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.)

    122/618
    But mere composition of matter does not give life; for the dead body has all the composition it ever had. Life is a property we do not understand; we can only see the necessary leading steps towards it. If nerves, either of themselves or from their connexion with the brain, gave vitality to our solids, how should a solid continue life after a nerve is destroyed ? or, still more, when paralytic 1 for the part continues to be nourished, although not to the same full health as where voluntary action exists: and this nourishment is the blood; for deprive it of the blood, and it mortifies. The uterus, in the time of pregnancy, increases in substance and size, probably fifty times beyond what it naturally is; and this in- crease is made up of living animal matter, which is capable of action within itself. I think we may suppose its action more than double; for the action of every individual part of this viscus, at this period, is much increased, even beyond its increase of size, and yet we find that the nerves of this part are not in the smallest degree increased. This shows that the nerves and brain have nothing to do with the actions of a part, while the vessels whose uses are Evident increase in proportion to the increased size: if the same had taken place with the nerves, we should have reasoned from analogy. It is probably impossible to say where the living principle first begins in the blood; whether in the chyle itself, or not till that fluid mixes with the other blood, and receives its influence from the lungs. I am, however, rather inclined to think that the chyle is itself alive; for we find it coagulates when extravasated; it has the same powers of separation with the blood; and it ac- quires its power of action in the lungs as the venal blood does [p. 71, note]. I conceive this [viz., the action of the air on the chyle] to be similar to the influence of the male and female on an egg, which requires air and a due warmth to produce the principle of action in it, and somewhat similar to the venal blood coming to the lungs to receive new powers, which it communicates to the body. To endeavour to prove whether the chyle had the power of action in itself, similar to the blood, I made the following experi- ment. I opened the abdomen of a dog, and punctured one of the largest lacteals at the root of the mesentery, out of which flowed a good deal of chyle. I then allowed this part to come in contact with another part of the mesentery, to see if they would unite, as extra- vasated blood does ; but they did not. However, this experiment, though performed twice, is not conclusive; for similar experiments with blood might not have succeeded. From what has been said with regard to the blood, that it be- comes a solid when extravasated in the body, we must suppose that some material purpose is answered by it; for if the blood could only have been of use in a fluid state, its solidity would not have been so much an object with nature. It appears to me to be evident that its fluidity is only intended for its motion, and its motion is only