Gustave Lemattre

“ Does or does not organized matter engender the phenomena which it manifests? A grave problem, which Claude Bernard, in his admirable "Report on the Progress of Physiology," seems to us to have solved. That savant holds that the brain of the animal subjected to the experiment of transfusion of the blood acts like a complicated piece of mechanism upon the restoration of the blood belonging to it: the cerebral organ is only the instrument of the intellect, and the human machine marks life, as a clock marks time. ”

“ These facts show with absolute certainty that the nervous centres find their conditions of activity in the oxygen of the blood, or, to speak more precisely, the oxygen of the blood-globule.
The brain, the organ of the highest manifestations of life, performs its action like the spinal cord, and an elaborate network of blood-vessels distributes the nutritive fluid throughout all its parts. Yet the mass of the brain does not keep its functional activity constantly at work. The whole organism rests after the day's labor; the brain, when not waking, preserves only its life of nutrition ”

“ The individual life of the glands, the muscles, the nerves, the brain, is demonstrated by the aid of local transfusion, and the synthesis of the living being is accomplished at once by general transfusion. The blood coming from the heart is distributed into all parts of the body, no longer confined by art in a fixed space; thus the partial lives of the tissues and organs are simultaneously renewed, and the life of the individual becomes an admirable collective unity. ”

“ In the land of Rembrandt the art of harmonizing colors aims not merely to bring the human countenance to life again on canvas; the anatomist of Leyden so well understands the secret of injections that, by imparting color to the interior of the tissues, he will restore the semblance of life to inanimate bodies ”

“ From Galen to Harvey, men of science supposed that the heart only sends out the fluid of the blood from the centre to the surface. In their theories, the blood was incessantly formed and renewed within the liver, and was impelled by centrifugal force into the veins and arteries alike. Harvey first demonstrated that the blood returned in its course. "It moves," he said, "in the same circle, as the planets all describe the same orbit in moving through space." The idea of the transfusion of blood takes its starting-point from the discovery of Harvey. ”

“ The most famous alchemists of the middle ages never surrendered themselves to hopes so wild. Besides, the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries saw the birth of so many discoveries in natural sciences, that nothing seemed impossible. The schools of medicine enter with feverish ardor on these questions, so full of promise; but, amid the light that bursts upon them, they often neglect that severe observation of facts which led to the discovery of the circulation. Physicians of that day trouble themselves very little with inquiries whether the ancient notions about the blood are true or false ”

“ The experience of transfusion gains greater importance at this day, proportioned to the advanced state of science. Transfusion is not simply an operation practised on man; it finds its peculiar reason for existing as a process in scientific investigation. By it the properties of tissues and organs are analyzed, the independent life of the elements is once more made plain, and, when the secrets of the mechanism of our organization have thus been laid bare, transfusion is no longer an experimental remedy—it has become a process of reasoning. ”

“ In France two eminent savants, Prevost and Dumas, devote themselves to new researches, of which the "Annals of Chemistry," for 1821, preserve the record; but the transfusion of blood has made decisive steps only within the last twenty years, due particularly to the labors of a modern physiologist, Brown-Séquard. We shall sketch the bold and interesting experiments he employed in attacking and dealing so successfully with the most difficult problems of life; the history of physiology hardly presents a more exciting and instructive page. ”

“ One fact of commonest observation death resulting from haemorrhage gave rise to the notion that life dwells solely in the blood. Homer's heroes breathed out their souls with their blood; among the Hebrews, as among the Greeks, offering the sacrifice of a life, and shedding the blood of a victim, were equivalent expressions. On this point the religions of the West have consecrated the belief of all ages and all people; a verse in Leviticus thus sums it up: "The life of all flesh is in the blood." ”

“ During this embryonic life the newly-formed blood does not communicate with the vessels in the maternal system—the two circulations being juxtaposed, but independent; there is not, as the belief in the seventeenth century was, a natural transfusion of the mother's blood into that of the embryo, because the solid particles or globules of each circulate and remain in each of unequal size. The study of the blood-elements in the animal series is interesting; they are found larger in fish and reptiles than in birds and mammals, whose vital activity depends on other powers. ”

“ The general circulation in the brain is weak during sleep; in fainting it suffers complete suppression, and every one must have noticed the effects that result in this organ from the abstraction of blood. The least emotion, the smell of a flower, can bring on impressions that react on the heart, and for a moment suspend its movements; the blood then ceases to stimulate the brain, and paleness of the face indicates the bloodlessness of the deeper parts. The organism no longer puts forth that outward activity which is peculiar to life ”

“ Men of science in our times have studied the human machine so: the life of the parts has not only been observed, but traced and detected in its most secret machinery. Transfusion of blood, so useful in this respect, never acquired any true scientific importance in the seventeenth century. ”

“ The constituent elements of the organs soon cease to act, and they die as they do after arterial hæmorrhage. For some hours, immediately after the poisoning, the blood-globules only are concerned, the other tissues remaining untouched; it will be enough, then, to restore a healthy state, to empty the vascular system, and replace the poisoned blood by new blood, and life will revive. Thus the history of transfusion once more proves that triumphs in the healing art may find their starting-point in the physiologist's table, as advances in industrial art often originate in the chemist's alembic. ”

