Volume 1

A history of the earth, and animated nature / By Oliver Goldsmith. With an introductory view of the animal kingdom, tr. from the French by Baron Cuvier. And copious notes embracing accounts of new discoveries in natural history: And a life of the author by Washington Irving. And a carefully prepared index to the whole work.

  • Oliver Goldsmith
Date:
1847
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A history of the earth, and animated nature / By Oliver Goldsmith. With an introductory view of the animal kingdom, tr. from the French by Baron Cuvier. And copious notes embracing accounts of new discoveries in natural history: And a life of the author by Washington Irving. And a carefully prepared index to the whole work. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    30/660
    appears to the eye as a soft whitish pulpy piatter, composed of an infinite number of very minute globules. No peculiar motions can be observed in it; but it possesses that most wonderful of all properties, the power of transmitting to the mind the im- pressions made on the external organs of sense, and of rendering the muscles subser- vient to the determinations of the will. The brain and spinal marrow are almost entirely composed of medullary substance; and the nerves, which are distributed through all the organs capable of sensation, are, in respect to their composition, no- thing but bundles (or fasciculi) of this substance. _ i • j x i The muscular, or fleshy fibre, is composed ol a particular kind of filaments, having the peculiar property, during life, of contracting or folding themselves up, when touched or injured by any external body; or when acted upon, through the medium of the nerves, by the will. . The muscles are the immediate organs of voluntary motion, and are composed en- tirely of bundles of fleshy fibres. All the membranes and vessels, which are required to exercise any compressive force, are armed with these fibres. They are always united intimately with the nervous filaments, or threads; but certain muscles are observed to execute motions altogether independent of the will especial y in the exercise of functions possessed in common with plants. Thus, although the will is frequently the cause of muscular motion, yet its poiver is neither general nor uniform IdeshTfibre has, for the basis of its composition, a particular principle, named fibrin, Avhich is [nearly] insoluble in boiling water, and seems naturally to assume a filamentous arrangement. It consists of white solid fibres, inodorous and insipid. When analped by Gay-Lussac and Thenard, 100 parts were found to contain about 53 parts of carbon, 7 of hydrogen, 20 of oxygen, and 20 of nitrogen. The nutritive fluid, or blood, when recently extracted from the circulating vessels, may not only be ultimately resolved, for the most part, into the general elements ol the^ animal body, carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen; but it already contains fibrin and gelatine, prepared to contract their substance, and to assume respectively the forms of filaments or of membranes, according to circumstances, whenever a slight repose enables them to exhibit this tendency. In addition to these, the blood contains another proximate principle, called albumen [composed very nearly of 53 parts of carbon, 7 of hydrogen, 2d of oxygen, and 16 of nitrogen]. Its character is to coagulate in boiling water [like the white ol eggs, composed almost entirely of albumen]. We also find in the blood nearly all the other eleinents which enter into the composition of each animal body in small quantities; such as, tlm lime and phosphorus deposited in the bones of the higher animals; the iron, which seems essential to the colour of the blood and other parts; and the fat, or animal oil, placed in the cellular tissue to render it flexible. In fact, all the solids and fluids of the animal body are composed of chemical elements contained _ in the blood It is only by possessing some elements, of ivliich the others are deprived, or by a difference in the proportions in which they combine, that [in general]_ they can be distinguished. From this it appears that it only requires, for their formation in the body, to abstract the entire, or a part, of one or more elements of the blood; or, in a few cases, to add a foreign element, procured from another source. Some substances, differing very much in character, seem, however, to possess nearly the same chemical composition ; we must therefore consider the peculiar arrangement of the particles as an essential distinction among animal fluids and solids, as well as their composition, and the proportions of their elements. We might, without impropriety, assign the term secretion to denote the various operations by which the blood nourishes and renovates the solid and fluid parts ol the bodw But we shall restrict the term to the production ol fimds^ only; wliile ive shall apply the term nutrition to signify the production and deposition of tlie mate- rials necessary for the groivth and maintenance of the solids. _Po each solid organ, and to every fluid, is assigned that peculiar composition which is suited to its place in the system; and, by the renovating poiver of the blood, their composition is pre-