In the former case, the chemical changes could not be made for want of blood. Here they cannot be made for want of air. Such is the difference in the death of the lungs, in consequence of that of the heart, according as the latter is affected. But as the circulation is very rapid, there cannot be but a very short interval between the interruption of the chemical and the mechanical functions of the lungs.
FOOTNOTES:
[68] After the obliteration of the ductus arteriosus, the left ventricle receives no blood but what comes from the lungs; now, if the motions of the thorax continue, it is red blood; at least so long as the air is freely admitted into the bronchial tubes, and so long as the composition of this fluid is not changed by the mixture of foreign gases.
[69] These two modifications should, after what we have said, be reduced to a single one, viz. want of excitement of the brain by the arterial blood.
[CHAPTER IV.]
OF THE INFLUENCE OF THE DEATH OF THE HEART OVER THAT OF ALL THE ORGANS.
I shall divide this chapter, as the preceding one, into two sections. In the first I shall examine, how the death of the red-blooded heart, in the second how the death of the black-blooded heart, is the cause of the death of all the parts of the body.
I. On the death of the red-blooded heart, and how that of the organs is occasioned by it.
All the functions belong either to the animal, or to the organic life. Hence the difference of their classes. Now the death of those of the first class, in consequence of lesions of the red-blooded auricle and ventricle, is caused in two ways, and first, because the brain in such case is rendered inert from want of impulse, and can neither have sensations, nor exercise an influence over the locomotive and vocal organs.
Accordingly, all this order of functions is stopped, as when the encephalic mass has experienced a violent concussion. It is in this way that a wound of the heart, or the bursting of an aneurism, annihilate all our relations with external objects.
So strict a connexion between the movement of the heart, and the functions of the animal life, is not observable in those animals in which the brain, in order to act, does not require the habitual stroke of the blood. Tear away the heart of a reptile, or tie its large vessels, and it will continue for a long time to move and have sensations.