A summary of physiology / by F. Magendie ; translated from the French by John Revere.

  • Magendie, François, 1783-1855. Précis élémentaire de physiologie. English
Date:
1822
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A summary of physiology / by F. Magendie ; translated from the French by John Revere. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

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    immediate materials. It is composed of margarine, acid of fat, a yellow colouring; principle, and an odoriferous principle. This substance must not be confounded with the spermaceti of the whale, or biliary calculi, both of which differ essentially from it. M. Chevreuil has shewn that it does not contain a single princi- ple analogous to them. Organic Elements. These materials combine together, and from their combina- tions arise the organic elements; which are either solids, or fluids. We are entirely ignorant of the laws, or forces by which these combinations are effected. Organic Solids. The solids assume the form of tubes, plates, scales, or mem- branes. In man, the total weight of the solids is, in general, eight or nine times less than the fluids; this proportion varies however according to circumstances. The ancients believed that all the organic solids of the body might be traced back to a simple fibre, which they supposed was formed of earth, oil, and iron. Haller, who admitted this idea of the ancients, acknowledges that it is only perceptible to the mind's eve; Invisibles est ea fibra; sola acie mentis distin^ui- mus, which is much the same as to have said chat it did not exist at all; a thing of which, at the present day, no one doubts. The ancients likewise admitted secondary fibres, which they supposed were formed by particular modifications of the simple fibre; as the nervous, muscular, parenchymatous, and osseous fibres. Professor Chaussier has lately proposed to admit four kinds of fibres; which he distinguishes by the names of laminer, nervous, muscular, and albugfineous. The science was in this state, when M. Pinel conceived the happy idea of distinguishing the organic, solids, not by fibres, but by tissues, or systems.* He founded upon this distinction various orders of diseases, particularly the phlegmasiae. Bichat availed himself of this ingenious idea, and applied it to all the solid parts of the animal body. Those parts of his works which relate * The English assert that this idea was first suggested by Dr. Carmichael Smith in 1788, in a dissertation read before a society in London.
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