cosmical force.

It has been shown, also, in the same work that all
forms of physical and vital force are truly corre-
lative : and hence a final argument in favour of the
view that the nervous influence is a variety of
cosmical force.

We are not taught, however, by these considera-
tions to do away with the idea of nervous influence,
though we regard it in this point of view, or to
ascribe its workings to electricity, or heat, or light,
any more than we should confound the existence of
light, or heat, or electricity, and say that either of
these agents was identical with the others. Corre-
lation, in fact, involves the idea of unity, but it as
distinctly retains that of difference. Nor are we to
confound nervous influence with mind, for — if it be
as we have said — it is clear that it can have no
exclusive claim to be considered as identical with this
essence.

The nervous influence, therefore, is to be regarded
as one of several modes of cosmical force, which reacts
harmoniously with all companion agencies, in the
determination of vital movement.

128 OF VITAL MOTION.

CHAPTER YI.

OF THE ACTION OF MIND IN VITAL MOVEMENT.*

Mind and body are associated in a mystical union,
and the one cannot be understood without the other ;
but it will facilitate our inquiries, and enable us to
attain with more readiness to some knowledge of the
action of mind in vital movement, if we consider the
mental principle as a distinct and separate entity,
before we regard it as wedded to corporeity.

I.

In mind apart from body there are no traces of
decay and perishability, nor is there any evidence of

* In its most comprehensive sense, the term " raind" signifies
the composite essence which comprehends the several faculties
of memory, imagination, instinct, understanding, reason, con-
science, wiU — and in this full sense we must be supposed to use
the term, mind.

OF VITAL MOTION. 129

subjection to time and place, in the sense in which
we understand the body to be subject.

1. The indelible record which is preserved by the
memory of every conscious or unconscious act of the
mind, may be taken as q, proof that the mental essence
is itself imperishable.

In the mind of every one there are certain images
of past events, or actions, which continually obtrude
upon the attention, and which appear in this way
throughout a long life, without losing any of their
distinctness and reality. There are images, also,
which remain out of sight unless they are wanted,
when they awake and issue from their hiding-places.
And, along with these, there are other images which
have escaped from the dominion of the will, and which
would seem to have vanished into oblivion, if they
did not appear occasionally in answer to certain sights
or sounds which seem to exert a talismanic influence
over them: thus, for example, the long-forgotten feel-
ings and thoughts of boyhood may bestir themselves
at the sight of a faded blossom that has been preserved
among the pages of a school-book, — not languidly, but
with the same tumult as they did on the holiday on
which the flower was gathered, when ourselves and
companions, the landscape and the sky, were full of
life, and without shade or sadness ; and in this way
we find that this part of the past is not cancelled,
although it had been hidden by the crowd of suc-

E

130 OF VITAL MOTION.

ceeding days and years ; or the moaning of wind in
the casement may bring to remembrance the chamber,
with all its darkness and loneliness, where we once
listened to such a sound, as if it were instinct with
supernatural meaning; and the involuntary shudder
proves that time has been no more able to erase this
passage from our history than the other. It is, in-
deed, the experience of every moment, that no impres-
sion can fall upon the senses, and no movement take
place in our inner being, which does not awaken
something that had been forgotten, — and we may well
pause, therefore, before we conclude that the past is
cancelled, because it does not reveal itself in obedience
to the will.

The difference in the power of recollection in
various people, and in the same person at different
times, is another argument in favour of the indeli-
bility of memory. We find this power to be most
acute in cases where, and at times when, it is most
in exercise. It fails under neglect, and is recovered
by attention. Nor do we know of any limits which
can be set to the perfectibility of this faculty; and
hence we may reason that the memory is a blank
in some particulars, not because it has treacherously
refused to receive what ought to have been recorded,
or that these records have become effaced, but simply
because we have neglected to fortify the mental vision
by which we read what is written.

OF VITAL MOTION. 131

The phenomena of disease aiFord other arguments,
which confirm and support this position The memory,
for example, is suspended when the brain is pressed
upon by the finger, and returns again when the pres-
sure is removed ; and hence we may argue, from this
recovery, that the memory was not obliterated, but
simply that its active manifestations were suspended.
In like manner, also, we may account for the absence
of memory in apoplectic and paralytic seizures ; for in
these cases the faculty returns as the effects of the
disease wear away. In delirious excitement, on the
other hand, the preternatural activity of the brain is
often accompanied with a corresponding development
of the memory ; and these cases afford the strongest
possible proof that nothing which has found its way
into the mind is ever forgotten. In delirium there are
many well-authenticated instances of persons talking
in a language which they had known in their youth,
but Avhich they had completely forgotten before this
particular illness, and which they forgot again, as
completely as before, on recovery. Coleridge, also,
has recorded a case where, in delirious fever, sen-
tences were spoken in a language which was never
understood, and where the sounds had been retained
without any knowledge of their meaning; and so
remarkable is this case, and so well calulated to show
the indelibility of memorial impressions, that I copy
it, and the comments which follow, as a most fitting

k2

132 OF VITAL MOTION.

illustration of our present problem. This case, says
Coleridge,* " occurred in a Catholic town in Germany,
a year or two before my arrival in Gottingen, and bad
not then ceased to be a frequent subject of conversa-
tion. A young woman of four or five and twenty,
who could neither read nor write, was seized with a
nervous fever ; during which, according to the asseve-
rations of all the priests and monks of the neighbour-
hood, she became possessed^ and, as it appeared, by a
very learned devil. She continued incessantly talking
Latin, Greek, and Hebrew, in very pompous tones,
and with most distinct enunciation. This possession
was rendered more probable by the known fact, that
she was or had been an heretic. Voltaire humorously
advises the devil to decline all acquaintance with
medical men; and it would have been more to his
reputation, if he had taken this advice in the present
instance. The case had attracted the particular
attention of a young physician, and by his statement
many eminent physiologists and psychologists visited
the town, and cross-examined the case on the spot.
Sheets full of her ravings were taken down from her
own mouth, and were found to consist of sentences,
coherent and intelligible each for itself, but with little
or no connexion with each other. Of the Hebrew, a
small portion only could be traced to the Bible; the

