Classics of modern science : $b (Copernicus to Pasteur)
History
Classics of modern science : $b (Copernicus to Pasteur)
Science; Science -- History
etc., at the present day, that it is unnecessary to repeat it. If this
work establishes an analogous axiom in the physiological sciences, its
object will be attained.
OBSERVATIONS UPON THE ORGANIZATION OF ANIMALS
The properties, whose influence we have just analyzed, are not
absolutely inherent in the particles of matter that are the seat of
them. They disappear when these scattered particles have lost their
organic arrangement. It is to this arrangement that they exclusively
belong; let us treat of it here in a general way.
All animals are an assemblage of different organs, which, executing
each a function, concur in their own manner, to the preservation of
the whole. It is several separate machines in a general one, that
constitutes the individual. Now these separate machines are themselves
formed by many textures of a very different nature, and which really
compose the elements of these organs. Chemistry has its simple bodies,
which form, by the combination of which they are susceptible, the
compound bodies; such are caloric, light, hydrogen, oxygen, carbon
azote, phosphorus, etc. In the same way anatomy has its simple
textures, which, by their combinations four with four, six with six,
eight with eight, etc., make the organs. These textures, are, 1st,
the cellular; 2d, the nervous of animal life; 3d, the nervous of
organic life; 4th, the arterial; 5th, the venous; 6th, the texture
of the exhalants; 7th, that of the absorbents and their glands; 8th,
the osseous; 9th, the medullary; 10th, the cartilaginous; 11th, the
fibrous; 12th, the fibro-cartilaginous; 13th, the muscular of animal
life; 14th, the muscular of organic life; 15th, the mucous; 16th, the
serous; 17th, the synovial; 18th, the glandular; 19th, the dermoid;
20th, the epidermoid; 21st, the pilous.
These are the true organized elements of our bodies. Their nature is
constantly the same, wherever they are met with. As in chemistry, the
simple bodies do not alter, notwithstanding the different compound ones
they form. The organized elements of man form the particular object of
this work.
The idea of thus considering abstractly the different simple textures
of our bodies, is not the work of the imagination; it rests upon the
most substantial foundation, and I think it will have a powerful
influence upon physiology as well as practical medicine. Under whatever
point of view we examine them, it will be found that they do not
resemble each other; it is nature and not science that has drawn the
line of distinction between them.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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