FOOTNOTES:
[118] When two states, which are not perfectly similar, are designated by a common name, it is very difficult, whatever care may be taken to distinguish them, not to apply to one something which exclusively belongs to the other. This is perhaps one of the most frequent sources of our errours. In this case, for example, it does not seem that there is a great inconvenience in designating by the word sleep the state of torpor of certain animals during a part of the year. It is well known that we understand by it altogether a different thing from the sleep, which in warmer seasons of the year, comes on periodically every day; yet in consequence of the identity of the name, we are disposed to admit identity of character and to infer from one respecting the other.
[119] What is the circulation of an animal which exhibits no trace of vessels? what inferences can be drawn for man from the mode of nutrition of a polypus? what relation can be established between the complex function which presides in the mammalia over the support of the organs, and the kind of imbibition by means of which the zoophyte is developed and preserved?
[120] The external ciliary nerves only come from a ganglion. The internal ciliary ones which have precisely the same distribution and serve also very probably the same uses, come from a cerebral nerve, from the nasal branch of the ophthalmic.
[121] The galvanic stimulus usually produces very evident effects upon the contraction of the intestinal tube; these motions are less evident in the stomach than in any other part of the canal; but the same difference is always observed whatever be the stimulus employed.
[122] Death does not always take place in the same way. It has been remarked, for example, that those who were hung at Lyons died quicker than those who were hung at Paris. In seeking for the cause of this difference, it was ascertained that in those who were executed at Lyons there was almost always a luxation of the first or the second vertebra, which was owing to a rotatory motion, which the executioner gave to the criminal in throwing him from the scaffold. The death was quick, because it was produced by compression or laceration of the spinal marrow; it was slower in the other case in which it was only the result of asphyxia.
[123] It appears by the beautiful experiments of M. Edwards that frogs can live but a very short time in water deprived of air by boiling. Immersed in a small body of water containing air they soon die, no doubt after they have exhausted the air held in solution in the water. They can on the contrary live an indefinite time in this state of immersion, if care be taken to renew the water sufficiently often. The same thing happens, and still more certainly, if they are immersed in running water.
It is not by passing the water through the lungs, as the fish does through the branchiæ, that the frog obtains the air held in solution by the water in which he is immersed, the skin is in this case the sole respiratory organ. M. Edwards is satisfied that this mode of respiration is not sufficient to support life, except between certain limits of temperature; a frog immersed in a volume of water which is not changed, continues to live so much the longer as the temperature of this fluid approaches nearer 32°. At this degree frogs are not torpid, as might be supposed, only their motions are slower.
As long as the animal immersed in the water remains perfectly alive, which may be known by the vivacity of his motions, it is certain that the respiratory phenomena continue to be performed by him; we see in fact on the membranes in the interstices of the toes, the vessels filled with vermilion blood. When the black colour begins to appear, the animal soon becomes immoveable and insensible.
[CHAPTER XIII.]
OF THE INFLUENCE OF THE DEATH OF THE BRAIN OVER THAT OF THE BODY IN GENERAL.
From the consideration of what has been said in the preceding chapter, nothing can be more easy than to form an accurate idea of the manner in which the phenomena of general death, commencing by the brain, are concatenated. The series is as follows:
1st, The cerebral action is annihilated. 2dly, There is a sudden cessation of sensation and voluntary motion. 3dly, A simultaneous paralysis of the intercostals and diaphragm. 4thly, An interruption of the mechanical phenomena of respiration and the voice. 5thly, An annihilation of the chemical phenomena of the lungs. 6thly, A passage of black blood into the arteries. 7thly, A slowness of circulation owing to the influx of such blood into the arteries, and the absolute immobility of all the parts, of the intercostals and diaphragm in particular. 8thly, The heart dies and the general circulation ceases. 9thly, The organic life vanishes. 10thly, The animal heat, which is the product of all the functions, disappears, 11thly, The white organs die.
Though in this kind of death, as well as in the two preceding kinds, the functions are suddenly annihilated; the parts retain, for a certain time, a number of the properties of life. The organic sensibility and contractility, continue for some time, to be manifest in the muscles of the two lives; and in those of the animal life, the susceptibility of being affected by the galvanic fluid is very great in the muscles of the animal life.
This permanence of the organic properties, is nearly the same in every case; the only cause which affects it, is the slowness with which the phenomena of death have succeeded each other. In every case where their duration has been the same, whatever may have been the cause of death, experiments instituted upon these properties, are attended with similar results; for it is evident that concussion of the brain, luxation of the vertebræ, the section of the spinal marrow, apoplexy, compression of the brain, or inflammation, are all of them causes which are attended with a like effect.
The same, however, is not the case with respect to the asphyxiæ produced by the different gases. We have shown the reason of this in the more or less deleterious nature of the gases which produce asphyxiæ.
The state of the lungs also, is very various in the bodies of persons who have died from lesions of the brain. This organ is sometimes gorged and sometimes almost empty: it shews, however, whether the death of the individual has been sudden or gradual. The same indication may be had from the state of the exterior surfaces.