* Biographia Litteraria, vol. i. p. 112,

OF VITAL MOTION. 133

remainder seemed to be in the Rabicaliu dialect. All
trick or conspiracy was out of the question. Not
only had the young woman ever been an harmless,
simple creature, but she was evidently labouring
under a nervous fever. In the town in which she
had been resident for many years as a servant in
different families, no solution presented itself. The
young physician, however, determined to trace her
past life step by step, — for the patient herself was
incapable of returning a rational answer. He at
length discovered a place where her parents had
lived; travelled thither, found them dead, but an
uncle surviving ; and from him learnt that the patient
bad been charitably taken by an old Protestant pastor
at nine years old, and had remained with him some
years, even till the old man's death. Of this pastor
the uncle knew nothing, but that he was a very good
man. With great diflSculty, and after much search,
our young medical philosopher discovered a niece of
the pastor's, who had lived with him as his house-
keeper, and had inherited his effects. She remem-
bered the girl ; related that her venerable uncle had
been too indulgent, and could not bear to hear the
girl scolded ; that she was willing to have kept her,
but that after her patron's death, the girl herself
refused to stay. Anxious inquiries were then, of
course, made concerning the pastor's habits ; and the
solution of the problem was soon obtained. For it

134 OF VITAL MOTION.

appeared that it had been the old man's custom, for
years, to walk up and down a passage of his house
into which the kitchen door opened, and to read to
himself, with a loud voice, out of his favourite books.
A considerable number of these were still in the
niece's possession. She added that he was a very
learned man, and a great Hebraist. Among the
books were found a collection of Rabbinical writings,
together with several of the Greek and Latin fathers ;
and the physician succeeded in identifying so many
passages with those taken down at the young woman's
bedside, that no doubt could remain in any rational
mind concerning the true origin of the impressions
made on her nervous system.

" This authenticated case," Coleridge proceeds to
say, " furnishes both proof and instance that reliques
of sensation may exist for an indefinite time in a
latent state, in the very same order in which they
were originally impressed ; and as we cannot
rationally suppose the feverish state of the brain
to act in any other way than as a stimulus, this
fact (and it would not be difficult to adduce several
of the kind) contributes to make it even probable
that all thoughts are in themselves imperishable ;
and that if the intelligent faculty should be rendered
more comprehensive, it would require only a different
and apportioned organization — the body celestial^
instead of the body terrestrial — to bring before every

OF VITAL MOTION. 135

human soul the collective experience of its whole past
existence. And this — this, perchance, is the dread
book of judgment, in whose mysterious hieroglyphics
every idle word is recorded ! Yea, in the very nature
of a living spirit, it may be more possible that heaven
and earth should pass away, than that a single act —
a single thought — should be loosened or lost from
that living chain of causes, to all whose links,
fconscious or unconscious, the free will — our only
absolute self — is co-extensive and co-present."

Mind, therefore, — we may conclude from these con-
siderations,— is an essence in which there is an absence
of the signs of perishability which we are accustomed
to regard as distinctive of the body. And this is one
property of mind.

2. Nor is the mind subject to time in the ordinary
sense of the word. On the contrary, it wanders con-
tinually from the present into the past, and from the
past into the untried domains of futurity. Under
the influence of mind, also, the present itself is of un-
certain duration, and a day may become as a moment,
and a moment as a day. The hours, for example,
pass along and leave no impression when the spirit is
free from care and anxiety, or a moment of anguish
may be so preternaturally dilated that we can hardly
believe what we have felt and suffered to have been
confined to this short space of time. There is a
hidden truth in the Arabian romance of the caliph

136 OF VITAL MOTION.

who believed himself to have been sold as a slave, and
to have suffered seven years' servitude during the in-
stant that his head remained immersed in the bath ;
or in the story of Mahomet's ascent to the seventh
heaven in the interval between the overturning of a
water-jar and the escape of the contents, — for in
both these stories is shadowed forth the superiority
to the bounds of time which is a second property of
mind.

3. The mind, also, is not subject to place. On the
contrary, there is, as it were, an irradiation from one
person to another, and it is difficult to define the
limits of mental being.

We arrive at this conclusion from the arguments
which show the correlation of physical and vital force
— which arguments have been set forth elsewhere* —
but we may obtain direct as well as indirect evidence
if we examine mental actions, (as words, ideas, feel-
ings, or the more general movements of the frame,)
or the faculties which are the motives and springs
of these actions ; for in every instance we may detect
the operation of mind beyond the body whence it
emanates.

An instance illustrative of the connexion of words
with a foreign mental impulse, was told me the other
day by a friend, as having fallen under his own notice

* See Proteus, or the Law of Nature, chap. ii.

^ OF VITAL MOTION. 13?

in an English family, at that time resident in Ger-
many. As is not unusual under such circumstances,
one of the younger children had acquired the power
of speaking on ordinary matters in German or in
English, without confusing the words or idioms ; but,
notwithstanding this double faculty, he was invariably
obliged to reply in the language in which he was
spoken to, if addressed by an adult. When, for ex-
ample, he carried a message to the nursery-maid, who
was a native villager without a knowledge of any
language save her mother- tongue, he delivered it in
German, though it had been received the moment
previously in English ; and hence we are led to ima-
gine that his speech was ruled for the time by some
influence proceeding from the maid — akin perhaps to
that which, under other circumstances, might have
awakened a smile in his countenance ; for the child
was too young to allow us to suppose any process of
reasoning by which he had purposely selected from his
vocabulary the words which were intelligible to her.
And that this was the case appears from what took
place on his return to the parlour. At this time he
joined in the English conversation which was carried
on, and he had no power of doing otherwise if he
spoke at all : thus, if asked what Annchen had said,
he answered in English as often as the question was
proposed in English, and even though pressed to give
the words he had heard in the nursery, he still

138 OF VITAL MOTION.

continued to do the same, without seeming to be
aware of the difference ; but if the question was put
to him in German, the answer was in German, there
being in this case his same inability to reply in Eng-
lish, if wished to do so, as there had been when
required to give a German answer to an English
question. In this case, therefore, the words would
seem to have been dictated by another person rather
than by the mind of the speaker, and thus the tongue
of the child may be said to test the actual presence of
mind beyond the bodily limits in which the impulse
originated.

