An oration delivered before the Medical Society of London on its ninetieth anniversary, March 7, 1863 / by S.O. Habershon.

  • Samuel Osborne Habershon
Date:
1863
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: An oration delivered before the Medical Society of London on its ninetieth anniversary, March 7, 1863 / by S.O. Habershon. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    To take another instance, a sudden shock to the nervous system, or the impression from serious injury, soon stops, or reduces the force of life to its lowest degree. How intense and sudden the collapse which follows perforation into the peritoneal cavity! The shock to the sympathetic nervous system is manifest in the sunken eye, the death like counte- nance, the coldness of the skin, the failing pulse, and life may soon cease, although every other function be vigorously performed. And wherever we find that one essential organ is at fault, it is our wisdom to spare it from any unusual strain ; and worse than useless to strengthen every other part, if by so doing additional danger is incurred and additional strain put upon the weak part. A second fact is, that in proportion to the number of parts essential in their functional activity to the continuance of life so are the causes of disturbance multiplied. In other words, in proportion to the length of the chain is the danger of any link giving way. In some of the lowest forms of animal life it would seem as if every part of the organism were capable of performing all the functions necessary for life — mere vegetative growth—so that division into numerous parts does not destroy, but leads rather to the multiplication of living things ; the chain has, as it were, but one link. Not so in man, more complex than any other being, and more susceptible of change, his organism is rendered sensible of other disturbing forces. His living body is also the tenement of a living soul; and as if a hundred strings spread out from each link of his chain of life he is doubly alive, and is brought into sympathy with a world of thought and of higher aspirations. The most gifted animals of the brute creation have their instincts, their emotions, their passions, and their fears, so has man; and in them, as in him, though to a far less degree, these emotional centres are active in pro- moting or in retarding life; but man only has a living soul;
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