Physiological Researches on Life and DeathBichat, Xavier
Science
Physiological Researches on Life and Death
Bichat, Xavier
Death (Biology); Life (Biology)
The animal life is terminated--1st, Because the organs of which
it is composed, are no longer excited without, by the movement of
the neighbouring parts, nor within, by the blood.--2dly, Because
the brain, from want of excitement, can no longer be a cause of
excitement.
The organic life is terminated--1st, Because, as in the animal
life, there is a want of external and internal excitement for its
different viscera.--2dly, Because there is a want of the materials
on which its functions are particularly exercised.
There are a number of other considerations, however, besides those
which we have mentioned, which prove the reality of the excitement
of the organs, from the movement communicated to them by the blood,
as well as the reality of the cause, which we have asserted to be
that of their death, when such excitement ceases.
For, 1st.--The organs which are penetrated only by the serum of the
blood, such as the hair, the nails, the tendons, and cartilages,
enjoy a less degree of vitality, and a less energetic action, than
those in which the blood is made to circulate, either immediately
by the heart, or by the insensible contractile powers of the parts
themselves.
2dly.--When the white organs are inflamed, they receive an
augmentation of life, a superabundance of sensibility, which
frequently put them on a level in many respects with those organs,
which in their natural state are endowed with the highest degrees
of life and sensibility.
3dly.--Those organs which habitually receive the influx of the
red blood, when inflamed, exhibit, in every instance, a local
exaltation of the phenomena of life. In the two preceding
instances, it is true, indeed, that the change of vital powers,
precedes in point of time, the change which is made in the
circulation; the organic sensibility of the part, has been
augmented before the blood is carried thither in greater quantity;
but afterwards it is the afflux of such increased quantity
of blood, which keeps up the unnatural action which has been
established. A determined quantity of blood in the ordinary state
of the part, is necessary to the maintenance of that state; but
when the part receives a double or triple increase of energy, its
excitant also must be doubled or tripled; for in the exercise of
the vital powers, there are always three things to be remarked; the
power inherent in the organ; the excitant which is foreign to it;
and the excitement which is the product of the two.
4thly.--It is doubtless, for this reason, that the organs to which
the blood is habitually carried by the arteries, enjoy a degree
of life, proportionate to the quantity of fluid by which they are
injected. Such phenomenon may be observed in the glans penis, in
the corpora cavernosa, in the nipple, in the skin of the face, and
the actions of the brain, whenever the blood is directed with
impetuosity towards them.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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