In part, also, we may suppose an adult to have
been affected in the same way, when, in conversation
(as not unfrequently happens) he has been irresistibly
led to give utterance to words which it would have
been prudent to conceal from his companion, and
which words, moreover, he had fully resolved to con-
ceal. And so in all probability it is with all : for if
we examine ourselves, we find it impossible to account
for all the words we utter by referring them to the
will for their origin.

It is the same, also, in relation to ideas^ as may be
seen in many ways. There is, however, a page in the
" Sylva Sylvarum" which shows very clearly the
influence of one mind in infixing an idea in another
person, and this I shall quote as a better illustration
than any I can furnish from my own experience : —

OF VITAL MOTION. 139

" I related," says Lord Bacon, " one time to a Man
that was Curious, and Vaine enough in these Things ;
That I saw a kinde of Juggler, that had a Paire of
Cards, and would tell a Man what Card he thought.
This Pretended Learned Man told mee; It was a
mistaking in mee; For {said he) it was not the
Knowledge of the Man's Thought, {for that is Proper
to God,) but it was the Inforcing of a Thought upon
him,' and Binding his Imagination by a Stronger,
that hee could Thinke no other Card. And thereupon
he asked me a Question, or two, which I thought he
did but cunningly, knowing before what used to be
the Feats of the Juggler. Sir, (said hee,) doe you
remember whether he told the Card, the Man thought,
Himselfe, or bade Another to tell it. I answered, (as
was true,) That he bade Another to tell it. Where-
upon he said, so I thought : For (said he) Himself
could not have put on so strong an Imagination ; But
by telling the other the Card, (who believed that the
Juggler was some Strange Man, and could doe
Strange Things,) that other Man caught a strong
Imagination. I hearkened unto him, thinking for
•Vanitie he spoke prettily. Then he asked me another
Question : Saith he ; Doe you remember whether he
bade the Man thinke the Card first, and afterwards
told the other Man in his eare, what he should thinke.
Or else that he did whisper first in the Man's eare,
that should tell the Card, telling that such a Man

140 OF VITAL MOTION.

should thinJce such a Card, and after hade the Man
thinke a Card ? I told him, as was true ; That he did
first whisper the Man in the Bare that such a Man
should thinke such a Card : Upon this the Learned
Man did much Exult and Please himself, saying ; Loe
you may see that my Opinion is right: For if the
Man had thought first, his Thought had been Fixed ;
But the other Imagining first, hound his Thought.
Which though it did somewhat sinke with me, yet I
made it Lighter than I thought, and said; / thought
it was Confederacie, hetween the Juggler and the two
Servants: Though (indeed) I had no Reason so to
thinke: For they were both my Father^ s Servants:
And hee had never plaid in the House before. The
Juggler also did cause a Garter to be held up : And
tooke upon him to know that such an One should
pointe in such a Place of the Garter ; As it should be
neare so many Inches to the Longer End, and so
many to the Shorter ; And still he did it, by First
Telling the Imaginer, and after Bidding the Actour
thinke."

We cannot doubt that a weak and uncertain person
may receive some of the energy in which he is deficient
from one who is firmer than himself; and it is not less
true that a man may acquire both resolution and
imaginative power from the confidence of others; —
and therefore it is not impossible for the juggler to
have received an increase of power sufficient to com-

OF VITAL MOTION. 141

mand a clownish spirit by allying himself to another
who lent himself implicitly to his purpose. Let the
interpretation of this phenomenon be what it may, how-
ever, there is abundant evidence to show the influence
of mind in determining an idea in another person, as
we see in the ideas of children and students which
are respectively stamped by parents and teachers.

The connexion of feelings with a foreign impulse
is very obvious. A glance of the eye, or an
expression of countenance, is sufficient to enkindle a
corresponding feeling in the minds of others. An
amiable person, for example, cannot be long in a
room where there are children before his kindness is
distinctly reflected in their manners or countenances ;
and a morose visitor, under the same circumstances,
is sure to extinguish mirth and laughter. It would
seem also as if there was something more in this
influence than what we are pleased to regard as
impressions through the senses, as we may argue
from the frequent coincidence of thought when we
are in company with a friend, although, there has
been no turning of the head to read what is passing
in his countenance. Both speak at once, and both
know that they are about to express the same thing
before a single word has been uttered. It is also an
instance of the same more mysterious supra-sensational
influence where one person is aware of the approach
of another (a not uncommon event with many) before

142 OF VITAL MOTION.

the information of his arrival could have been
communicated by the ordinary senses. The feelings,
therefore, as well as ideas and words, betoken the
operation of mind beyond the limits of the body where
it originates.

In addition to these there are also other and more
tangible signs which show the extra-corporeal opera-
tion of mind. In mesmerism, for example, one person
is fascinated by another, and the tongue and all the
muscles are removed from the dominion- of conscious-
ness and volition. In stammering we see how the
disordered action is communicable from one child to
another, or even from one adult to another ; and it
is the same also in more general convulsive affections,
as hysteria and epilepsy. It is not to account for
these phenomena by ascribing them to imitation, for
the facts prove that the person is mastered by an
involuntary impulse — an impulse, moreover, which
does not originate with himself; for, before he wit-
nessed the stammering or convulsed person who was
the occasion of his seizure, he may have been per-
fectly sound and healthy. It is the same also with
the unthinking bravery of soldiers in action, who for
the most part are absorbed, without any spontaneous
effort, in the spirit of their captain. Whether in signs
of depression or excitement, therefore, as exhibited in
transient paralysis or involuntary action of the entire
frame, or of part of the frame, there is sufficient proof

OF VITAL MOTION. 143

of the immediate and positive influence of mind upon
a second person.

We might show also the influence of one mind upon
another in the motives and springs of mental auction,
as well as in the actions themselves, and many illus-
trations might be cited. But one will suflice.
During the performance of Hamlet, for example, the
will is resigned to the genius of the poet and his
representative, and intellect, reason, imagination, and
every faculty of the mind is afiected in turn. With
Hamlet himself the loftier and sterner thoughts of the
soul are stirred into life, and we rise above humanity ;
with Ophelia the tenderer sentiments of nature come
into play, and we suffer with her as she yields to
her fate ; with the Gravedigger we leave that which
is high and endearing, and become ordinary men —
the true gravediggers of soul. We change with the
changes of the play, and because of these changes ; and
our mental faculties are undoubtedly ruled for the
time by the outward impulse.

