It was natural for man, even in an uncivilized state, to attribute to solar heat the same influence on animals as was manifest in its actions upon plants. When life had fled, the inanimate corpse was cold, and caloric was therefore considered the principle of vitality. It was from this conviction that we find the sun and fire objects of adoration both in ancient times and amongst savages to the present day. Fire is idolized by the Tartars, and various African tribes. The Yakouts, a Siberian horde, believe that the deity of good and evil has taken his abode in this supposed element. The Columbian Indians were fire-worshippers; and Pallas informs us that the Chinese on the confines of Siberia held it in such religious respect, that they never attempted to extinguish it even when their dwellings were burning.
The doctrine of man and the universe having been created an emanation of the Creator, renders the Creator material, or matter itself; matter being considered intelligent, and susceptible of this organization. This was the belief of the Brahmins, and was no doubt transmitted to the Academic and Eleatic schools of Greece by Pythagoras. We find in the Yajur Veid, already alluded to, the following passages, that clearly demonstrate this belief: “The whole universe is the Creator, proceeds from the Creator, and returns to him. The ignorant assert that the universe in the beginning did not exist in its author, and that it was created out of nothing. O ye, whose hearts are pure! how could something arise out of nothing? This first being alone, and without likeness, was the All in the beginning. He could multiply himself under different forms. He created fire from his essence, which is light.” And further: “Thou art Brahma! thou art Vishnu! thou art Kodra! thou art the moon! thou art substance! thou art Djam! thou art the earth! thou art the world!”
These Brahminical doctrines were, beyond doubt, also held by the Greeks. In a poem ascribed to the fabled Orpheus we find the following lines, translated by Mason Good with as much correctness as elegance:
Jove first exists, whose thunders roll above,
Jove last, Jove midmost; all proceeds from Jove.
Female is Jove—immortal Jove is male;
Jove the broad earth—the heavens’ irradiate pale.
Jove is the boundless spirit, Jove the fire,
That warms the world with feeling and desire;
The sea is Jove, the sun, the lunar ball;
Jove king supreme, the sovereign source of all.
All power is his; to him all glory give,
For his vast form embraces all that live.
It may be easily imagined that a subject so recondite and obscure must have led philosophers into the wildest speculations. By some, life was considered as the result of a general consent or harmony between the different organs of which the vital frame is formed; while, as we have seen, many have attributed its phenomena to the blood. That blood, to a certain extent, is endowed with vitality is beyond a doubt; Hunter has endeavoured to prove the fact by various experiments. It is capable of being acted upon and contracting like the solid fibres; this we daily witness when blood is coagulated and comes into contact with the atmosphere. It preserves an equality of temperature in whatever medium an animal may move. He also has shown that this fluid can form solid vessels of every description; and its life is also proved by the death inflicted when any excessive stimulus destroys the muscular fibre. Thus, in a body struck with lightning, the muscles remain flaccid and uncontracted, while the blood preserves its fluidity, and is left uncoagulated.
All this specious reasoning shows that blood is a living fluid, but does not in the slightest degree demonstrate to what principle this vitality is to be attributed. It merely proves that every part of a living animal, whether solid or fluid, is endowed with a certain degree of life; but leaves us in impenetrable darkness as to the nature of life. The one cannot be killed without the other; and, as Mason Good justly observes, “that which is at one time alive, and at another dead, cannot be life itself.” It is clear that life cannot exist without blood, but at the same time it is equally evident that the blood is merely a secretion of the living system, and dependent upon the action of the solids, which influence its quantities and properties.[29]
It is from this notion of the vitality of the blood that the absurd idea of transfusing it was first conceived. Transfusion consisted in the injection of the arterial blood of young and healthy animals into the veins of the aged and the debilitated. It was about forty years after the discovery of the circulation of the blood by Harvey that this singular project was tried upon animals, and afterwards upon man. Medicated liquids had already been introduced in Germany into the system by this method, principally by Wahrendorf. Dr. Christopher Wren, an English physician, was the first who proposed the injection of blood, and Dr. Lower put it into practice. The result of his experiments seemed to warrant their adoption. An animal was drained of a considerable proportion of blood, and lay faint and expiring; but the blood of another animal being thrown into the languid system, active circulation was restored, and the patient ran about with as much facility as before the experiment. When too great a quantity of blood was injected, the creature became drowsy, and shortly after died of plethora.
These experiments were reported by the transfusers with many absurd details. In one case a simpleton had become witty by a supply of lamb’s blood; in another, an old mangy cur was cured by the vital fluid of a young spaniel; a blind old dog, transfused by a Mr. Gayant, bounded and frisked about like a young pup. Dr. Blundel seriously conceived that this operation might be practised with great advantage in cases of hæmorrhage, more especially in women.
Of late years these curious experiments have again been tried with singular results. Prevost and Dumas have shown that the vivifying power of the blood does not reside so much in the serum as in the red particles. An animal bled to syncope, is not revived by the injection of water or pure serum of a temperature of 68° Fahrenheit into its vessels. But if blood of one of the same species is used, the animal seems to acquire fresh life at every stroke of the piston, and is at last restored. Diemenbach has confirmed these experiments. It is also stated by these physiologists, that revival takes place likewise when the blood injected had been previously deprived of its fibrin.
Another very singular fact has been elicited by these experiments; blood of animals of a different genus, of which the corpuscules, though of the same form, have a different size, effects an imperfect restoration, and the animal generally dies in six days.