The hand : its mechanism and vital endowments as evincing design / by Sir Charles Bell.

Date:
1833
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The hand : its mechanism and vital endowments as evincing design / by Sir Charles Bell. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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    For the continuance of life, a thousand provi- sions are made. If the vital actions of a man’s frame were directed by his will, they are neces- sarily so minute and complicated, that they would immediately fall into confusion. He cannot draw a breath, without the exercise of sensibilities as well ordered as those of the eye or ear. A tracery of nervous cords unites many organs in sympathy, of which, if one filament were broken, pain and spasm, and suffocation would ensue. The action of his heart, and the circulation of his blood, and all the vital functions are governed through means and by laws which are not dependant on his will, and to which the powers of his mind are altoge- ther inadequate. For had they been under the influence of his will, a doubt, a moment’s pause of irresolution, a forgetfulness of a single action at its appointed time, would have terminated his existence. Now, when man sees that his vital operations could not be directed by reason—that they are constant, and far too important to be exposed to all the changes incident to his mind, and that they are given up to the direction of other sources of motion than the will, he acquires a full sense of his dependance. If man be fretful and way- ward, and subject to inordinate passion, we per- ceive the benevolent design in withdrawing the vital motions from the influence of such capri- cious sources of action, so that they may neither