Elements of physiology / By A. Richerand ... Translated from the French by G.J.M. de Lys, M.D.

  • Anthelme Richerand
Date:
1824
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Elements of physiology / By A. Richerand ... Translated from the French by G.J.M. de Lys, M.D. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    79/740 (page 47)
    limb. Frequently, after the loss of a part of the body, you will see a manifest change take place in the temperament ; those that were weak, even before the disease which brings on the necessity of the operation, becoming robust ; affections, chronic from debi¬ lity, such as scrophula, tabes mesenterica, dissipated ; glandular swellings resolved ; which indicates a very remarkable increase in the actions of all the organs The parts most remote from the centre of circulation are, in general, less alive than those which are nearer. Wounds of the legs and feet, are more liable to ulcerate, because, besides the cir¬ culation of the fluids, which the slightest weakness greatly retards in them, their life is too feeble for their wounds to go quickly through their periods, and readily cicatrize. The toes freeze first, when we remain too long exposed to severe cold : it is in them too that the mortification begins, which sometimes attacks a limb after the ligature of its vessels. Thus, although we may say, that the principle of life is not seated in any part of our being, that it animates every system of organs, every separate organ, every living molecule, that it endows them with different properties, and assigns to them, in some sort specific characters, it must be confessed, that there are in the living body some parts more alive, from which all the others seem to derive motion and life. We have already seen, that these central organs, these foci of vitality, in whose life that of the whole body is in¬ volved, diminish gradually in number in the animal kinds, as they are more removed from man, whilst the fewer they are, the more they are spread out over the body} so that life is more generally diffused, and its phenomena less rigorously and strictly connected, as we descend in the scale of being, from the red and warm-blooded, to the red and cold-blooded animals, from these to the mollusca, the Crustacea, worms and insects, to the polypus, who forms the extreme link of the animal chain, and lastly, to plants, of which * The extraordinary developement of an organ, never takes place but at the expense of those about it, of which it draws off the juices. Aristotle observes, that the lower extremities are most always dry, and wasted in those who are of ardent temperament, or in habits of frequent venery. Hippocrates relates in his work (De œre, lacis, et aquis, Foës: fol. 293.) that the Scythian women seared their right breast, that the arm on that side might grow in size and strength. Galen speaks of Athletes, who, in his time, kept the sexual organs in the most entire inaction, that withered, shrunk, and perished, in some sort, by this absolute re¬ pose, they might not draw off the nutritious juices from the sole nourishment of the muscular organs. A young man, who has several times carried off the prize by running at the public fêtes, abstains from venery for some months, before en¬ tering the lists, in pe):fect certainty of victory, after this privation. Author's note.