Chemistry, meteorology and the function of digestion considered with reference to natural theology / By William Prout.

  • William Prout
Date:
1845
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Chemistry, meteorology and the function of digestion considered with reference to natural theology / By William Prout. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    by tubes united with the tubes conveying the nutritious fluids. 2. By admitting that the fluids contained in the absorbent tubes possess a highly animalized character; the design of their union with the crude and imperfectly animalized chyle, becomes apparent: the fluid in the ab¬ sorbents will be seen to execute an important and neces¬ sary office; by raising the vital character of the chyle, and qualifying it, for becoming a part of the genera] mass of the blood. We thus obtain a cogent reason, why the fluids taken up from the internal surface of the alimentary canal, should be mingled with the fluids absorbed from the other parts of the body; a mixture which is inexpli¬ cable, on the hypothesis that the fluids in the absorbent tubes are wholly excrementitious. 3. The gradual developement of the proximate ele¬ ments of animal bodies, by repeated organizing pro¬ cesses, fully accords with those general views of the ope¬ rations of nature, which, throughout this work, we have endeavoured to illustrate; and which lead to the general conclusion, that the operations of nature are never abrupt, but always slow and gradual. Further, it is more reason¬ able to conceive, that matters already assimilated to the animal body, are better fitted for its immediate uses ; than matters which, like the chyle, have only received an imperfect assimilation. 4. Many animals can and do live, for a consider¬ able time, on substances contained in their own bodies. Thus, hybernating animals, as previously stated, have the ability to assimilate further, those matters which have already become part of themselves ; consequently, such a faculty of progressive organization as we have supposed, actually exists; and a sort of digestion is carried on in all parts of the body, to fit for absorption and future appro- H II