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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    prosecuted : but as I have not time at present to go through with the experiments, so as to arrive at some general result, I thought it lecules as is above alluded to, may exist even in those forms of animal and vege- table matter which, to our limited powers of observation, appear to possess no traces of organization, as the albumen and yolk of an egg ; and further, that those phenomena of life which are perceptible to our senses, may be necessarily con- nected with, nay, dependent on, sucli an arrangement. But even this admission only carries us back one step further, namely, to inquire what is the agent or cause, under the influence of which this arrangement of molecules is effected and preserved ! Is it one of those agents under the control of which the arrange- ments and changes in unorganized matter are effected, as attraction, galvanism, &c.; or is it a principle distinct from these! Now it is evident that here our reason is at fault, and will not enable us to reply conclusively to this question, since neither the cause itself, nor the first links in the chain of effects, supposing the above notion of a peculiar arrangement of ultimate particles be correct, arc within the reach of our observation. We want data, and therefore we must be content to limit our inquiries to the more obvious phenomena of life; to examine its laws and modes of action, and to ascertain how far these coincide with those of the other agents above mentioned. If we adopt this course,—and it is the only one by which we can hope to arrive at a solution of the problem,—we shall, I think, be obliged to admit the existence of some principle or agent distinct from those which govern unorganized bodies. In these we find nothing analogous to the vital phenomena of irritability, contractility, the nervous influence, &c, not to mention that a broad line of distinction seems also to exist in regard to the chemical composition, intimate structure, mode of growth, form, duration, &c, of these two classes of bodies. These marks of distinction are broad and obvious, and should make us careful in admitting the identity of the causes by which they are produced with others of which the effects are so very dissimilar, merely on the ground of some hastily admitted analogy. We are by no means to abstain from inquiring how far the ordinary laws of matter are employed in producing effects in organized bodies ; but we should at the same time be prepared, when these laws will not account for the phenomena observed, to admit the influence of another agent, the vital principle, the laws of which are to be patiently sought out and understood before we undertake to decide on its identity with other and apparently dissimilar agents. In reference to this subject, Mr. Hunter was accustomed to employ the illus- tration of magnetism, which may be generated by holding a bar of iron at a par- ticular angle with the horizon. A bar of iron without magnetism may be con- sidered like animal matter without life; set it upright, and it acquires anew property of attraction and repulsion at its different ends. Now is this any sub- stance added ] or is it a certain change which takes place in the arrangement of the particles of iron giving it this property ] I apprehend that no cne will be disposed to object to this illustration as a simple help to apprehension, however unphilosophical it may be to extend the parallelism to its utmost limits, as Mr. Abernethy has done with respect to electricity. I have met with nothing in Mr. Hunter's published or posthumous writings which warrants,or in the least degree countenances, the opinion that these principles are identifiable; the analogy is wholly fallacious ; nor is there, so far as I am aware, any single instance in which the principle of electricity has ever produced the proper and genuine effects of the principle of life. It has I know been asserted by Dr. Wilson Philip (Exper. Inquiry, 2d edit, p. 246), that galvanism performs all the functions of the nervous influence; that it excites the muscles ; that it effects the secretions of the stomach ; and that it occasions the evolution of caloric; but it may be replied, 1st, that many other stimuli affect the muscles besides galvanism ; 2d, that digestion is not materially af- fected when the eighth pair of nerves is divided on the oesophagus; and 3d, that the phenomena of animal heat are more easily explicable on chemical principles. Dr. Alison (Physiology, 2d edit, p. 116 et seq.) has fully and in my ooinion most