The principles of physiology applied to the preservation of health and to the improvement of physical and mental education / by Andrew Combe,.... With thirteen woodcuts.

  • Andrew Combe
Date:
1841
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The principles of physiology applied to the preservation of health and to the improvement of physical and mental education / by Andrew Combe,.... With thirteen woodcuts. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    ANIMATE AND INANIMATE BODIES. animate bodies, is to be found in the different lelations in w hich they stand to the ordinary laws of the material world. Inanimate or inorganized bodies, such as a mineral oi a me- tal, have no internal power of action, and of themselves can effect no change. Possessed of certain fixed and invaiia- ble properties, they stand uniformly in the same relation to each other, and act invariably according to the same ge- neral laws, so that what is once ascertained of them can be predicted with certainty to hold true for ever after; and therefore, in conducting our investigations, we know that the same effects will always follow the same causes writh mathematical precision. But when the same elementary material becomes part of a living body, this rule no longer holds ; the laws of chemical and physical action are greatly modified, or for a time counteracted. The now organized matter, having entered into new relations with other organ- i.zed matter, henceforth obeys the laws of vegetable or ani- mal life, and is not again subjected to those of purely che- mical action, till it is either eliminated from the body, or till life is extinct; and, in point of fact, the putrefaction which instantly follows the extinction of the vital principle, is neither more nor less than the ordinary laws of inani- mate matter resuming their dominion wdien no longer op- posed by a higher power. An example or twro will render the difference more ap- parent. All bodies gravitate towards the earth, according to a constant and well-known law. But animals are able to resist this law, so far as to preserve an attitude at vari- ance with its tendency, or even to rise, like the eagle, many thousand feet in the air in opposition to their natural weight; but on the extinction of life they lose this power, and again become subject to the full influence of gravitation. In the same way many animals preserve an elevated and steady temperature, whether exposed to severe cold or to excessive heat; but, when life ceases, rapidly assume that of the ob-
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