Effusion

“ I judge the first cause of expansion to be the innate heat and expansion to occur first in the blood itself, gradually thinned and swelling up like matters in fermentation, and to be extinguished last in the same; and I accept Aristotle's parallel with pottage or milk with this proviso, that the rising or falling of the blood is not brought about by vapors, or exhalations, or spirits, excited into some vaporous or aërial form, and is caused, not by an external agent, but by an internal principle, and is regulated by nature. ”

“ Proceeding from this general law, and reviewing a variety of cases in which gases lie contiguous to membranes, we are enabled to demonstrate or to explain the following more special laws: 1st. The human or animal body, when surrounded with any gas not already contained within the body, absorbs it rapidly; such, for instance, as the gases of putrefying matters: which helps to explain malaria. 2d. The carbonic acid gas of effervescing drinks, evolved in the stomach, permeates its membranes, and rapidly spreads through the system. ”

“ We seldom think of the single element of oxygen in the air we breathe, and yet let this simple, unseen and unfelt agent be withdrawn, this life-giving element be taken away from this all-pervading fluid around us, and what instant and appalling changes would take place in all organic creation. ”

“ Diffusion not only sets up currents in the water and in the solutes, but it also determines movements in any particles that may be in suspension, such as blood corpuscles, particles of Indian ink, and the like. ”

“ The question whether such a power exists, and is normally exercised, has been investigated by more than one method; and although it is not possible to go into the details of the experiments, there can be no doubt that the balance of the evidence at present available is in favour of the View that diffusion alone is incapable of explaining either the absorption of oxygen or the excretion of carbon dioxide through the lining cells of the lungs. ”

“ Whatever may be the character of any infusion, or to whatever incidence of conditions it may be subjected, it will produce some form of life; not because it contains this or that morphological cell, destructible at a temperature of 100° C--that to which it is experimentally subjected before microscopic examination,--but because every organic infusion, whether undergoing the required heat-test or not, contains vital units--those as indestructible by heat as by glacial drift--which burgeon forth into life whenever the proper conditions of environment obtain. ”

“ A single experiment which proves, by a negative result, that organic infusions, protected from germs from without, do not give birth to infusoria, is worth more, scientifically speaking, than ten experiments tending to establish the contrary opinion. ”

“ To explain this, however, it is necessary to turn our attention to another thing, no less a miracle than nutrition itself, viz., what in scientific language is called "Exchange of Matter." To all of you it is a well-known fact, that nothing in the human body remains even for a moment in the same state; but that in every part of the body a continued exchange takes place. Air is breathed in and exhaled again; but the air exhaled is different from the air inhaled. ”

“ Looking at the wonderful changes produced in substances by the action of chemical force, the question arose, What happens when a body undergoes chemical change?—and, as burning or combustion was perhaps the commonest of all chemical changes, the question became narrowed, and chemists eagerly sought for an answer to the query, "What happens when a chemical substance burns?" ”

“ The oxygen is in a free, or uncombined, condition—the form in which it can be used in the body.
30.The peculiar work devolving upon the organs of respiration necessitates a special plan of construction—one adapted to the properties of the atmosphere. Being concerned in the movement of air, a gaseous substance, they will naturally have a structure different from the organs of circulation which move a liquid (the blood) . All the organs of the body are adapted by their structure to the work which they perform. ”

“ The blood is the principal fluid employed in distributing over the system the necessary elements of health and vigour, and for restoring the waste of the body. This fluid, in passing through the lungs, undergoes a very remarkable change, and not merely assumes a different colour, but [Pg 396] really acquires new properties, from its exposure to the air with which the cells of these organs are filled. By a true chemical process, the oxygen is separated from the air, that oxygen is made to combine with the carbon and hydrogen, and carbonic acid and water are formed. ”

“ The reaction we have demonstrated enables us at any time to decide whether a certain substance is in harmony with the body or not. We have already emphasized the fact that we must distinguish not only substances that are in, or out of, harmony with the body, but also those which are in, or out of, harmony with the blood or its plasma, or again with the cells. ”

“ Every purely chemical examination—whether proximate or ultimate—of a compound, presupposes the destruction of the substance under examination: the chemist "murders to dissect." But observations on the action of a substance on the rays of light, on the relative volumes occupied by molecular quantities of a substance, on its velocity of transpiration in the liquid or gaseous state—these teach us the habits of the living substance. ”

“ The fluid, which is propagated hence through one class of nerves, returns in an altered state through another, and the nature of that fluid is spiritual, though not immaterial, any more than, as I before remarked, light or electricity are so. ”

“ The respiration of animals is an instance of the same kind of chemical phenomena as we discover in ordinary combustion. In the lungs the blood becomes charged with oxygen, derived from the atmospheric air, with which it passes through the system, performing its important offices, and the blood is returned to the lungs with the carbonic acid formed by the separation of carbon from the body which is thrown off at every expiration. ”

“ Why can you so quickly smell gas that is escaping at the opposite side of a room?
On our imaginary switchboard the Diffusion switch would not be safe to tamper with. It would be near the Solution switch, and almost as dangerous. For if you were to make diffusion cease in the world, the dissolved food and oxygen in your blood would do no good; it could not get out of the blood vessels or into [pg 269] the cells of your body. You might breathe all you liked, but breathing would not help you; the air could not get through the walls of your lungs into the blood. ”

