A new inquiry into the suspension of vital action, in cases of drowning and suffocation. Being an attempt to concentrate into a more luminous point of view, the scattered rays of science, respecting that interesting though mysterious subject to elucidate the approximate cause and to appretiate [sic] the present remedies, and to point out the best method of restoring animation / By A. Fothergill.

  • Anthony Fothergill
Date:
1795
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A new inquiry into the suspension of vital action, in cases of drowning and suffocation. Being an attempt to concentrate into a more luminous point of view, the scattered rays of science, respecting that interesting though mysterious subject to elucidate the approximate cause and to appretiate [sic] the present remedies, and to point out the best method of restoring animation / By A. Fothergill. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    42/238 (page 8)
    I . * ' [ 8 ] be looked for as a feparate principle in any part of the ceconomy. “Blood,” fays Mofes, (the molt venerable Hiftorian of Antiquity) “ is the Life/’ It is by no means probable, that the Jewifh law¬ giver, at a time he was commanding the people to abftain from blood, “becaufe the blood is the life,” had any reference to the rational Soul of Man. Dr. Harvey, the celebrated difcoverer of the Circulation, has gone farther, as appears from the following curious paffage. “ Nor is the blood to be called an original and principal part, only becaufe in it and from it, motion, and the begin¬ ning of pulfation arife ; but alfo becaufe in it, ani¬ mal heat is firft bred, the Vital Spirit is produced, and in it the Soul itfelf refides.”* In this opinion he hath alfo been followed by Dr. Willis, who endeavours to (hew that the blood being itfelf animate is the entire, fource of the vital flame. And laflly, by that able Anato- mift, Mr. John Hunter, who alfo exprefsly pro¬ nounces the blood to be alive. Such an unqualifi¬ ed affertion maintained by anatomifts of the firfl eminence, if once admitted, might not only lead to a conclufion, which probably they never dreamt of, but alfo prove productive of dangerous errors. For Life is allowed on all hands to be the attribute of an organized body alone, and if blood * Iiarv. de Generatione Animalium Exercit. 51. be