But it is idle to multiply instances to show the
extra- corporeal presence of mind. It is the experience
of every moment to feel and prove it. Imagination
is constantly tinctured by the addition of foreign
fancies. Conscience is not shut up to our own
hearts, for her dictates are sensibly biased by asso-
ciation. In the strictest sense of the word, will is
not our own, for this energy is continually influenced

144 OF VITAL MOTION.

for good, and too often for evil, by our friends and
neighbours. Every faculty of the mind, indeed, belies
the idea of isolated and independent existence, and
affords the evidence of an extra-corporeal presence,
quite as distinct and real as that of heat and light
beyond the limits of the glowing embers.

We arrive at the same conclusion, also, if
we examine the mind in relation to memory and
personality.

There is good reason to believe that the records of
memory are not all preserved within the body, and that
something has been noted down in the place or thing
to which the records refer. This appears, in great
measure, from our own experience in relation to
persons with whom we have associated, and with
whose thoughts and actions we are familiar. These
thoughts and actions remain with us, and become a
part of our being, and not only are we ourselves con-
scious of the addition, but they with whom the thoughts
and actions had their origin, they know that our
memory is furnished in this manner, — they know that
we keep a faithful register of what they have said or
done. In like manner, also, these persons remember
our words and deeds, and we know that this is the
case.

The knowledge of identity which attaches to things
we have once seen is also an argument that these

OF VITAL MOTION. 145

things retain some impress which we have placed
upon them, and which we are able to recognise at a
future time; for, unless this were the case, the know-
ledge of identity is completely obliterated, and every
fresh impression of the same thing must strike upon
the mind as new and distinct.

In this way (as it seems to n\e) we may fix some of
the seats of memory away from the body ; for, what-
ever images there may be within, we are obliged to
admit an unsevered connexion between them and the
extraneous phenomena to which they refer for their
origin.

Personality, also, as well as memory, appears a
growing energy, which continually unfolds and in-
cludes a wider circle, without in any way losing its
own proper difference and distinction. Thus, in
marriage, man experiences a communion and exten-
sion of being, by which he becomes one with his
wife, in the strictest sense of the word. In time his
children possess a share in his being ; then his
country gains his regard, and patriotic feelings are
mixed with the paternal and conjugal ; and lastly, he
passes beyond the bounds of country, and humanity
is included in his own proper individuality. This con-
nexion of household love, of patriotism, of humanity,
is no imaginary delusion, but there are a thousand
things, which, acting and reacting, convince him of
the contrary.

146 OF VITAL MOTION.

Viewing memory and personality in relation to each
other, the one confirms and explains the other.
Both argue in mind an extra- corporeal presence —
an undefined ubiquity, (if we dare use such a term
and comparison,) which may be supposed to be the
faint shadow of the omnipresence of the Divine
Essence, of which mind is the offspring. In rela-
tion to what has preceded, we may also regard
imagination to be the shadow of the creative
energy, as the absence of decay and the supe-
riority over time is of the eternity of its original;
and endowed in this manner with the germs
of eternity, creative power, and ubiquity, we may
suppose each mental act, whether conscious or un-
conscious, and whether in the body or out of it,
to be a fiat, by which something is created out of
nothing, or some new arrangement impressed upon
that which already exists. And as the essence is
imperishable, so we may suppose that these fiats
retain their life and existence; so that memory
instead of being a mysterious phenomenon is the
necessary attribute of the living essence to which it
belongs. Be this as it may, however, both memory
and personality afford arguments that the mind is not
confined within the limits of the bodily part of man,
(which is our present purpose to know,) and these argu-
ments harmonize with those that have preceded. Extra-
corporeal existence, therefore, is a third property of
mind.

OF VITAL MOTION. 147

Mind — we may conclude from the foregoing con-
siderations— is not a principle confined to the body
or to any part of the body, which changes with every
wind, and holds its existence at a precarious tenure ;
but it is a spiritual essence, in which there is no
evidence of decay, and which is superior to time and
place in the ordinary sense of the words. It is abso-
lutely necessary to understand these high qualities of
mind at the commencement of our inquiry; for if
our notions on this subject are low and sensational,
we shall strive in vain to obtain any light upon the
connexion which exists between mind and body.

II.

The relation of mind to corporeity is a question of
great difficulty, and in order to find any answer it is
necessary to consult revelation, as well as to examine
nature ; for unless we avail ourselves of this double
means, the end of the search is more perplexed and
uncertain than the beginning. What, then, we may
ask, is the relation of mind to corporeity? Is it a
connexion which is necessary and inseparable, or is it
one that is dissolved at any time? These are the
questions which present themselves to our notice, and
which indicate the objects we must keep in view.

In this inquiry we are very prone to anticipate
the verdict of reason, by saying that the union of

L 2

148 OF VITAL MOTION.

mind and body is separable, and to point to death
for the proof; and yet, in making this statement,
there are some considerations which occur to us
as involving certain doubts and qualifications, so
that if we are called upon to repeat it, we do so
in a more guarded manner. We find, indeed, that
we may continue to entertain all the opinions which
wrap themselves around the human heart, and believe
in all the realities of a future state as we now believe
them, without supposing the being to be dissevered on
death. It is imagined, indeed, that the spirit hovers
within the neighbourhood, without losing all interest,
or even influence, in human affairs ; and that it lingers
in a more peculiar and special sense about the grave
in which the body has been deposited: and it may
be asked if this idea is not somewhat at variance with
the belief that the spirit has departed altogether from
its former companion? N-or is this departure neces-
sary for the realization of the verities of a future
state ; indeed, it is no more necessary that the scene
of future existence should be in a region infinitely
remote from our present abode, than that Deity should
be so remote. Heaven, we are told by an infallible
authority, is not afar, but within, — as if the earth itself,
when the mists cleared away from the vision, was still
a garden in which Deity walked in a visible form;
and, on the other hand, there is some ground for sup-
posing that the spirit despairs in his ancient haunts,

OF VITAL MOTION. 149

and not in a distant prison. If the mind of man,
moreover, is such as we have attempted to show in
the first part of this chapter, — namely, an essence
continually extending throughout creation in an in-
stinctive search after ubiquity, and including with
each succeeding moment a wider circle ; and if every
word and act is imperishable, it may be as impossible
to withdraw from a place which has once been occu-
pied, as to annihilate a word or idea. An essence
like this may become happier by being nearer to
Deity, or be rendered miserable by remaining apart,
but these changes may take place — as Deity is omni-
present— not only without leaving the body with
which it was associated at death, but also without
leaving the other bodies, which it had occupied at
earlier periods, and which seemed to have been laid
aside by degrees.

