THE LIFE OF ALL FLESH IS THE BLOOD THEREOF. On this doctrine, expressed in
the Mosaic books, many of the olden writers founded their hypothesis that
blood was the principle of life. It is, however, more than probable that
this opinion was derived from a more ancient ritual than the Levitical
code, since we find a similar belief among the Parsees, Hindoos, and other
Oriental nations of very remote antiquity, who no doubt owed the practice
of abstaining from blood to the early patriarchs.
The Greeks and the Romans, if we take the expressions of their poets as
being conclusive, entertained similar notions regarding the vital fluid;
and the "purple death" of Homer and "the purple life" of Virgil, are
phrases evidently applicable to this theory, which Critias, Empedocles,
and their sects maintained. This opinion, however, does not appear to have
dictated the expressions made use of by Moses. When he says "the life of
all flesh is the blood thereof," it merely signifies that when the blood
is abstracted death ensues; a circumstance that must have been daily and
hourly observed. It is probable that this injunction was promulgated to
check the barbarous custom of devouring raw meat, which seems to have
prevailed long before the Jewish legislator. We read in Genesis ix. 4,
"Flesh with the life thereof, which is the blood thereof, shall you not
eat." From this circumstance we may infer that, like the Abyssinians of
Bruce's time, the Jews were in the habit of tearing and cutting flesh from
live animals. Saul's army was guilty of a similar practice. It therefore
behoved their legislators to oppose a custom that increased the natural
ferocity and cruelty of the nation they ruled.
This theory of the ancients has been frequently revived in modern times,
and has not a little contributed to increase the mystery that veils the
nature of our existence. Harvey, who discovered the circulation of the
blood, was a convert to this doctrine; Hoffman also adopted it; and Huxham
not only fully believed in it, but sought the immediate part of the blood
that constituted life, and fancied that he had discovered it in its red
particles. It was John Hunter, however, who first established the system
on any thing like a rational basis, although his arguments on the subject
have led to much doubt and illiberal controversy. "The difficulty," says
he, "of conceiving that blood is endowed with life while circulating,
arises merely from its being a fluid, and the mind not being accustomed to
the idea of a living fluid. I shall endeavour," he continues, "to show
that organization and life do not in the least depend upon each other;
that organization may arise out of living parts and produce action; but
that life can never arise out of or produce organization." The errors of
this doctrine are obvious, and have led many ingenious physiologists into
a maze of idle wandering. The fact is, that life is the instrument of
organization, or, in other words, organization is the result of life. The
embryo could not be developed, did not the fluid that animates it possess
a principle of vitality which it communicates to a body previously
organized. In this confusion the word "life" has sometimes been applied to
the power, and at others to the result. Without organization, life cannot
be transmitted; and the moment the principle of life ceases, a
disorganization, more or less rapid, ensues.
The doctrine of the vitality of the blood has very lately been maintained
by several physiologists. Professor Schultz speaks of an active vital
process which can be seen constantly going on between the individual
molecules of the blood and the substance of the vessels; but Muller
asserts that, during ten years, he examined the circulation of the blood
in various parts, at every opportunity and with different instruments,
but had never seen what Schultz describes--the constant assimilation,
disappearance, and new formation of the globules; nor had Rudolphi,
Purkinje, Koch, and Meyer, been more successful in their investigation;
and Muller further maintains that the motion of these red particles in the
circulation is purely passive, which may be proved by compressing the
vessels of the limb, or the limb itself.
Eber and Meyer pretended that these red particles were infusory animals.
On this important and curious subject I shall quote Muller's opinion: "The
question whether the blood be living fluid or not, calls to mind a
critical state of our science. Every thing which evidences an action which
cannot be explained by the laws of inorganic matter, is said to have an
organic, or, what is the same thing, a vital property. To regard merely
the solids of the body as living, is incorrect, for there are strictly no
organic solids; in nearly all, water constitutes four-fifths of their
weight. Although, then, organic matter generally be considered as merely
'susceptible of life,' and the organized parts as 'living,' yet the blood
also must be regarded as endowed with life, for its action cannot be
comprehended from chemical and physical laws. The semen is not merely a
stimulus for the fructification of the egg, for it impregnates the eggs of
the Batrachia and fishes out of the body; and the form, endowments, and
even tendencies to disease, of the father, are transferred to the new
individual. The semen, therefore, although a fluid, is evidently endowed
with life, and is capable of imparting life to matter. The impregnable
part of the egg, the germinal membrane, is a completely unorganized
aggregation of animal matter; but, nevertheless, is animated with the
whole organizing power of the future being, and is capable of imparting
life to a new matter, although soft, and nearly allied to a fluid. The
blood also evidences organic properties; it is attracted by living organs,
which are acted upon by vital stimuli. There subsists between the blood
and the organized parts a reciprocal vital action, in which the blood has
as large a share as the organs in which it circulates."