“ The colorless beam of white light is separated through the prism as it is by the drops of water that form the rainbow, and after passing through the glass it spreads into a wonderful gathering of colored rays. ”

“ The history of transfusion in the nineteenth century, after the account of the fruitless efforts made in the seventeenth, has the advantage, besides, of allowing us to judge of the worth of methods by the nature of their results. These scientific triumphs of late date have hitherto been preserved only in special publications; but they are of too general an interest to be reserved for physiologists and physicians; they must enter into the wide domain of Science. ”

“ Transfusion is not only employed to replace blood lost by a patient, but used also to substitute pure for vitiated blood. It is successfully applied to resist poisoning by carbonic oxide. This gas, formed by the combustion of charcoal and the oxygen of air, is a powerful poison. Breathed in moderate quantity, it induces death by well-defined action; the carbonic oxide, acting on the blood-globules, displaces their oxygen, and forms a stable combination with them, which is inert as regards vital properties. ”

“ A physiological dissection, like that which transfusion of blood may be said, in some sort, to perform upon the glandular, nervous, and muscular systems, how complete soever it may be, has no value, unless the results of the analysis are combined; the experimental cutting up of the human body ought to end by recomposing the whole of it. ”

“ The evidences of life disappear by degrees, the eye losing its expression last. An electric current sent through the remaining part of the spinal cord no longer excites any contractions, the respiratory movements of the nostrils and lips cease entirely. After ten minutes have elapsed, Brown-Séquard adjusts to the four arteries of the head an arrangement of tubes communicating with blood deprived of its coagulable part, and charged with oxygen. By the help of artificial mechanism, imitating the action of the heart, the experimenter makes the blood circulate throughout the brain and spinal cord. ”

“ The blood-globule not only lives its individual life within the plasma, but it needs, in order to complete its function of vivifying every part of the body, to absorb oxygen from the air, and it then takes that bright vermilion color which is characteristic. ”

“ That philosopher holds that there are in us two things—the spiritual life, comprising the soul, and the material life, formed by spirits, which he ingeniously compares to the restless particles of a wavering flame An unknown disciple of the great master, De Gurue, maintains the ideas of the new school in speaking of the transfusion of blood. ”

“ Progress comes with age, and the child, seeing the same watch when he is a grown man, asks why and how it goes; taught by experience, by dint of perseverance and labor, he takes off and replaces every wheel, gains a precise idea of the mechanism of each part, and the arrangement of the whole is then clearly understood. ”

“ The statement of the conditions of the problem suffices to suggest its solution; the blood is a medium whence the glands draw the principles of their growth and functions; the circulation of the sanguine fluid within the glandular tissue is a true transfusion kept up incessantly by the heart, and which only artificial transfusion can be a substitute for. ”

“ In the order of scientific facts a great discovery never remains isolated, but opens unknown horizons, and leads to useful applications, by the conquest of new principles. No one, nowadays, is ignorant that the labors of Ampère in electricity and magnetism created the telegraph. In Harvey's time, circulation was accepted, spite of protests by the faculty and the disciples of Galen; a genius like Descartes publishes it in his famous "Discourse on Method;" demonstration by experiment confirms the position of theory in every point ”

“ In spite of the resemblances presented by the sanguine fluid in these different groups, the blood of a fish could not vivify the body of a reptile for any length of time, nor could a bird's blood be substituted for a mammal's. The animal species whose nutritive fluid is mutually transfused must be closely related as regards natural classification: the globule which emigrates into a foreign medium can only become acclimated there in so far as its conditions of existence are not profoundly modified. ”

“ It is as a child studies the works of a watch: give it to him, and he is satisfied to hear it tick; open it, and he follows with his eye the movement of the wheels, but does not go further than to note appearances. ”

“ The phenomenon of that new coloring is an essentially vital act, a chemical reaction taking place between two bodies, one solid, the other gaseous. Precisely the same thing happens with the commonest copper coin placed in contact with the air it absorbs a gas, and its surface is soon covered by a colored product. In the lower animals that have copper in their blood, the vine parasite, for instance, the globules take a bluish color on contact with air. ”

“ In our day the true method, the method of observation, is rightly honored, and scientific questions, no longer agitated with mere parade of eloquence, are modestly studied by their facts in the seclusion of laboratories. ”

“ IN all ages the most different opinions as to the seat and the principle of life have been expressed; yet, the systems bequeathed to us by the ancients on this subject contain a general belief, simple enough to be very widely shared, and seemingly well founded enough to endure for centuries. ”

“ When the human germ is in process of evolution, the first lineaments of the vessels are traced in the depths of the tissues, and the heart begins to beat; the sanguine fluid is then formed, but the globules it contains are much larger than they will be after birth and in adult age. ”

“ Nutrition and secretion by their constant work keep up the organized state of vegetable and animal matter. Plants possess only these two functions, and we may almost say the same thing as to animals while asleep; but these are not the only functions assigned to the waking animal, which comes into relations with the external world, through motion, sensibility, and intelligence. ”