Observations on certain parts of the animal oeconomy. Inclusive of several papers from the Philosophical transactions, etc / by John Hunter ... With notes by Richard Owen.
- John Hunter
- Date:
- 1840
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Observations on certain parts of the animal oeconomy. Inclusive of several papers from the Philosophical transactions, etc / by John Hunter ... With notes by Richard Owen. Source: Wellcome Collection.
25/494 page 17
![on another equally difficult and recondite subject in general physio- logy, viz., Animal, or rather, Organic Heat, we see the same exer- cise of the powers of the same great and original mind. He first determines the relative extent to which the power of generating heat or resisting cold is enjoyed in the two grand divi- sions of organic nature, plants and animals: he next investigates the degree in which that power is possessed by different classes of animals; then the relation subsisting between that degree and the perfection and complexity of the organization with which the power is associated. He anticipates some modern physiologists in determin- ‘ing the different power of generating heat manifested by the same species at different periods of life, and advances a step further by considering the difierent powers of resisting cold which different parts of the same organized body possess in relation to their re- spective ages and periods of formation.* He lastly analyses, so to say, the different functions, to determine in what degree the pro- duction of heat depends on their exercise; and reciprocally, the in- fluence of the temperature of the body upon the active and healthy maintenance of their function. : Throughout all this beautiful and justly celebrated inquiry we see the philosopher conscious of the extent of his powers, and of the kind of knowledge which the right exercise of those powers was adapted to acquire. We now here perceive a trace of a desire to establish a theory of the nature of animal heat in the abstract. Let any one compare the language of Harvey or of Willis, while expatiating on the calidum innatum, with the following just remark: “] shall not,” says Hunter, “attempt to settle whether heat is a body or matter, or only a property of matter, which appears to me to be merely a difference in terms, for a property must belong to something.”’+ [t is precisely in the same spirit that he conducts his researches on life; and I would say, after a very careful study of the writings of Hunter, that of all physiologists he is one to whom a dogmatic theory of abstract life can least be attributed. But by those whose notions of Hunter’s doctrines are founded solely on a perusal of the posthumous “ ‘Treatise on the Blood” he is liable to be misconceived, and in opinions expressed from that limited acquaintance with his writings to be misrepresented. _With the just ideas which Hunter had acquired of the laws ef vitality and organic heat he was enabled to explain many of the phenomena of digestion more satisfactorily than had been done by his predecessors Spallanzani and Reaumur. The following is a fair example of the different views and xinds of knowledge which these experiments brought to the inquiry. _ Spallanzam had observed that digestion did not go on in rep- tiles below a certain temperature, he thought therefore that heat *P, 158. + P. 162. 3 9 |](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b33292292_0025.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