This doctrine is, no doubt, ingenious, but I do not consider it as
conclusive. It is not because that in inflammation, the blood becoming
solid, forming pseudo membranes, which are shortly after supplied with a
proportion of blood-vessels, blood possesses life. If this adventitious
coagulation were not supplied with blood, it would prove a foreign body;
but it is not, therefore, shown that the circumstance of its possessing
vitality after its formation is a proof of the life of the blood; it only
shows that the secretions of the blood are endowed with a susceptibility
of life, when having assumed a solid form, needing vessels for its
support. I shall not dwell longer on a professional question of great
interest, but which would need a development foreign to the nature of
these sketches.
The Greeks had distinct appellations for the cause and result of life; the
former they termed [Greek: psyche] the latter [Greek: zoe]. The essential
nature of life is, and most probably will ever remain, an impenetrable
mystery. Living matter is endowed with a property which we call life; but
to find out to what we may venture to attribute this property, is a vain
and hypothetical attempt. Equally vain and absurd have been the endeavours
to ascertain whether life began at the creation to be subsequently
transmitted from parent to offspring, or owed its origin to a spontaneous
generation from matter. Many ancient philosophers considered matter as
eternal: such was the doctrine of the Pythagoreans; amongst whom we must
particularly notice Lucanus Ocellus, whose system, developed in a work
written in the Attic dialect, was adopted by Aristotle, Plato, and
Philo-Judaeus. This work was first translated into Latin by Nogarola. These
doctrines led to the unanswerable question, What was this matter--this
_invisa materia_--from which every thing visible has proceeded? Has it
existed from all eternity, or has it been called into being by the
Creator? Has it uniformly exhibited its present harmonious arrangement, or
was it once a waste and shapeless chaos? Was this matter endowed with
intelligence as a whole, or in its separate fractions?
The eternity of matter was maintained by these philosophers from the
belief that _no thing could be created out of nothing, and that no thing
could ever return to nonentity_. Such was the doctrine of the Epicureans,
of Democritus, and of Aristotle. The poets were of the same belief; and
Lucretius expresses himself as follows:
Ubi viderimus nihil posse creari
De nihilo, tune, quod sequimur, jam rectius inde
Perspiciemus.
Persius maintains the same idea:
Gigni
De nihilo nil, in nihilum nil posse reverti.
This dogma was no doubt transmitted to the Greeks from the East; and, to
the present day, it is a doctrine of the Brahminical creed, clearly
expressed in the following terms in their Yajur Veid: "The ignorant assert
that the universe in the beginning did not exist in its author, and that
it was created out of nothing. O ye, whose hearts are pure! how could
something arise out of nothing?" The fathers of the church embraced a
similar belief; and Justin Martin says that "the word of God formed the
world out of _unfashioned matter_. This Moses distinctly asserts, Plato
and his adherents maintain, and ourselves have been taught to believe."
Such was the doctrine of the schools that professed the eternal nature of
matter. Other philosophers supported as warmly a different opinion. Thales
of Miletus, Zeno of Citium, Xenocrates, and Dicearchus the Messenian,
insisted that the human race had a first origin at a period when mankind
did not exist. According to this hypothesis, the universe is an emanation
or extension of the essence of the Creator. Zeno and the Stoics attribute
this creation to the universal elements of fire and water. Anaximander the
Milesian asserted that the primitive animals were formed of earth and
water mixed together, heated and animated by the solar rays; these aquatic
creatures became amphibious, and were gradually transformed into the human
races. Strange to say, this extraordinary idea has found proselytes even
in our days, and was advocated by Professor De Lamark in his Zoological
Philosophy. This fancy pervades the poetry of the ancients. Homer makes
Tethys, the wife of Ocean, the daughter of Uranus and Terra, the first
parents; and Hesiod, in his Cosmogony, raises Venus and Proteus from the
foam of the sea.
The vital and intellectual fire of the ancients that animated all living
beings was admitted by most of their physicians, especially by
Hippocrates, Galen, and Aretaeus. Aristotle describes an universal creative
agent in all the elements, the source of life upon earth, and of the
celestial movements in the firmament. Descartes, in modern times,
maintained that a vital flame existed in the heart of every animal. This
fire, and the genial warmth that it diffused, was considered the soul of
the universe; and on this subject Gassendi expresses himself as follows:
"Si quis velit talem calorem etiam animam dicere, nihil est similiter quod
vetet."
It was natural for man, even in an uncivilized state, to attribute to
solar heat the same influence on animals as was manifest in its actions
upon plants. When life had fled, the inanimate corpse was cold, and
caloric was therefore considered the principle of vitality. It was from
this conviction that we find the sun and fire objects of adoration both in
ancient times and amongst savages to the present day. Fire is idolized by
the Tartars, and various African tribes. The Yakouts, a Siberian horde,
believe that the deity of good and evil has taken his abode in this
supposed element. The Columbian Indians were fire-worshippers; and Pallas
informs us that the Chinese on the confines of Siberia held it in such
religious respect, that they never attempted to extinguish it even when
their dwellings were burning.
