The simplicity of life : an introductory chapter to pathology / by Ralph Richardson.

  • Ralph Richardson
Date:
1873
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The simplicity of life : an introductory chapter to pathology / by Ralph Richardson. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, Harvard Medical School.

    75/130 (page 67)
    Science of Life.* It has been proposed by some late Note 3. we cannot assent, from having attached to the words which they employ meanings totally different from those in which they use them. Nothing, for example, is more common than the proposi- tion, Life results from organization, and nothing perhaps is less exceptionable than the fact intended to be conveyed; but the principal words are entirely misapplied—the sentence should have stood, ''Vitality results from Organism. The following short glossary will, it is hoped, obviate all ambiguity and misunder- standing on this score in the present instance. Organ—A part of a plant or animal more or less distinct from the rest, and destined to perform, either alone or in conjunction with others, some specific function. Organization—The process by which a being possessed of organs is formed {y.g. the formation of a germ). Organism, or Organic Structure—The structure of a being so formed. [Dr. Barclay is among the very few who have, with great propriety, made this distinction between organization and organism. The title of his Essay therefore, On Life and organ- ization, has a very different meaning from that of the present Treatise, On Organism and Life; the former implying that Life is the cause of the process by which an organized being is formed; the latter, that organic structure is a condition necessary to the manifestation of Life]. Organized—Possessed of such a structure. Organogenesy—The process by which the several organs become perfectly distinct from each other, {v.g. the development of a germ). Organic—Appertaining to organized beings. Vitality or Irritability—The property which characterizes organ-