The elements of physiology : containing an explanation of the functions of the human body; in which the modern improvements in chemistry, galvanism, and other sciences, are applied to explain the actions of the animal economy / translated from the French of A. Richerand ... by Robert Kerrison.

  • Anthelme Richerand
Date:
1803
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The elements of physiology : containing an explanation of the functions of the human body; in which the modern improvements in chemistry, galvanism, and other sciences, are applied to explain the actions of the animal economy / translated from the French of A. Richerand ... by Robert Kerrison. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by King’s College London. The original may be consulted at King’s College London.

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    Does this powerful and last expiration, often accom- panied with a sigh, depend on the spasmodic action of the expiratory muscles, or is it not rather to be attributed to the reaction of the elastic parts forming the thorax; a reaction that suddenly ceases to be counterbalanced by the vita] powers ?—(See Saba- tier's Memoir on the unequal Capacity of the Heart and pulmonary Vessels). Such is the mechanism by which a natural death is effected. The brain had already ceased to receive from the debilitated heart a quantity of blood sufficient to maintaia sensibility ; a small degree of irritability still remained in the muscles of respiration; this is consumed, and the cir- culatory motion of the blood is arrested with the life of all the organs which this liquid had chiefly maintained. As to accidental death, it is always occasioned by an in- terruption of the action of the heart and of the brain; for the death of the lungs brings on the cessation of life in the rest of the body merely by preventing the action of the heart, and destroying its influence over the brain. The Period of Death. CLXXVii. This is nearly the same in all men, whether they live near the poles or under the equator, whether they make use of vegetables or live exclusively on animal food, whether they lead a laborious life or consume their existence in a shameful idleness or a culpable sloth. We seldom find individuals prolong their existence beyond the hun- dredth year; yet we are in possession of several observations of men who have lived much longer ; and in the Philosophic cal Transactions, there is an account of a man who attained his 165th year. The greater number, however, do not com- plete their century, and natural death happens from the age of 65 to 100. The
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