The doctrine of man and the universe having been created an emanation of
the Creator, renders the Creator material, or matter itself; matter being
considered intelligent, and susceptible of this organization. This was the
belief of the Brahmins, and was no doubt transmitted to the Academic and
Eleatic schools of Greece by Pythagoras. We find in the Yajur Veid,
already alluded to, the following passages, that clearly demonstrate this
belief: "The whole universe is the Creator, proceeds from the Creator, and
returns to him. The ignorant assert that the universe in the beginning did
not exist in its author, and that it was created out of nothing. O ye,
whose hearts are pure! how could something arise out of nothing? This
first being alone, and without likeness, was the ALL in the beginning. He
could multiply himself under different forms. He created fire from his
essence, which is light." And further: "Thou art Brahma! thou art Vishnu!
thou art Kodra! thou art the moon! thou art substance! thou art Djam! thou
art the earth! thou art the world!"
These Brahminical doctrines were, beyond doubt, also held by the Greeks.
In a poem ascribed to the fabled Orpheus we find the following lines,
translated by Mason Good with as much correctness as elegance:
Jove first exists, whose thunders roll above,
Jove last, Jove midmost; all proceeds from Jove.
Female is Jove--immortal Jove is male;
Jove the broad earth--the heavens' irradiate pale.
Jove is the boundless spirit, Jove the fire,
That warms the world with feeling and desire;
The sea is Jove, the sun, the lunar ball;
Jove king supreme, the sovereign source of all.
All power is his; to him all glory give,
For his vast form embraces all that live.
It may be easily imagined that a subject so recondite and obscure must
have led philosophers into the wildest speculations. By some, life was
considered as the result of a general consent or harmony between the
different organs of which the vital frame is formed; while, as we have
seen, many have attributed its phenomena to the blood. That blood, to a
certain extent, is endowed with vitality is beyond a doubt; Hunter has
endeavoured to prove the fact by various experiments. It is capable of
being acted upon and contracting like the solid fibres; this we daily
witness when blood is coagulated and comes into contact with the
atmosphere. It preserves an equality of temperature in whatever medium an
animal may move. He also has shown that this fluid can form solid vessels
of every description; and its life is also proved by the death inflicted
when any excessive stimulus destroys the muscular fibre. Thus, in a body
struck with lightning, the muscles remain flaccid and uncontracted, while
the blood preserves its fluidity, and is left uncoagulated.
All this specious reasoning shows that blood is a living fluid, but does
not in the slightest degree demonstrate to what principle this vitality is
to be attributed. It merely proves that every part of a living animal,
whether solid or fluid, is endowed with a certain degree of life; but
leaves us in impenetrable darkness as to the nature of life. The one
cannot be killed without the other; and, as Mason Good justly observes,
"that which is at one time alive, and at another dead, cannot be life
itself." It is clear that life cannot exist without blood, but at the same
time it is equally evident that the blood is merely a secretion of the
living system, and dependent upon the action of the solids, which
influence its quantities and properties.[29]
It is from this notion of the vitality of the blood that the absurd idea
of transfusing it was first conceived. Transfusion consisted in the
injection of the arterial blood of young and healthy animals into the
veins of the aged and the debilitated. It was about forty years after the
discovery of the circulation of the blood by Harvey that this singular
project was tried upon animals, and afterwards upon man. Medicated liquids
had already been introduced in Germany into the system by this method,
principally by Wahrendorf. Dr. Christopher Wren, an English physician, was
the first who proposed the injection of blood, and Dr. Lower put it into
practice. The result of his experiments seemed to warrant their adoption.
An animal was drained of a considerable proportion of blood, and lay faint
and expiring; but the blood of another animal being thrown into the
languid system, active circulation was restored, and the patient ran about
with as much facility as before the experiment. When too great a quantity
of blood was injected, the creature became drowsy, and shortly after died
of plethora.
These experiments were reported by the transfusers with many absurd
details. In one case a simpleton had become witty by a supply of lamb's
blood; in another, an old mangy cur was cured by the vital fluid of a
young spaniel; a blind old dog, transfused by a Mr. Gayant, bounded and
frisked about like a young pup. Dr. Blundel seriously conceived that this
operation might be practised with great advantage in cases of haemorrhage,
more especially in women.
Of late years these curious experiments have again been tried with
singular results. Prevost and Dumas have shown that the vivifying power of
the blood does not reside so much in the serum as in the red particles. An
animal bled to syncope, is not revived by the injection of water or pure
serum of a temperature of 68 deg. Fahrenheit into its vessels. But if blood
of one of the same species is used, the animal seems to acquire fresh life
at every stroke of the piston, and is at last restored. Diemenbach has
confirmed these experiments. It is also stated by these physiologists,
that revival takes place likewise when the blood injected had been
previously deprived of its fibrin.
