Principles of human physiology : with their chief applications to psychology, pathology, therapeutics, hygiene, and forensic medicine / by William B. Carpenter.

  • William Benjamin Carpenter
Date:
1853
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Principles of human physiology : with their chief applications to psychology, pathology, therapeutics, hygiene, and forensic medicine / by William B. Carpenter. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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

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    INTRODUCTION. The object of the science of Physiology is to bring together, in a syste- matic form, the phenomena which normally present themselves during the existence of living beings; and to classify and compare these in such a manner, as to deduce from them those general Laws or Principles which express the conditions of their occurrence, and to determine the Causes to which they are attributable. ^ The term Law having been frequently applied to physical and physio- logical phenomena, in a manner very different from that which sound philosophy sanctions, it is desirable to explain the acceptation (believed by the author to be the only legitimate one), in which it is here employed. Viewed in their scientific aspect, the so-called Laivs of Nature are nothing else than general expressions of the conditions under which certain assem- blages of phenomena occur, so far as those conditions are known to us. Thus the law of Gravitation in General Physics (the most comprehensive of any with which we are acquainted), is nothing else than a simple expression of the fact, that, under all circumstances, two masses of matter will attract each other, with forces directly proportional to their respec- tive bulks, and inversely as the square of their distances. So, again, the law of Cell-growth, which seems to hold nearly the same rank in Pliysio- logy with that of Gravitation in Physics, embodies these two general facts, (1), that aU organized beings originate in cells, and (2),. that the various functions of life are carried on, even in the adult condition, by the continued growth and development of cells. It is a very common fallacy, however, to assume that we have suffi- ciently accounted for a phenomenon, when we have referred it to a general law. Thus if a man be asked why a stone falls to the earth, he commonly considers that he gives a satisfactory explanation when he replies, Because of the Law of gravitation. But it must be remembered that this law of gravitation is a law, that is, a generalized expression f facts, only because all stones ffill to the eartli, and all other masses of 1]
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