An essay on the chemical, botanical, physical, and parturient properties of the Secale cornutum / by T.H. Wardleworth.

  • Wardleworth T. H. (Thomas Hatton)
Date:
1840
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: An essay on the chemical, botanical, physical, and parturient properties of the Secale cornutum / by T.H. Wardleworth. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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    and rest, so also can the same influence, exerted in a different degree, or under a state of disturbed equilibrium, alter the relative contact, and relation of particles, or molecules, in living fluids, or in moist solids. If the defined natural atomical balance of electric power be broken, by undue attraction or repulsion of the same (fluid), either from the earth or the air, there is readily set up, in beings predisposed, by causes already enumerated, a corresponding broken balance, and a divellent attraction or repulsion, whereby the atoms within the sphere of such agency, may be moved or drawn into a different aspect, in their relative contact, so as to be poised, by a subtle surrounding agent, into longitudinal relations with each other, and be placed, like oval bodies, pole to pole. Where this altered state of aggregation is suddenly excited in the animal solids, by external injuries, or internal disturbance of the natural galvanism of the part, it becomes enlarged, swelled, and warm, because extensive congeries of spherules revolved, so as to present their ends to each other, occupy more space than where they repose together in their natural state, side by side. Without doubt, there is, at the same time, set free a large propor- tion of animal heat, liberated by the altered atomical quantities of it, naturally belonging to atoms in the one state, compared to that of atoms in other conditions. A curious illustration of this doctrine takes place when water is expanding, as its temperature is diminishing, under 40° down to 32° of Farenheit. This degree, in ordinary circumstances and pressure, is the freezing point; viz., the point, when the atomical galvanic equivalent, which is naturally possessed by liquid water, loses that balance, exactly at that determined range of the scale, and when a new galvanic balance of electric agency, is required for the