Another very singular fact has been elicited by these experiments; blood
of animals of a different genus, of which the corpuscules, though of the
same form, have a different size, effects an imperfect restoration, and
the animal generally dies in six days.
The injection of blood with circular corpuscules into the vessels of a
bird (in which the corpuscules are elliptic and of a larger size) produces
violent symptoms similar to those of the strongest poisons, and generally
death, which ensues indeed instantaneously, even when a small quantity
only of the blood has been injected. Such, for example, was the effect of
the transfusion of some blood of the sheep into the veins of a duck; while
in many cases in which the blood of sheep and oxen were injected into the
vessels of cats and rabbits, these animals were revived for a few days.
The fact of the blood of mammalia being poisonous to birds is very
remarkable; it cannot be explained mechanically. The injection of fluids
containing globules of greater diameter than the capillary vessels of the
injected animal most probably produces death, by obstructing the pulmonary
vessels and producing suffocation; but the globules of the blood in
mammalia are even smaller than those of birds. In Dieffenbach's
experiments, pigeons were killed by a few drops only of the blood of
mammalia, and the blood of fishes, it is asserted, is as fatal to mammalia
as to birds.
These interesting facts have been confirmed by Dr. Bischoff. In all his
experiments made with the fresh blood of mammalia, birds died within a few
seconds after the transfusion, with violent symptoms resembling those of
poisoning; but when, instead of the fresh unchanged blood, he injected
blood from which the fibrin had been removed by stirring, and which was
heated to a proper temperature, he was surprised to find that no such
symptoms were produced, the animal not appearing to suffer any
inconvenience.
It seems indeed from these experiments, that the blood of an animal of a
different class, is not adapted for the operation.
When transfusion was first proposed in France, it met with furious
opponents; and Lamartiniere declared that it was a barbarous operation
proceeding from Satan's workshop. The controversy between the transfusers
and their adversaries was at length carried on with such virulence, that
in 1668 the practice was forbidden by a decree of the Chatelet, unless the
operation had been sanctioned by the faculty of Paris. In Italy it
continued to be in vogue. Riva and Manfredi frequently performed it; and a
physician of the name of Simboldus submitted himself to the experiment.
According to the accounts given by the patients who had been thus
injected, they first experienced an increased heat with violent pulsation,
profuse perspiration with pains in the loins and stomach, and a sense of
suffocation. Violent vomiting frequently arose, and the patient gradually
sank into a torpid and heavy sleep. Whatever may be the theoretical
ingenuity in favour of this practice, it is not probable that it will ever
be adopted.
While young blood was thus supposed to give fresh vigour to the aged, the
heat communicated by young persons to debilitated bedfellows was also
resorted to. This practice seems to have been founded on observation. It
is an acknowledged fact that an uncommon depression of vital power takes
place in the young when such experiments are tried. This abstraction of
vital power is frequently observed in young females married to very old
men. In illustration of this fact, Dr. Copeland relates the following
case: "I was a few years since consulted about a pale, sickly, and thin
boy of about five or six years of age. He appeared to have no specific
ailment; but there was a slow and remarkable decline of flesh and
strength, and of the energy of all the functions,--what his mother very
aptly termed 'a gradual blight.' After inquiring into the history of the
case, it came out that he had been a very robust and plethoric child up to
his third year, when his grandmother, a very aged person, took him to
sleep with her; that he soon afterwards lost his good looks, and that he
had continued to decline progressively ever since, notwithstanding
medical treatment. I directed him to sleep apart from his aged parent, and
prescribed gentle tonics, change of air, &c., and the recovery was very
rapid."
This selfish indulgence of the aged in endeavouring to deprive their young
bedfellows of heat and strength has been often remarked; and young women
thus circumstanced have shrewdly suspected the cause of their debilitated
condition. It is extremely probable that in these cases electricity is
conducted from one body to another. This hypothesis is in some degree
confirmed by the experiments made upon Casper Hauser by Von Feuerbach.