There are other considerations, also, which lead us
to entertain this opinion. The term sleep, indeed,
which is so often used to express death, is applied, as
it would seem, to the condition of the entire being ;
indeed, it is admitted by all, that the interval between
death and resurrection is one of imperfection when
compared with the state which follows — imperfection,
that is to say, in the whole being, and not merely in
the bodily part. We arrive, also, at the same conclu-
sion from the history of those persons who have been
raised from the dead, as Lazarus, the widow's son of

150 OF VITAL MOTION.

Nain, and others ; for if in these cases there had been
a separate state of existence of the intelligent prin-
ciple, and this a higher one, we may argue that some
of the secrets of this state would have transpired, or
human nature must have been less curious in those
days than in our own. And as tradition preserves a
total silence on these matters, there is some reason to
believe that death in these persons was a state of
sleep not confined to the body. On the other hand
we arrive by another mode at the same conclusion,
from the history of the two mortals who have evidenced
their active existence by appearing at the Transfigura-
tion ; for we find that, in the one, death was replaced
by translation, and, in the other, that death, though
it took place, was not ordinary death ; indeed, in the
manner of his end, Moses must be said to be almost
as much exempted from the common lot of mortals as
Elijah.

And if the mind participates in the sleep of the
body, this must be an argument that the two are not
disjoined from their present companionship by death.
We would not contend, indeed, that this is a sleep
which is always or ever devoid of consciousness ; for
there is the most incontrovertible evidence that this is
not the case, — as, for example, in the parable of the
rich man and Lazarus. We do contend, however,
that as yet we have not met with sufficient reason to
suppose that this consciousness is exercised in a region

OF VITAL MOTION. 151

far removed from our present abode, or in a state
apart from embodiment ; indeed, in the parable which
has just been mentioned, there is nothing in the
wording to lead us to suppose that one disembodied
spirit was speaking to another, but the contrary.

There is more light, however, if we continue to in-
vestigate the history of man, and to compare it with
that of a still higher order of intelligences. Tracing
beyond the resurrection, mind and body are found
in communion, but with all traces of mortality re-
moved from each. The communion, indeed, is infi-
nitely more perfect than at present. There is diver-
sity, but a diversity which merges in unity, and in
which the bodily and mental parts of our being are
essentially one; for we are told that the body has
become like unto that of our Saviour Christ, after his
resurrection. At this time, therefore, the human
body must be supposed to be realizable to the senses,
and yet susceptible of a spiritual transformation by
which it is removable from the senses ; so that in this
transformability of the one into the other, the abso-
lute distinction between the body and the supersen-
suous principle we have called mind, is lost.

It is the same, also, with angels, who, like our-
selves, are created beings; and in this way we may
have boldness to believe that the capacity of change
seen in the body of our Saviour at the close of
His earthly history, and which has just been men-

152 OF VIT L MOTION.

tioned, is applicable to our own perfected corporeity.
In these intelligences we find the possession of true
and sensible bodies. They were visible in the dawn,
at broad day, in the evening, and at night ; they con-
versed with man ; they ate and drank the food pre-
pared for them. And yet, if we continue to study
the history, we find a marked difference between this
corporeity and our own, inasmuch as it could vanish
away at any moment, and appear again with the same
facility. There is, indeed, the very capacity of change
which is seen in the divine humanity of Christ after
his resurrection ; and as in this case we have to do
with created beings, we may argue that the human
body after its resurrection, will be transformed in such
a manner as to be assimilated to the angelic body,
and to that in which Deity was incarnated.

When, therefore, we examine the perfected state of
man, and find that, as at present, the mental or
spiritual essence is associated with a distinct bodily
form, we obtain a strong argument in favour of our
previous position — that this communion is not dis-
solved in the interval between death and resurrection.
Indeed, upon the high grounds which have just been
taken, it is scarcely possible to entertain the thought
of mind existing as a naked essence apart from cor-
poreity, nor of body as a foreign addition to mind.
So far, indeed, from body being distinct and inde-
pendent, it would seem to be mind incarnated in

OF VITAL MOTION. 153

mind, and holding a similar relation to this essence,
(only at an infinite and unapproachable distance,) as
the body of our Saviour Christ did to his Divinity —
that is, Divinity incarnated in Divinity.

To the reception of views like these, there are great
and wellnigh insurmountable obstacles, arising chiefly
in the notions of inferiority which we apply to the
body, and which we reiterate so often. But, notwith-
standing this, if we attend to what is said in Holy
Writ, and study nature with a philosophical spirit, we
shall find fewer real difficulties than we might antici-
pate. It will undoubtedly be admitted by all that the
present state of being is imperfect, and in process of
evolution to a higher; and therefore it is no more
necessary that we should possess at present the entire
faculties of a future condition, than that the caterpillar
should have all the energies of the butterfly. At the
same time, we would contend that there is sufficient
evidence to show that the present body is capable of
being altered as we have said. The bodily attri-
butes of our Saviour which we may assume with-
out irreverence for ourselves — inasmuch as they
belong also to angels, form the grand fact upon which
this opinion rests. Here, then, was a human form,
living upon earth for thirty years, and confounded by
the multitude with ordinary men, suffering death,
being raised again, appearing for some time in
familiar intercourse with his friends, eating and

3 54 OF VITAL MOTION.

drinking with them, satisfying the incredulity of
the most sceptical, and yet this body, which was
composed of true blood, and flesh, and bones, and
these the very same which were possessed before the
crucifixion, was, nevertheless, capable of becoming
transfigured so as to pass away from human senses.
We trace, indeed, a body which we are taught to
believe was perfect man, "of a reasonable soul and
human flesh subsisting," as well as perfect God,
through the successive phases of development to per-
fection ; and from the similarity which may be detected
in our own metamorphosis, we may ask if there is
not reason to expect the completion of what remains
to be effected. Is the body so imperfect and inglorious
that we need doubt on his account? Is the soul so
devoid of impulses and aspirations that we need fear
on hers?

