Physiological Researches on Life and DeathBichat, Xavier
Science
Physiological Researches on Life and Death
Bichat, Xavier
Death (Biology); Life (Biology)
From hence it follows, that the functions of the animal are of
two very different classes. By the one (which is composed of an
habitual succession of assimilation and excretion) it lives within
itself, transforms into its proper substance the particles of
other bodies, and afterwards rejects them when they are become
heterogeneous to its nature. By the other, it lives externally, is
the inhabitant of the world, and not as the vegetable of a spot
only; it feels, it perceives, it reflects on its sensations, it
moves according to their influence, and frequently is enabled to
communicate by its voice its desires, and its fears, its pleasures,
and its pains.
The aggregate of the functions of the first order, I shall name
the organic life, because all organized beings, whether animal or
vegetable, enjoy it more or less, because organic texture is the
sole condition necessary to its existence. The sum of the functions
of the second class, because it is exclusively the property of the
animal, I shall denominate the animal life.
The series of the phenomena of these two lives, relate to the
individual. Generation, as a function, regards the species, and
thus has no place among them. Its connections with the greater
number of the other functions are but very indirect; it commences a
long time after them, it is extinct a long time before them. In the
greater number of animals the periods of its activity are separated
by long intervals of time, and during these, it is absolutely null.
Even in man, with whom the remissions of its impulses, are much
less durable, it has not a much more extensive connexion with the
rest of the system. Castration is almost always marked by a general
increase of the nutritive process; the eunuch, enjoying indeed a
less degree of vital energy, but the phenomena of his life being
displayed with a greater exuberance. We shall here, then, lay aside
the consideration of the laws which give us existence, and occupy
ourselves alone on those which maintain us in existence. Of the
former we shall speak hereafter.
II. _Subdivision of each of the two lives into two orders of
functions._
The animal and the organic life, are each of them composed of two
orders of functions, which succeed each other, and are concatenated
in an inverse direction.
In the animal life, the first order is established from the
exterior of the body, towards the brain; the second from the brain
towards the organs of locomotion and the voice. The impression of
objects successively affects the senses, the nerves and the brain.
The first receive, the second transmit, the third perceives the
impression. The impression, in such way, received, transmitted, and
perceived, constitutes sensation.
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