This Casper Hauser had been kept from infancy until he was eighteen years
of age in a perfectly dark cage, without leaving it, and where he never
saw a living creature or heard the voice of man. He was restricted from
using his limbs, his voice, his hands, or senses; and his food consisted
of bread and water only, which he found placed by him when wakening from
his sleep. When exposed in Nuremberg, in 1828, he was consequently at
eighteen years as if just come into the world, and as incapable of
walking, discerning objects, or conveying his impressions, as a newly born
infant. These faculties, however, he soon acquired; and he was placed
under an able instructor, who has recorded his singular history. Darkness
had been to him twilight. The light of day was at first insupportable,
inflamed his eyes, and brought on spasms. Substances, the odour of which
could not be perceived by others, produced severe effects upon him. The
smell of a glass of wine, even at a distance, occasioned headache; of
fresh meat, sickness; and of flowers, a painful sensation. Passing by a
churchyard with Dr. Daumer, the smell of dead bodies, although altogether
imperceptible to the doctor, affected the young man so powerfully as to
occasion shudderings, followed by feverish heat, terminating in a violent
perspiration. He retained a great aversion, owing to their disagreeable
taste and smell, to all kinds of food excepting bread and water.
When the north pole of a small magnet was held towards him, he described a
drawing sensation proceeding outwards from the epigastrium, and _as if a
current of air went from him_. The south pole affected him less, and he
said it blew upon him. Professor Daumer and Hermann made several
experiments of the kind, calculated to deceive him, and, even although the
magnet was held at a considerable distance from him, his feelings always
told him very correctly. These experiments always occasioned perspiration
and a feeling of indisposition. He could detect metals placed under
oil-cloths, paper, &c. by the sensation they occasioned. He described
these sensations as a drawing, accompanied with a chill, which ascended,
according to the metal, more or less up the arm, and attended with other
distinctive feelings, the veins of the hand exposed to the metal becoming
visibly swollen.
The variety and multitude of objects which at once came rushing upon his
attention when he thus suddenly came into existence, the unaccustomed
impressions of light, free air, and sense, and his anxiety to comprehend
them, were too much for his weak frame and acute senses: he became
dejected and enfeebled, and his nervous system morbidly elevated. He was
subject to spasms and tremors, so that partial exclusion from external
excitements became for a time requisite. After he had learned regularly to
eat meat, his mental activity was diminished; his eyes lost their
brilliancy and expression; the intense application and activity of his
mind gave way to absence or indifference, and the quickness of
apprehension became diminished. It may be questioned whether this
alteration proceeded from the change of diet, or the painful excess of
excitement that had preceded it.
Among the various doctrines regarding the creation of animals, that of
_Panspermia_ was most ingenious and attractive. According to this theory,
maintained by Anaxagoras and Heraclitus, all bodies contained the germ or
the organic molecules necessary for their generation. Hippocrates favoured
this idea, as plainly appears in his book _de Diaeta_; and in modern times
Perrault, Gesik, Wollaston, Sturm, and other physiologists, have
endeavoured to revive the doctrine, of which the organic molecules of
Buffon and the living molecules of Ray were merely modifications. The
expression in Genesis which sanctions the belief that the earth
spontaneously germinated its productions, cannot be referred to the animal
kingdom. Were this the case, similar animals would be found in every
quarter of the globe. Spontaneous generation was also attributed to
putrefaction; and Virgil describes the manner in which Aristaeus drew forth
a swarm of bees from the corrupted entrails of a heifer. Pliny admits the
spontaneous creation of rats, mice, frogs, and other small tribes of
animals. These errors, however, were soon dispelled by the light thrown on
the subject by the microscopic experiments of Valisneri, Swammerdam,
Reaumur, and many other naturalists, who discovered sexual organs in all
these supposed self-created individuals.
This doctrine was the foundation of the classification of the generative
principle into _equivocal_ and _univocal generations_,--the former the
effect of putrefaction, but which in reality was _univocal_, since it was
soon ascertained that this production arose from the incubation of
numerous eggs deposited by various insects and animalculi in these
corrupted bodies. The following experiment afforded a convincing proof of
the fact: A piece of meat was placed in an open vessel, and another in a
vase hermetically closed; so soon as these animal substances entered into
decomposition, myriads of insects pullulated in the exposed meat, whereas
that which was protected from external agency remained free from this
invasion.
It is a recognised fact that it is only through organized beings that
organization can be transmitted; for how can corrupt substances, dead and
deprived of vitality, give life to any organized matter? Generation is
life; putrescence is death. By a law of nature, generation may be said
ultimately to destroy the generative powers; a striking illustration of
mortality, since life is transmitted at the expense of our very existence,
and many individuals in the catenation of organized beings perish the very
moment that they have tended to perpetuate their race. Death advances with
rapid strides in the very ratio of the energies of life; and the surest
method to attain longevity is to be sparing in the exercise of our
exhausting faculties.
Et quasi vitai lampada tradunt.
_Latent_ or insensible life, such as that of the seeds of plants, or the
animal enveloped in its egg, may last for a number of years, so long as
they are able to germinate; here vitality is not worn out by relative
life. Various species of the snail, the wheel-polybe, the tile-eel, and
divers animalcules, have been kept apparently dead, and in the form of
dried preparations, withered and hardened, for months and even years, but
have afterwards been restored to life by the agency of warmth, moisture,
and other stimulants. Snails have been thus reanimated after a lapse of
fifteen years; and Bauer revived the _Vibrio tritici_, after an apparent
death of five years and eight months, by merely soaking it in water.
