Text-book of physiological and pathological chemistry : in twenty-one lectures : for physicians and students / by G. Bunge ; translated from the second German edition by ... L.C. Wooldridge.

  • Bunge, Gustav von, 1844-1920.
Date:
1890
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Text-book of physiological and pathological chemistry : in twenty-one lectures : for physicians and students / by G. Bunge ; translated from the second German edition by ... L.C. Wooldridge. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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

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    nothing but those processes in which the organ is quite passively set in vibration by external impulses. The same is true of all other branches of physiology. We have endeavoured to explain the phenomena of the circulation of the blood on a physical basis. The blood is certainly subject to the laws of hydrostatics and hydrodynamics, but it is perfectly passive as regards circulation. No one has hitherto been able to explain the active functions of the heart and muscular wall by a reference to physical laws. I maintain that all the processes of our organism capable of explanation on mechanical principles are as little to be regarded as vital phenomena as the rustling of leaves on a tree, or as the movement of the pollen when blown from stamen to pistil. Here we have a form of motion essential to the phenomenon of life, and yet no one would consider it a vital act, simply because the pollen is quite passive under it. It does not in the least alter the main point at issue, whether the source of motion is formed by the kinetic energy of the wind, or by the sunlight which induces the wind, or by the latent chemical energy into which the sunlight has been converted. The mystery of life lies hidden—in activity.* But the idea of action has come to us, not as the result of sensory percep- tions, but from self-observation, from the observation of the will, as it occurs in our consciousness, and as it manifests itself to our internal sense. When our external senses meet with this same activity, we cannot recognize it. We see its results and accompaniments, the various forms of motion, but the thing itself we do not see. We have no organ for its perception; we can only hypothetically accept its existence, which we do when we speak of active movement. Every physiologist does so, nor can he manage without such a * Activity and life are perliaps two words for the same idea, or rather two words to which no definite idea is attaclied. And yet these vague terms arc all that we have at our command. Here wo approach the most difficult problems, which have foiled all attempts at solution.