The death, which is the consequence of disease, commences much more rarely in the brain, than in the lungs. Nevertheless, in certain paroxysms of acute fever, the blood is violently carried to the head, and is the occasion of death. The concatenation of its phenomena, are then the same as take place in sudden death.
There are a great number of other cases besides those of fever, where the commencement of death may be in the brain, though the brain itself may not have been previously affected by the disease. In these cases, the state of the lungs is very various; but little can be learnt from it with respect to the nature of the disease. It is only an indication of the manner in which the functions have been terminated.
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE
[Footnote [28] is referenced from [Footnote [27] not from the text itself.
[Footnote [101] is referenced from [Footnote [100].
[Footnote [108] is referenced from [Footnote [107].
Obvious typographical errors and punctuation errors have been corrected after careful comparison with other occurrences within the text and consultation of external sources.
Except for those changes noted below, all misspellings in the text, and inconsistent or archaic usage, have been retained. For example, air-cells, air cells; economy, œconomy; no-wise, nowise, no wise; errors, errours; mechanicians; contractility; hemorrhagy; hebetate.
In the main text:
[Pg 17], ‘not of the mattter’ replaced by ‘not of the matter’.
[Pg 20], ‘its accessaries’ replaced by ‘its accessories’.
[Pg 25], ‘TH TWO LIVES’ replaced by ‘THE TWO LIVES’.
[Pg 33], ‘make a differerence’ replaced by ‘make a difference’.
[Pg 36], ‘at the expence’ replaced by ‘at the expense’.
[Pg 58], ‘nearly analagous’ replaced by ‘nearly analogous’.
[Pg 59], ‘sudden alteratian’ replaced by ‘sudden alteration’.
[Pg 69], ‘whick Authors’ replaced by ‘which Authors’.
[Pg 79], ‘it is succeptible’ replaced by ‘it is susceptible’.
[Pg 144], ‘at utterence’ replaced by ‘at utterance’.
[Pg 149], ‘then the nutrive’ replaced by ‘then the nutritive’.
[Pg 173], ‘physiolgist. Now’ replaced by ‘physiologist. Now’.
[Pg 173], ‘is ther esult’ replaced by ‘is the result’.
[Pg 176], ‘the body ensuses’ replaced by ‘the body ensues’.
[Pg 196], ‘which its practicles’ replaced by ‘which its particles’.
[Pg 213], ‘cut the treachea’ replaced by ‘cut the trachea’.
[Pg 235], ‘is propogated from’ replaced by ‘is propagated from’.
[Pg 236], ‘Ex-riments upon’ replaced by ‘Experiments upon’.
[Pg 240], ‘to the concominant’ replaced by ‘to the concomitant’.
[Pg 248], ‘the venons system’ replaced by ‘the venous system’.
[Pg 252], ‘when the functious’ replaced by ‘when the functious’.
[Pg 258], ‘swells and cantracts’ replaced by ‘swells and contracts’.
[Pg 259], ‘pipe, then when’ replaced by ‘pipe, than when’.
[Pg 261], ‘that livid tin’ replaced by ‘that livid tint’.
[Pg 278], ‘in sulphureted’ replaced by ‘in sulphurated’.
[Pg 278], ‘azot, in pure’ replaced by ‘azote, in pure’.
[Pg 293], ‘extensive hemorhagy’ replaced by ‘extensive hemorrhagy’.
[Pg 293], ‘have began in’ replaced by ‘has begun in’.
[Pg 310], ‘I was authorzied’ replaced by ‘I was authorized’.
[Pg 333], ‘of accute fever’ replaced by ‘of acute fever’.
In the Footnotes:
[FN 4] (Footnote [4] referenced from) [pg 12], ‘the maunmalia’ replaced by ‘the mammalia’.
[FN 5] [pg 17], ‘opake colour’ replaced by ‘opaque colour’.
[FN 5] [pg 17], ‘cogulum of milk’ replaced by ‘coagulum of milk’.
[FN 13] [pg 43], ‘In somnambulition’ replaced by ‘In somnambulism’.
[FN 15] [pg 57], ‘perfect iudifference’ replaced by ‘perfect indifference’.
[FN 27] [pg 90], ‘and peritoreum’ replaced by ‘and peritoneum’.
[FN 31] [pg 105], ‘the duoderum’ replaced by ‘the duodenum’.
[FN 31] [pg 105], ‘as the ileo-coecal’ replaced by ‘as the ileo-cecal’.
[FN 34] [pg 118], ‘to the indiosyncrasy’ replaced by ‘to the idiosyncrasy’.
[FN 76] [pg 206], ‘name of hypocondria’ replaced by ‘name of hypochondria’.
[FN 90] [pg 236], ‘vena porta, as’ replaced by ‘vena portæ, as’.
[FN 92] [pg 241], ‘soon ofter grew’ replaced by ‘soon after grew’.
[FN 92] [pg 241], ‘the plantive cries’ replaced by ‘the plaintive cries’.
[FN 103] [pg 281], ‘prot-phosphuretted’ replaced by ‘proto-phosphuretted’.
[FN 115] [pg 311], ‘of middle heighth’ replaced by ‘of middle height’.