Adders have been found in hard winters not only completely frozen but
absolutely brittle, yet have been restored to life when thawed. A shower
of fragments of ice has fallen at Leicester, containing the horsehair eel,
with the nuclei of a greater number. Colonel Wilks found eggs in the solid
rocks of St. Helena susceptible of being hatched. The vitality in the
seeds of plants is truly amazing; barley taken out of the bodies of
mummies, Indian corn discovered in the tomb of a Peruvian Inca, and the
bulb of an onion found in the hand of a mummy 3000 years old have been
sown and have thriven luxuriantly. The most intense heat cannot destroy
the vital property. The seeds of roasted apples, the kernels of baked
prunes and boiled elder-berries have germinated. Sir John Herschel found
that the _Acacia Lophanta_ lived after having been steeped in boiling
water for twelve hours, and Ludwig informs us that the seeds of a species
of cedar only germinated after ebullition. Fresh-water shells have been
found in the thermal waters of Gastein at a temperature of 117 deg., and
Niebuhr found a conferva growing in water at 142 deg. Raspberry-seeds
taken from the corpse of an ancient Briton, contemporaneous with the
Druids, have produced fruit when recommitted to the earth.
Some have endeavoured to explain the resurrection of the dead by these
natural phenomena; forgetting that in these instances no corruption or
actual disorganization had taken place. Stahl expresses himself in the
following words when defining life: "Life is formally nothing more than
the preservation of the body in mixture, corruptible indeed, but without
the occurrence of corruption;" and in Junker we find, "What we call life
is opposite to putridity."
The next theory attributed the principle of life to a subtle _gas_ or
_aura_. This doctrine constituted one of the principles of the Epicurean
philosophy, and was illustrated by Lucretius in his poem on the Nature of
Things:
Nam penitus prorsum latet haec natura, subestque;
Nec magis hac infra quidquam est in corpore nostro;
Atque anima est animae proporro totius ipsa.
According to these notions, there existed a volatile principle that bore
no specific name, but was diffused through every part of living bodies,
more subtile than heat, air, or vapour. In later times this same gaseous
agent received various appellations. Van Helmont designated it as the
_aura vitalis_, while other philosophers called it the _aura seminalis_
and the _aura sanguinis_. The _archeus faber_ of Van Helmont, the _astrum
internum_ of Crollius, the _principium energoumenon_ of Michael Alberti,
the _substantia energetica naturae_ of Glisson, may all be referred to this
unseen but powerful agency. Hippocrates called it [Greek: physis], or
nature, which he elsewhere denominates [Greek: enoronta]. It was also the
[Greek: dynamis xotike] of Galen. This soul, or breath, or spirit,
directed and preserved the whole economy; and Chrysippus asserts that it
acted like salt upon pork.
Modern chemistry has sought this principle in specific agents. Caloric, or
the matter of heat; oxygen, or the vital part of atmospheric air, first
discovered by Priestley, and explained by Lavoisier; and finally, the
fluid collected by the Voltaic trough, were then considered as the
principle of life. The experiments of Professor Galvani of Bologna, in
which he produced the phenomena of life many hours after death, induced
many physiologists to maintain that the identity that existed in galvanic
electricity and the nervous influence, proved that this _aura_ was the
creative agent in our economy.
The late experiments of Mr. Crosse seemed to show that insects were
produced in silicate of potash under a long-continued action of voltaic
electricity. Now whether this be really the case or not, it is grievous in
the present enlightened age, to see these experiments and the assertions
that resulted from them, denominated the work of atheism, and the labour
of another Frankenstein!--I do not suppose for one moment that Mr. Crosse
pretended to have discovered the power of imparting life, but merely of
having developed a vital principle in substances supposed to be inorganic.
Every experimentalist who thus develops the vital principle may be said to
bestow life, without being exposed to the absurd charge of impiety.--The
man who brings forth chickens from the incubation of eggs, instead of
eating them; the physiologist who rots a piece of meat to develop myriads
of living beings in the putrid nidus, might just as well be called an
atheist.
While naturalists were thus groping in nature's dark labyrinth,
endeavouring to account for the wonders of the _natura naturans_, that
divinity of the Stoics that Lucan thus describes,
Superos quid quaerimus ultra?
