A treatise on the blood, inflammation, and gun-shot wounds / by John Hunter ; with notes by James F. Palmer.

  • John Hunter
Date:
1840
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A treatise on the blood, inflammation, and gun-shot wounds / by John Hunter ; with notes by James F. Palmer. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

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    quire its advocates.* To conceive that blood is endowed with life, while circulating, is perhaps carrying the imagination as far as it well can go; but the difficulty arises merely from its being fluid, the mind not being accustomed to the idea of a living fluid.f It may * [Although the doctrine of the life of the blood did not originate with Hunter, we are unquestionably indebted to him for its erection on a solid basis. His comprehensive mind enabled him to see more clearly than any preceding physi- ologist the real bearings of the question, and to devise experiments by which the specific difficulties which lay in the way might be removed. It is not alleged that the doctrine in question is demonstrable; but only that the evidence before us warrants and requires this inference,—the falsity of which has never yet been demonstrated by any of its opponents. I am not afraid of diminishing Hunter's just fame by citing the following passages from Harvey, which fully prove that the life of the blood was maintained by that celebrated man, and maintained too by the same kind of arguments. But Hunter, in the spirit of the true English maxim, acquired his right to the property by blending his own labours with the soil; the originality of his mind improved the least thing that he borrowed, and stamped it with the imprimatur of his own genius. Vita igitur in sanguine consistit (uli etiam in sacris nostris legimus,) quippe in ipso vita atqueanimaprimumelucet, ultimoque deficit Sanguis denique totum corpus adeo circumfluit et penetrat, omnibus ejus partibuscalorem et vilam jugiter impertit; ut anima primo et principaliter in ipso residens, illius gratia, tota in toto et tota in qualibet parte (ut vnlgo dicitur) inesse, merito censeatur. .... Clare constat sanguinern esse partem genitalem, fontem vitae, primum vivens et ultimo moriens, sedemque anirme prirnariam ; in quo, tanquam in fonte, calor primo et precipue abundat, vigetque ; et a quo reliquae omnes totius corporis partes, calore influente foventur et vitam obtinent Ideoque concludimus, sanguinern per se vivere et nutriri; nulloque modo ab alia aliqua corporis parte, vel priore vel praestantiore dependere. . . . Utrumque autem, scnsum scilicet, et mot urn, sanguine inesse, plurimis indiciis fit conspi(!uum. ... Id nunc solum dicam ; licet concedamus, sanguinern not sentire; inde tamen non sequitur, eum non esse cor- poris sensitivi partem, eamque praecipuam. . . . Habet profecto in se animam, primo ac principaliter, non vegetativam modo, sed sensitivam etiam et motivam; permeat quoquoversum, et ubique presens est, eodemque ablato, anima quoque ipsa statim tollitur: adeo ut sanguis ab anima nihil discrepare videatur; vel sal- tern substantia, cujus actus sit animus estimare debeat. . . . Hie, ne a proposito longius aberrem, sanguinern (cum Jlristotele) accipiendum censeo, non ut simpli- citer intelligitur et cruor dicitur, sed ut corporis animalis pars vivens est. {De Generalione, Exer. li. iii.) The following extracts from Aristotle's first and third books, on the history of animals, are probably those which are alluded to in the last paragraph :—San- guis nempe, instar laris familiaris, est anima ipsa in corpore et semper quamdiu vita servatur, sanguis unus animatur et fervet In sanguine reperitur divinum quid, respondens elemento stellarum. With more or less ex- plicitness, the same doctrine was advanced by Willis {Be Motu Muscul., p. 71), Hoffman {Opera, i. 33), Huxham {Essay on Fever), and several ether authors.] t It is just as difficult for a man born in the West Indies to conceive water becoming a solid. I recollect a gentleman from Barbadoes walking out with me one frosty morning when there was ice on the gutters, and I, without having anything else in my mind than just common observation, said, It has been a frost in the night. He immediately caught at the word frost, and asked me, How I knew that V Without thinking particularly of the cause of his question, I said, Because I see the ice on the gutters. He immediately said, Where'? and I answered, There. Having been told that ice was a solid, he put his fingers down upon it; but with such caution as bespoke a mind that did not know what it was to meet; and upon feeling the resistance it gave, he gently pulled his hand back, and looked at the ice, and then became more bold broke it, and examined it.