And further: A philosophical investigation of
nature, if it be properly carried out, will alike pre-
vent us from assigning too much or too littk im-
portance to the body. It will deter us from holding
those notions which are too prevalent in the present
day — that the body, or a part of the body, is the
source and fountain of the mind. If, for example,
we examine the nervous system, we find it to be com-
posed of a common archetype with the other systems
of the body, — as the osseous, the vascular, the mus-

OF VITAL MOTION. 155

cular.* It originates in the same way, is developed
upon the same plan, and formed from the same
nutrient plasm; and for these reasons, therefore, we
should be disposed to think that the nervous system
is not exclusively related to mind. We find, also,
that the archetype which is inherent in organic bodies
is the same as that which rules the inorganic world :
and hence another reason, so far as form is concerned,
why the nervous system is not in exclusive relation to
mind. It is found, also, in the chapter immediately
preceding, and in the chapters on vital movement, that
the nervous inliuence may be regarded as a modifica-
tion of cosmical force, so that in relation to function
as well as to form, we cannot consider the nervous
system as exclusively related to mind.

That this is the case, we may also reason from
other considerations. We know, indeed, that the
condition of the circulation in a sentient organ is of
infinite importance to the proper exercise of the func-
tion of that organ, or, in other words, the condition of
the circulation has greatly to do with the receiving of
impressions from surrounding objects ; and it is not
less true that the greater number of changes in the
cerebral and other centres are secondary, and mani-
festly so, to alterations in the circulation in these
centres, — so that the blood is concerned in receiving

* See Proteus ; or, the Law of Nature, chap. i.

156 OF VITAL MOTION,

impressions from the inherent life of the individual,
as well as from foreign sources. Nerve and blood,
therefore, are inseparably united in the economy, and
the one reacts upon the other ; and where both are
necessary, it is idle to say that one is more important
than the other. Indeed, we must not forget that the
seat of life is assigned by Scripture to the blood.

All the arguments which show that the nervous
system cannot be regarded as the exclusive seat of
mind, apply equally to the other systems of the
organism, and thus we are led to imagine that there
may be something in corporeity which more closely
conforms to the ubiquity of the mind than we might
at first believe. Considerations like these do not
harmonize with the prejudice that the body is the
source and fountain of the mind — a notion savouring
of the proneness to idolatry which has infected all
our faculties, and which is as fatal to the discovery
of truth in science as in religion. In teaching us the
existence of an archetypal unity in the works of nature,
philosophy enables the reason to comprehend how the
body is transformable into unity, which, if we may
so speak, is but a single step from spirit; and at
one and the same time to conquer the erroneous ideas
that the body is the cause or parent of the mind,
or that it is an inferior and degraded companion
to be got rid of as soon as possible. Philosophy
elucidates what, in a certain sense, may be said to be

OF VITAL MOTION. 157

the doctrine of Scripture on the subject — that body
and mind are correlative — for she demonstrates a
unity in body, which, in its absolute and compre-
hensive perfection, is an idea so transcendental that
we lose all distinction between it and spirit. Philo-
sophy, indeed, enables us to look far into that mystical
change which affects the body in its perfected state,
and thus, so far as our present knowledge extends,
we are able to understand that nature harmonizes
with revelation in what relates to the being of man.

It is not our intention, however, to pursue this
theme any further than to show that the bodily and
mental parts of our being are indissolubly united, and
not to penetrate into the consequences as they affect
physiology or morality. In attaining to this end our
arguments have been negative rather than positive,
and much remains to be said before ancient prejudices
can be uprooted or a candid reason satisfied ; but, at
the same time, we may conclude that there are some
grounds for the belief that the mental and bodily
parts of our being are correlative — that while they
are distinct and not to be confounded, neither are
they to be disjoined, there being a perfect diversity,
but yet diversity in unity.

158 OF VITAL MOTION.

III.

There is now but a short step to the conclusion of
our argument, and that is to ascertain how this hi-une
essence of body and mind can become the seat and
centre of active movements. This is done by showing
that men are images of their Maker in a far fuller
sense than what relates to mere bodily form, as
we have attempted to do in the work to which
frequent reference has been made, — namely, in
" Proteus ; or, the Law of Nature :" — and hence we
may conclude that the faculties of movement, intel-
ligence and life, form a triune gift which is imme-
diately derived from " Him in whom we live, and
move, and have our being."

THE END.

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I.

PEINCIPLES OF HmiAN PHYSIOLOGY, with their chief Appli-
cations to PATHOLOGY, HYGIENE, and FORENSIC MEDICINE. With
numerous Illustrations on Steel and Wood. Fourth Edition. Preparing.

" The ' Principles of General and Comparative Physiology ' of Dr. Carpenter, which have just entered
upon a new edition, and which we have had occasion to mention with commendation in our last volume,
had already opened the path to the extension of the labours of that author into the more important
department of Human Physiology. The able manner in which the subject of Comparative Physiology
was handled, the enlarged and elevated views entertained by the author, at once pointed to i)r. Car-
penter as the writer by whom the ob\ious want in the field of Human Physiology was to be supplied . . .
In concluding our notice of this volume, we do so by recommending it most strongly to our readers, and
especially to our young friends who are preparing a foundation upon which to build their reputation
and future success in life. The volume is beautifully got up ; it will form an ornamental addition to
the study and library.' ' — Lancet.

a.

PRINCIPLES OF GENERAL AND COMPARATL^ PHYSI-

OLOGY ; intended as an Introduction to the Study of Human Physiology, and as a
Guide to the Philosophical Pursuit of Natural History. Illustrated with numerous
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" I recommend to your perusal a work recently published by Dr. Carpenter. It has this advantage,
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is well illustrated." — Professor Sharpey's Introdiictory Lecture.

" In Dr. Carpenter's work will be found the best exposition we possess of all that is furnished by
comparative anatomy to our knowledge of the nervous system, as well as to the more general principles
of life and organization." — Dr. Holland's Medical Notes and Reflections.

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SIR ASTLEY COOPER, BART., F.R.S.