Jupiter est quodcumque vides, Jovis omnia plena,--
other wise men fancied that they had actually discovered the seat of
life, which, according to their fanciful speculations, they had lodged in
certain organs. The nervous system, the spinal marrow, the brain, the
heart, were all and each of them considered in turn as the head-quarters
of vitality; while the workshop of alimentation, or much-abused stomach,
did not pass unnoticed and unhonoured. The heart of a turtle, and of some
reptiles, has been seen contracting and dilating hours after its
extraction from the body; the stomach has been excited into an action
bearing some analogy to vomiting, when separated from the trunk; but all
these curious phenomena, explained and accounted for (in some measure, at
least) by physiology, do not tend to prove that any one organ, or any
chain of organs, is possessed of separate vitality independent of the
general principle of life. The brain, which has been regarded as the chief
seat of this principle, is not always essential to life; for although man
perishes, or at least his vital functions cease to act, when he is
decapitated,[30] yet various birds and reptiles continue to live for hours
and days after the head has been severed from the body, while we actually
behold a regeneration of the head in the earth-worm. Moreover, we have
upon record many cases of _acephalous_ children, or born without any head;
and _anencephalous_ children who lived (for a short time, it is true)
without any brains. Fontana removed the entire brain of a turtle, yet it
lived six months, and walked about as before.
Sandiford had divided acephalous animals into three classes: the first, in
which the head was wanting; the second, where other organs were also
missing; and the third, where the foetus presented an unformed mass. In
the acephalous twin described by Beclard, no liver, spleen, stomach, or
oesophagus could be discovered, and the intestinal tube commenced at the
superior extremity of the body. The infant had ten ribs on each side, and
regular nerves arose from the spinal marrow. Although headless animals may
not be gifted with intellectual faculties evident to our senses, yet they
clearly live and feel. The zoophytes and polypes, without brains or heads,
possess irritability and sensibility; they can seek their food, seize it,
reject what is not edible, are susceptible of the powers of light and
heat, can contract their fibres when touched or injured, and, in short,
manifest various innate or instinctive powers. Gall has maintained that
the passions resided in the brain, and, therefore, that brainless animals
did not experience their influence. This is a bold assertion. Can he prove
that worms, insects, zoophytes, that possess only what is called a
ganglionic system, are strangers to instinctive fears and partialities? I
apprehend that it will be found that passions belong to instinct much more
than to our volition.
It is nevertheless true that animals may be killed by wounding the spinal
marrow, by the process commonly called "_pitting_." This practice may be
traced to high antiquity; and Livy informs us that when the Carthaginian
troops were routed, Asdrubal ordered their unmanageable elephants to be
destroyed by driving the point of a knife between the junction of the head
and spine.
From these observations it will appear quite clear that life has no
necessary connexion with sensation, although the latter cannot be
experienced without the former. Vegetables are endowed with vitality; but
we have no reason to suppose that they feel. It is also more than probable
that, as the degree of intelligence decreases, the intensity of the
corporeal feelings are also diminished. Did not this scale of sensibility
exist, insects could not live under the supposed agonies that the
entomologist daily inflicts. This supposition does not rest upon
indefinite reasoning, for in our own race we observe that those parts
which are gifted with a reproductive power are possessed of the smallest
degrees of sensation; and the cuticle, the hair, the beard, and the nails
will even grow after death. This fact may calm the apprehensions of those
very humane persons who look upon experimental physiologists as very
monsters of barbarity. Vaillant took out the intestines of a locust, and
stuffed it with cotton, then fixed it down in his box with a pin, yet,
five months after, the insect moved its feet and antennas. Spallanzani has
shown that the snail can renew its head.
All this confusion in theories and wandering of the imagination have
arisen from our confounding the vital principle, of which we know nothing,
with the phenomena of sensation, for which patient and calm investigation
may account. That there does exist a principle of life that animates,
vivifies, and preserves all living bodies, until its powers cease, no one
can deny; although to find out its nature is a vain pursuit, as idle as
our endeavours to penetrate into the _causes of causation_. As Richerand
observes, "its _essence_ is not designed to preserve the aggregation of
our constituent molecules, but to collect other molecules, which, by
assimilating themselves to the organ that it _vivifies_, may replace those
which daily losses carry off, and which are employed in repairing and
augmenting them; the word _vital principle_ is therefore not designed to
express a distinct being, but denotes the _totality of powers alone_ which
animate living bodies, and distinguish them from inert matter, the
_totality of properties_ and _laws_ which govern the animal economy."
