Manual of chemical physiology / from the German of C.G. Lehmann ; translated with notes and additions by J. Cheston Morris ; with an introductory essay on vital force by Samuel Jackson.

  • Lehmann, Karl Gotthelf, 1812-1863.
Date:
1856
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Manual of chemical physiology / from the German of C.G. Lehmann ; translated with notes and additions by J. Cheston Morris ; with an introductory essay on vital force by Samuel Jackson. 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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    existence in its absence. It is as perfect in the lowest and simplest as in the most complex and elevated of organic beings; in the monad as in man; in the cell vegetable as the oak ; in the lowest form of tissues as in the most complex and developed. Organic force is the first cause of organic forms. Modality, or the production of organic forms from a formless, plastic fluid, or organic matter, is its distinctive characteristic. It is embodied in the germ. No living, no organic form, endowed with vital activity, ever had existence, or can exist, independent of germs. Every organic form is the realization, in an appropriate and special or- ganic material, of an ideal model, or type, of that form. This force is not self-acting. It is dormant like electricity, caloric, light, until excited into action. A definite temperature is an indis- pensable condition. In warm-blooded animals, 100° F. to 102° F. in the blood, is the normal temperature. Below this, say 96° to 97° F., germ development is imperfect, and arrested in its first stage. ORGANIC, OR VITAL ACTION. The result of the activity of organic force, excited by caloric, or heat, is the production of an organic action, life or formative action, summed up in the term nutrition. The nature and constituent factors of this action are now to be analyzed. It is a compound action, composed, 1st, of the production of an immediate, or special plastic organic matter, from a crude or proto- plasm ; 2d, of the creation, or production of special organic forms from the organic plastic matter ; 3d, of the death, or chemical dis- integration of the organized substance of the interior structures, and its transformation into simpler and lower combinations, form- ing the matters and substances of the excretions ; 4th, the moulting, desquamation, or casting off the dead and recremental material of the organic structure of the internal and external surfaces, in com- munication with the exterior world. At the same time, new or- ganic forms, and organized structure are being produced. The organic plastic matter is special for each tissue—musculin is the material for muscular tissues, neurin for nerve tissue, the vari- ous gelatiniform materials for areolar, serous, fibrous tissues, &c. Organic forms are equally various. Each tissue and each organ has its speciality of form, and arrangement of its component parts. These component parts, each having a special plasm and a distinct organization, are interwoven with the utmost intricacy, necessitating