A TREATISE ON DISLOCATIONS AND FRACTURES OF

THE JOINTS. New Edition, much enlarged. Edited hy BRANSBY B. COOPER,
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portable form — no mean consideration, — the graphic, the almost speaking force of the unequalled illus-
trations, the copious addition of valuable and instructive cases, and the great improvement in clearness
and precision which has been gained by the judicious arrangement of the materials, all combine to
render the present edition indispensable." — British and Foreign Medical Review.

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ON THE STRUCTURE AND DISEASES OF THE TESTIS.

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British and Foreign Medical Review.

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PBOFESSOR OP SURGERY IN THE UNIVERSITY COLLEGE, LONDON.
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A DICTIONARY OF PRACTICAL SURGERY; comprehending aU

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MR. CRITCHETT, F.R.C.S.

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DR. CRISP, M.R.C.S.

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C. REMIGIUS FRESENIUS.

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PROPERTIES OF THE ACONITUM NAPELLUS ; to which are added Obser-
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ON FEIGNED AND FICTITIOUS DISEASES, chiefly of Soldiers

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MR. GUTHRIE, F.R.S.

THE ANATOMY OF THE BLADDER AND OF THE UEETHRA,

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ON INJURIES OF THE HEAD AFFECTING THE BRAIN.

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GUY'S HOSPITAL REPORTS. Vol. VII. Part I. with Plates, 7*.

CONTENTS.

1. ASTLEY COOPER PRIZE, I860.— On the State of the Blood and the Blood-vessels

in Inflammation, ascertained by Experiments, Injections, and Observations by the
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2. On the Application of Chemical Analysis, and Microscopic Examination of Morbid

Products, to the Formation of a Correct Diagnosis. Bransbt B. Coopee, F.R.S.|

3. Cases selected from the Ward-books of Petersham-house, with Remarks. John C. W.

Lever, M.D.

4. On Anaemic Murmurs and their Diagnosis. H. M. Hughes, M.D.

5. Cases and Observations in Medical Jurisprudence. Alfred S. Taylor.

6. Select Cases of Hernia (Fourth Series). Edward Cock.

7. Insuperable Constipation; Symptoms of Strangulated Hernia; Peritonitis; Stricture

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8. Ophthalmic Cases, with Remarks. John F. France.

9. Case of Malignant Disease of the Tongue, in which the Lingual Gustatory Nerve

was divided. John Hilton, F.R.S.
10. Case of Chronic Laryngitis, Pregnancy, Tracheotomy, with Remarks. H. R. Rump.

DR. MARSHALL HALL, F.R.S.

PRACTICAL OBSERVATIONS AND SUGGESTIONS IN MEDI-

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DITTO. SetonU S>tXkS. Post 8vo. doth, 8s. 6d.

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SUBGEON AND LECTUBEB ON SUKGEBY, CHABING-CBOSS HOSPITAL.

ON THE OPERATION FOR STRANGULATED HERNIA. 8vo.

cloth, 4s.

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MR. HOGG, M.R.C.S.

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ON DISEASES OF THE HEAET AND GEEAT VESSELS.

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SCHARLING ON THE CHEMICAL DISCRIMINATION OF

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THE ANATOMY, PHYSIOLOGY, AND PATHOLOGY OF THE

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ON ANIMAL CHEMISTRY, in its relation to STOMACH and RENAL
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A TREATISE ON RUPTURES. The Fifth Edition, considerably

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A COMPENDIUM OF MATERIA MEDICA AND PHARMACY;

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ON THE CAUSES, SYMPTOMS, AND TREATMENT OF SPER-

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late House-Surgeon to University College Hospital. 8vo. cloth. Second Edition. In
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SURGEON TO THE NOBTB LOKDON HOSPITAL.

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OBSERVATIONS ON THE TREATMENT OF LATERAL CUR-

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A PRACTICAL TREATISE ON FRACTURES. Diustrated with

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M. LUGOL.

ON SCROFULOUS DISEASES. Translated from the French, with
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or commonly cultivated in, Great Britain. Small 8vo. cloth, 7s. 6</.

" There is a prodigious mass of elementary matter and useful information in thia pocket Tolume."'
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DR. MACKNESS,

CONSULTING PHYSICIAN TO THE HASTINGS DISPENSARY.

HASTINGS CONSIDERED AS* A EESORT FOE INVALIDS,

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ON TUMOURS, THEIR GENERAL NATURE AND TREAT-
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PRACTICAL OBSERYATIONS ON MIDWIFERY, with a Selection ^

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PHYSICIAN TO THE ROYAL MATERNITY CHARITY, ETC.

THE PEINCIPLES MD PRACTICE OF OBSTETEIC MEDI-

CINE AND SURGERY, IN REFERENCE TO THE PROCESS OF PAR-
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priate, and engraved with great accuracy and ability. In short, we regard this work, between accurate
descriptions and useful illustrations, as by far the most able work on the principles and practice of mid-
wifery that has appeared for a long time. Dr. Ramsbotham has contrived to infuse a larger portion of
common sense and plain unpretending practical knowledge into his work than is commonly found in
works on this subject; and as such we have great pleasure in recommending it to the attention
of obstetrical practitioners." — Edinburgh Medical and SurgicalJournal.

DR. JAMES REID.
I.

A MANUAL OF PRACTICAL MIDWIFERY, intended chiefly as
a Book of Reference for Students and Medical Practitioners. With Engravings on
Wood. 24mo. cloth, 5s. Qd. ***

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ON INFANTILE LARYNGISMUS; with Observations on Artificial
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Infants. Post 8vo. cloth, 5s. Qd.

MR. ROBERTSON,

FORMERLY SENIOR SURGEON TO THE MANCHESTER AND SALFORD LYING-IN-HOSPITAL.

ESSAYS ON SUBJECTS CONNECTED CHIEFLY WITH THE

PHYSIOLOGY AND DISEASES OF FEMALES AND WITH PRACTICAL
MIDWIFERY. In tlie Press.

DR. ROWE, F.S.A.

I,

NERVOUS DISEASES, LIVER AN STOMACH COM-

PLAINTS, LOW SPIRITS, INDIGESTION, GOUT, ASTHMA, AND DIS-
ORDERS PRODUCED BY TROPICAL CLIMATES. With Cases. Twelfth
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very few preceded it." — Medical Times.

