The motions of the heart, the circulation of the blood, etc viewed morphologically.
- Macvicar, John Gibson, 1800-1884.
- Date:
- 1871
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: The motions of the heart, the circulation of the blood, etc viewed morphologically. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.
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![thought long and done all they could to explain it. And so they have. Still, however, it must be confessed that in the main the action of the heart remains a mystery to this day, except, of course, to those who are content to invoke on all occasions the aid of such conceptions, or no-conceptions, as vitality, stimulus, etc.,— terms which do indeed mask ignorance so well that they seem to explain everything, while in reality they explain nothing, but merely re-state phenomena in the technical terms proper to the science of nescience instead of plain English. My object in this communication is not to attempt more than has been accomplished already by the ordinary method of investigation (which would, be vain), but to give a view of the action of the heart with its attached vessels in the light of the hitherto little-studied science of morphology. For, from this point of view, it comes out that the well-known action of the heart and its ramifying and reti- form vessels is that which is proper to them in virtue of their re- spective forms, as these forms are realized more or less successfully in actual tissues. But here it will be legitimately asked. What does this mean i And to this I reply, that, as in physics it has been found of much avail for the advancement of science to partition the whole subiect of mechanics or the scientific study of masses into two, namely, Icinematics, or a doctrine of pure motion, and dynamics, or a doctrme of embodied motion; so in physiology and the scientific study oi mole- cules, it is advantageous to partition the entire study into two— namely, morphology, or the scientific study of pure form, and ana- tomy, the study of realized form or actual structure. It has hitherto, at least in modern times, been usual to attend only to the latter, or, at any rate, to regard form as merely the out- side of structure, as merely the incidental resultant of structure. But it is here maintained that this order of study ought to be re- versed: that structure, at least where it is that of a naturally individualized object, ought to be regarded as the realization ot form antecedently conceived and provided for by the specihc en- dowments of the material elements. The claims of morphology, in order to be admitted, need only to be considered. Thus, that every phenomenon, m order to be a phenomenon, must take place, will not be disputed, ^^ow, to take place, what is it but to demand or assume some space as its own i' and what is this but to demand or assume a form ? It is usual, indeed, to think and speak of motion as well as of form as \\ t ie two were physically separable. But, however it may be m the abstract, a moment's reflection will show that motion, considered as a physical phenomenon, is only an aflfcction of form, and tnax there can be no motion while there is no form to move, i le mechanician, before he can get on at all with lus demonstrations, must assume at least his ''physical point or particle. _ ]No^^, no point or particle, nor anything whatever, can be conceived as](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21452027_0004.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