Of all the doctrines upon this abstruse subject (of which I have noticed
the principal ones), that of the pre-existence of an organic germ appears
the most plausible, or at any rate the easiest to conceive. It was from
this conviction that the ancients held as an axiomatic principle _Omnia ex
ovo_. It is upon this theory that Buffon rested his organic molecules, and
Ray his vital globules. The primitive lineaments of organization may be
traced in the egg, even before it is fecundated. The embryo that we find
in its involucra is soft, flexible, ready to receive the plastic
impression of the vivifying secretion,--the fecundating agency that
imparts existence and all its wondrous attributes, to the pre-existing
_ova_, the _ova subventanea_. It does not appear that the first organ of
the embryo which exhibits the living principle is the heart, hence
denominated in the foetus the _punctum saliens_; the principle of life
has probably organized every molecule of the animal long before this
supposed fountain of vitality had been seen to flow. It is more likely
that the nervous system has received the first impressions imparted by the
fecundating secretion, which the ancients supposed to have been a direct
emanation from the brain, and bearing in its vivifying molecules the life
of every part of the being it was about to organize; thus Valescus:
"Sperma hominibus descendit ex omni corporis humore, qui fit ex subtiliori
natura. Habet autem hoc sperma nervos et venas proprias attrahentes se a
toto corpore ad testiculos--a membris disconditur principalibus--a corde,
epate, cerebro mittuntur spiritus, ex quibus resultat spiritus
informativus, et non aliter nisi cum spermate--ergo ab iis principaliter
sperma disconditur."
Such were the doctrines on this curious subject until the days of
Fabricius d'Acquapendente and Harvey. Buffon, however, exerted all his
eloquence to revive the theory. The following are the notions of this
elegant writer, who unfortunately only studied natural history in books
and cabinets. He maintains that there exist two sorts of matter,--the one
living, the other dead: the first enjoying a permanent vitality; the
second universally spread, passing from vegetables to animals through the
channels of nutrition, and returning from animals to vegetables through
the medium of putrefaction,--thus in a constant state of circulation to
animate living beings. This vital matter exists in determined quantities
in nature, and is composed of an infinity of organic molecules, primitive,
living, active, incorruptible, and in relation, both as regards action and
numbers, with the molecules of light, and enjoying an immutable existence,
since the usual causes of destruction can only affect their adherence. It
is these molecules which, being cast in regular moulds, constitute all the
organized bodies that surround us. According to this doctrine,
_development_ and _growth_ are only a change of form operated by the
addition of organic molecules; _nutrition_, the preservation of this form
by the accession of fresh molecules that replace those that are destroyed;
_generation_, the combination of these particles; and _death_, their
separation from cohesion and association.
This ingenious system is not dissimilar to that of Maupertuis, who thought
that the mysteries of generation could be explained by the usual laws of
elective attraction. Various were the physical, metaphysical, and moral
batteries raised against this visionary fabric. One single fact was
sufficient to overthrow it. We constantly see parents deficient in a limb,
or misshapen, producing perfect offspring; if each part of the economy was
to transmit to its progeniture molecules similar to itself, the child
would naturally be visited with the imperfection of the parent.
Notwithstanding these fallacies, we cannot but admit that chemical and
molecular attraction constitute the principle that harmonizes all
organized bodies. Generation is simply a function of organization and
life. Organized bodies alone can generate. The living only can impart
life. Animals and plants transmit to their descendants their several
properties; and the inheritance of organization departs with the vital
spark. Life is the property of no one; it is a transmitted heir-loom that
never perishes; it resembles a torch that communicates an eternal flame
while consuming itself. Organized beings have justly been considered the
fuel of the universal vital fire, and we all are the _daily bread_ of that
monstrous animal called _the world_. All are ingulfed in that vortex which
Beccher has called the "_circulus aeterni motus_" Metempsychosis was
simply an illustration of this fact recognised in all ages in the East,
and taught in European schools by Pythagoras. Nothing perishes; and even
combustion produces fresh combinations.
Poetical philosophy has considered _Love_ as the source and arbiter of
_life_, and the _Venus Generatrix_ the fount of our existence. Lucretius
recognises this power in the following lines:
Per te quoniam genus omne animantum
Concipitur, visitque exortum lumina solis.
Then again,
Omnibus incutiens blandum per pectora amorem,
Efficis ut cupide generatim saecia propagent.
Virey, a delightful French physiologist, seems to partake of this
mythological opinion in the following passage: "L'amour est l'arbitre du
monde organique; c'est lui qui debrouille le chaos de la matiere, et qui
l'impregne de vie. Il ouvre et ferme a son gre les portes de l'existence a
tous les etres que sa voix appelle du neant, et qu'il y replonge.
L'attraction dans les matieres brutes est une sorte d'amour ou d'amitie
analogue a celle qui reproduit des etres organises. Ainsi la faculte
generative est un phenomene general dans l'univers; elle est representee
par les attractions planetaires et chimiques dans les substances brutes,
et par l'amour ou la vie dans les corps organises."
According to our amatory neighbours, the word _ame_, or soul, comes from
_amor_ and _amare_, and _amare_ is derived from _animare_; hence
_animation_ and _animal_ may be syllogistically referred to love.
I know not how far this etymological disquisition may illustrate the
history of their _enfans trouves_, or our foundling hospitals, the inmates
of which are generally uncommonly ill favoured by beauty. The offspring of
the aforesaid Venus Generatrix must have been especially ungrateful; and
if it be true that Julius Caesar was her son, he certainly exerted his best
endeavours to depopulate his mother's territories.