II.

ON SOME OF THE MOST IMPORTANT DISEASES OF

OMEN. 8vo. 5s. 6d.

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DR. W. H. ROBERTSON,

PHYSICIAN TO THE BUXTON BATH CHARITY.

THE MTUEE AND TREATMENT OF GOUT.

8ro. cloth, 10s. 6c?.

" We cannot conclude this notice of Dr. Robertson's treatise without cordially recommending it as a
sound and practical work, fitted for reference, both as a work of information on the subject and
as a guide to practice." — Provincial Medical Journal,

A TREATISE ON DIET AND REGIMEN.

Fourth Edition. 2 vols, post 8vo. cloth, I2s.

" It is scarcely necessary that we should add our hearty recommendation of Dr. Robertson's treatise,
not merely to our medical readers, but to the public, over whom they have an influence. It is one of the
few books which is legitimately adapted, both in subject and manner of treatment, to both classes." —
British and Foreign Medico-Chirurgical Review.

DR. ROYLE, F.R.S.

A MANUAL OF MATERIA MEDICA AND THERAPEUTICS,

including the Preparations of the Pharmacopcfiias of London, Edinburgh, and Dublin, ^ ^
with many New Medicines. With numerous Engravings on Wood, foolscap 8vo. cloth,
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therapeutic department most perfect and complete."— Edinburgh Medical Journal.

" This is another of that beautiful and cheap series of Manuals published by Mr. Churchill. The exe-
cution of the wood-cuts of plants, flowers, and fruits is admirable. The work is indeed a most valuable
one." — British and Foreign Medical Review.

DR. SEARLE, M.R.C.S.E.
I.

THE WHY AND THE WHEREFORE; OE, THE PHILOSOPHY

OF LIFE, HEALTH, AND DISEASE : New and Original Views explanatory of
their Nature, Causes, and Connexion, and of the Treatment of Disease upon a few General
Principles based upon the Laws of Nature and Common Sense, the Fruit of Thirty Years'
Professional Experience. 8vo. cloth, 8s,

11.

CHOLERA, DYSENTERY, AND FEYER; explaining, in a way

that may be comprehended by all persons, the Niiture of these Affections, their Causes,
Means of Prevention, and Treatment; the fruit of thirty years' professional experience.
12mo. cloth, 5s.

MR. SHAW.

THE MEDICAL REMEMBRANCER; OE, BOOK OF EMER-

GENCIES : in which are concisely pointed out the Immediate Remedies to be adopted
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Third Edition. 32mo. cloth, 2s. 6d.

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AN ESSAY ON THE PEOPERTIES OE ANIMAL AND

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DR. SIMPSON,

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OBSERYATIONS ON ASIATIC CHOLERA; and Facts regarding

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DR. W. TYLER SMITH.

ON PARTURITION; AND THE PRINCIPLES AND PRACTICE

OF OBSTETRICS. Foolscap 8vo. cloth, 9s.

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J. STEPHENSON, M.D., Sc d. M. CHURCHILL, F.L.S.

MEDICAL BOTANY; OR, ILLUSTRATIONS AND DESCRIP-
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Britain. New Edition, edited by GILBERT BURNETT, F.L.S., Professor of Botany
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FRUITS AND FARINACEA THE PROPER EOOD OF MAN;

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Original, Natural, and Best Diet of Alan is derived from the Vegetable Kingd
Second Edition. Foolscap 8vo., 3». 6c?.

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students' books for examination.
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A MANUAL FOR THE USE OF STUDENTS PEEPARING FOR EXAMINA-
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A MANUAL FOR THE COLLEGE OF SURGEONS; intended for the Use

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A COMPENDIUM OF DOMESTIC MEDICINE, AND COMPA-
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MR. SNELL, M.R.C.S.

A PEACTICAL GUIDE TO OPERATIONS ON THE TEETH.

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DR. SHAPTER.

1.

THE CLIMATE OF THE SOUTH OF DEVON, MD ITS IN-

FLUENCE UPON HEALTH. With short Accounts of Exeter, Torquay, Teign-
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Post 8vo. cloth, 7s. Gd.
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THE HISTOEY OF THE CHOLERA IN EXETEK IN 1832.

Illustrated with Map and Woodcuts. 8vo. cloth, 12s.

DR. ALFRED TAYLOR, F.R.S.

LECTUEEE ON MEDICAL JURISPEUDENCE AND CHEMISTKY AT GUV's HOSPITAL.

I.

A MANUAL OF MEDICAL JUEISPEUDENCE. Third Edition.

Foolscap 8vo. cloth, 12s. Gd.

CONTENTS.

Poisoning — Wounds — Infanticide — Drowning — Hanging — Strangulation — Suffocation —
Lightning — Cold — Starvation — Rape — Pregnancy — Delivery — Birth — Inheritance — Legiti-
macy— Insanity, &c. &c.

" We recommend Mr. Taylor's work as the ablest, most comprehensive, and, above all, the most
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" Mr. Taylor possesses the happy art of expressing himself on ascientific topic in intelligible language.
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II.

ON POISONS, in relation to MEDICAL JURISPRUDENCE AND
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the prospect of appearing in the witness-box." — Edinburgh Medical Journal.

MR. NA^ILLIAM TAYLOR, M.R.C.S.

ON A NEW AND SUCCESSFUL TEEATMENT FOE FEBEILE

AND OTHER DISEASES, including Inflammatory Fever, Typhus, Scarlatina, Measles,
Dropsy, Incipient Phthisis, and Insanity, through the medium of the Cutaneous Surface.
Illustrated with Cases. Post 8vo. cloth, 5s.

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ON DISEASES OF MENSTEUATION AND OYAEIAN

INFLAMMATION IN CONNECTION WITH STERILITY AND AFFEC-
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THE BATH WATERS; their Use aud Effects in the Cure and Relief of

various Chronic Diseases. 8to. cloth, 5s.

MR. TUSON, F.R.S.

j^ SURGEON TO THE MIDDLESEX HOSPITAL.

I,

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the Muscles of the Human Body, in Layers, as they appear on Dissection. Second
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II.

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SPINE, AND DISEASES OF THE VERTEBRAL COLUMN, with Cases. Plates.
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