The elements of physiology : containing an explanation of the functions of the human body; in which the modern improvements in chemistry, galvanism, and other sciences, are applied to explain the actions of the animal economy / translated from the French of A. Richerand ... by Robert Kerrison.

  • Richerand, A. (Anthelme), 1779-1840.
Date:
1803
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The elements of physiology : containing an explanation of the functions of the human body; in which the modern improvements in chemistry, galvanism, and other sciences, are applied to explain the actions of the animal economy / translated from the French of A. Richerand ... by Robert Kerrison. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by King’s College London. The original may be consulted at King’s College London.

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    subject to the power of volition, whilst the other is com- pletely involuntary. The latter is similar to vegetative sensibility common to plants and animals, whilst musculosity is necessarily subservient to percipient sensi- bility, since the will that directs it absolutely requires for a modification of sensation, the existence of a centre, to which impressions are carried, and from which every kind of judg- ment emanates, &c. Thus there is no part without a man- ner of perceiving peculiar to itself; thusalso there is no part but what acts, moves, and contracts, agreeably to its own manner; and parts that have been considered destitute of this motion analogous to muscular irritability, have remained in a state of immobility only from the want of an exciting cause conformable to their own particular nature. A more detailed account of contractility will be found in the chap- ters on Motion, Respiration, and Circulation of the Blood. The following observation proves what credit should be p-iven to the many experiments, by means of which Haller and his numerous pupils have endeavoured to exclude the greater number of our organs from the attributes of sen- sation and contraction. I lately assisted at an operation to extirpate the testicle for hydro-sarcocele, by C. Boyer. The tumour, when laid bare, by a dissection of the tunica vagi- nalis, was intrusted to my care during the division of the spermatic chord. This sac, filled with water, moved itself in my hand ; its oscillatory contractions and the undulations of liquid were visible, and perceived by several assistants present at the operation. This fact, in my opinion, serves to prove, much better than all experiments made on living animals (the result of which experiments ought not to be applied to the animal economy of man with such confidence as is usually given to them), what we ought to think of the pretensions of JIaller and his followers on the insensibility and non-irri- »• 4, tability