An elementary compendium of physiology : for the use of students / by F. Magendie ; translated from the French with copious notes, tables, and illustrations, by E. Milligan.

  • Magendie, François, 1783-1855.
Date:
1829
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: An elementary compendium of physiology : for the use of students / by F. Magendie ; translated from the French with copious notes, tables, and illustrations, by E. Milligan. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by University of Bristol Library. The original may be consulted at University of Bristol Library.

    65/710 (page 15)
    How could the ancients, who conceived this struggle of the mi- crocosm or little world, against the great world or macrocosm, have the least tolerable conception of either* when they were still alike ignorant of the laws of organic and inorganic matter ? At present, when the principles of physical action are known, and when these have taught us many important general laws of nature, we find, on the contrary, that these laws evidently exercise their appropriate in- fiuence upon animals. In truth, living organs present phenomena which can never be explained by physical laws; but it follows not that there exists a struggle between the one and the other: What natural opposition is there between sensibility and weight, or che- mical affinity ? The things are totally different, and that is all. The vital properties generally admitted, have received different names : thus they are called, 1. Organic,—vegetative,—nutritive,—molecular sensibility. 2. Insensible,—organic,—nutritive,—fibrillary contractility; tone, tonicity. 3. Cetebral,—animal,—perceptive sensibility ; the sensibility of relation, &c. i. Sensible organic sensibility, irritability, vermicular motion. 5. Voluntary, animal contractility: the contractility of relation. Of these properties, some are common to all living bodies, others are proper to certain parts of animals. It is the former alone which deserve the name of vital properties ; Organic sensi. but it is essential to remark that organic sensibility, and insensible R^CntrSc'. organic contractility, by no means come under that signification. They are evidently suppositious modes of conception, and of ex- plaining phenomena beyond the cognizance of our senses. In reality, they do not at all exist; and nevertheless, it seems that no one, at present, disputes their existence. We speak of the alterations which they undergo, of the necessity of reducing them to their ordinary state: and some have even gone the length to class remedies after their mode of operation upon these properties, and many physicians treat their patients according to the fan- tastic ideas which wiU immediately, I hope, be banished from physiology, and medicine. I he othei properties arc peculiar to some animals, and even only to some of theii parts: such as the sensible organic contractility,