Lectures on the blood and on the changes which it undergoes during disease : delivered at the College of France in 1837-8 / by F. Magendie.

  • Magendie, François, 1783-1855.
Date:
1839
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Lectures on the blood and on the changes which it undergoes during disease : delivered at the College of France in 1837-8 / by F. Magendie. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

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    its renewal is effected through the chyle, the materials of which, when examined separately, are found to bear no analogy to the proper constituents of the blood. Our attention will also be directed to the globules of the blood, which certain physiologists classify as animals of the tribe infusoria. We are already acquainted with their form, and the manner in which their movements are effected. We shall pursue our inquiries relative to them by examining the modifications, if any, to which they are subject. M. Turpin has lately asserted that the globules of the milk belong to the vege- table kingdom. It will be worth our while to determine whether or not any close relation may be shown to exist between these globules and those of the chyle or blood. LECTURE II. Emptiness of medical theories.—Necessity of determining the nature of phenomena.— Physical nature of phenomena called vital.—Union of solids, liquids, and gasses necessary to life.—Effects of the movement of the blood ; materials which furnish the blood.—Fluids more necessary than solids; illustrative example.—Reparative effect of respiration.—Action of blood-letting on the composition of the blood.—Change of the blood during epidemics. Gentlemen :—Such of you as are acquainted with my former re- searches on the blood, will not be surprised at my devoting another course of lectures to that important subject. Your clinical studies in the hospitals, and more especially the events of your own practice, must have supplied you with abundant evidence of the emptiness of past and present medical theories. Nor can the important truth, I feel convinced, have escaped you, that in ultimate analysis the majority of questions bearing on the causes and mechanism of disease, are more or less closely connected with the study of the chemical, physical, and vital properties of the blood. These con- siderations appear to me to justify the novel character I propose to give my lectures this year. I will take care to exemplify the doctrines laid down by a series of experiments, and as these will be made in public, I shall have an opportunity of showing how in- vestigations of the kind should be conducted. I should observe, in limine, that a point of the very highest im- portance is to determine accurately the nature of the phenomena wc wish to fathom. Thysiology has, in this point of view, made some progress, and I shall, I trust, be pardoned for believing that to my labours that advancement is in some measure tobe ascribed. My experiments have proved that various actions, habitually called the effects of vitality, arc purely physical The clear demonstra- tion of this important fact horrified, in its day, not a few of the