Buckmaster's Elements of animal physiology / by John Angell.

  • Angell, John.
Date:
1866
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Buckmaster's Elements of animal physiology / by John Angell. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    14/384 (page 2)
    function necessary to the well-being of the whole. Thus the human body consists of bones, muscles, nerves, brain ; organs of digestion, circulation, respira- tion, secretion, excretion, &c. If either of these organs ceases to perform its functions properly, disease or death will ensue, according to the importance of the defaulting organ. If, for example, the lungs cease to perform their function, the blood will become^ charged with and poisoned by carbonic acid, and death will ensue. Again, if the kidneys, which secrete the urine, cease to perform their function, the blood will become charged with urea, which will poison the brain, and produce, first, insensibility, and ultimately death. A tissue, or elementary structure, is the simplest form of organized structure that can exist. An animal or a plant may be separated into complete structures termed organs j these again may be resolved into other structures of a simple and elementary character, which cannot be further disintegrated without resolv- ing them into the proxbnate principles of which they are composed, and thus entirely de.stroying them as stnictures. The tissues preserve their distinctive characters in whatever parts of the body they are found, just as the stone, brick, iron, mortar, &c., of a building retain their general character and properties into whatever portion of the building they enter. The principal tissues are —white and yellow fibrous tissue, areolar or connective tissue, cartilaginous tissue or gristle, fibro-cartilage, osseous tissue or bone, adipose tissue or fat, muscular tissue, and nervous tissue. Proximate Principles, or Organic Compounds. —When the tissues are disintegrated they lose all trace of structure, and are resolved into certain chemical compounds designated proximate principles.