“ For example, suppose we are inquiring into the Mixture of Spirits, which are invisible bodies; there seems to be a certain affinity between bodies and the matter that feeds or nourishes them. Now the food of flame seems to be oil and fat substances; of air, water and watery substances; for flame multiplies itself over exhalations of oil, air over the vapour of water. We should therefore look to the mixture of water and oil, which manifests itself to the sense; since the mixture of air and flame escapes the sense. ”

“ My suggestion is to interpose the human body as a part of the diaphragm in electro-osmosis, or cataphoresis, and thus to force remedial agents or germ-destroying chemicals into and through the human tissues, lymph, and blood. ”

“ Even a very meagre knowledge of the structure and action of our bodies is enough to reveal the following distinctive characters: our bodies are continually breathing, that is, they take in oxygen from the surrounding air; they take in certain substances known as food, similar to those composing the body, which are capable through a process called oxidation, or through other chemical changes, of setting free a certain amount of energy. ”

“ The production of heat in the body, so wonderful in the process and amount, results only from the chemical combination of the elements of food, whether on the minute scale of the atoms of the several tissues, or on the larger one connected with respiration, and is thence called the combustion of food. ”

“ Well, then, the subject continued to be revived from time to time, and experiments were made by several persons; but these experiments were not altogether satisfactory. It was found that if you put an infusion in which animalcules would appear if it were exposed to the air into a vessel and boiled it, and then sealed up the mouth of the vessel, so that no air, save such as had been heated to 212°, could reach its contents, that then no animalcules would be found; but if you took the same vessel and exposed the infusion to the air, then you would get animalcules. ”

“ Nor do I much concern my self, to determine what the Figure of the particles of this exceedingly subtile fluid medium must be, nor whether it have any interstitiated pores or vacuities, it being sufficient to solve all the Phænomena to suppose it an exceedingly fluid, or the most fluid body in the world, and as yet impossible to determine the other difficulties.
That being so exceeding fluid a body, it easily gives passage to all other bodies to move to and fro in it. ”

“ It is demonstrable, that the great majority of these particles are destructible by heat, and that some of them are germs, or living particles, capable of giving rise to the same forms of life as those which appear when the fluid is exposed to unpurified air. ”

“ In all animals19, the blood, or other fluid in which the elements of nutrition are sent to all parts, is exposed to the action of the air; and this is what we call breathing or respiration; and the exposing of the blood to air is so arranged that both fluids are in more or less rapid motion. ”

“ It is not simply the outward form of an animal which I can change. The physiology, the chemical rhythm of the creature, may also be made to undergo an enduring modification,—of which vaccination and other methods of inoculation with living or dead matter are examples that will, no doubt, be familiar to you. A similar operation is the transfusion of blood,—with which subject, indeed, I began. ”

“ The lungs of animals and the leaves of vegetables, are their respiratory organs, by means of which, the blood in the one case and the sap in the other, derive gas from the air, and impart gas to it, each taking what is thrown off by the other. ”

“ From the heat of fermentation within, vapors are sent forth, as from a furnace, if bystanders are pained, what, think you, is the brain within continually suffering, assailed by these fumes? to say nothing of the channels of the heated and obstructed blood, of those reservoirs, the liver and the spleen, and of the canals by which the fæces are discharged. The drains in our streets we take care to keep unobstructed. ”

“ Even those few who still believe that life would be spontaneously generated in such an infusion, will admit that these minute organisms are, if not entirely, yet mainly, derived from germs floating in our atmosphere; and, if precautions are taken to exclude such germs, as in the careful experiments especially of Pasteur, Tyndall, and Roberts, every one will grant that in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred no such development of life will take place. ”

“ Our earlier studies of ancient doctrines of respiration have brought before us, as supposed to exist in the blood, spirits variously styled "elemental," "aërial," "nourished by our common and elemental air," "nourished and increased from the thinner part of the blood." ”

“ This fluid may possibly be the same with that which attracted by and entering into other more solid matter, dilates the substance, by separating the constituent particles and so rendering some solids fluid, and maintaining the fluidity of others; of which fluid when our bodies are totally deprived, they are said to be frozen; when they have a proper quantity they are in health, and fit to perform all their functions ”

“ Can matter, or what is termed that, resuscitate without mind? We say that certain combinations of gases, secretions, acute or morbid, material causes, produce disease; but if the body causes disease and the body is matter, can matter cure what it causes? Remember mortal mind prescribes the drug and administers it; plans the hygiene and puts the body in motion under it. Not a gas accumulates a secretion or combination occurs unless mind does it. ”

“ Whether those which have been termed Imponderable Fluids,—the supposed fluids which produce the phenomena of Light, Heat, Electricity, Galvanism, Magnetism,—really exist or no, is a question, not merely of the Laws, but of the Causes of Phenomena. ”

“ In the body, however, where the circulating blood and lymph provide facilities for the speedy removal by absorption of the soluble products formed, the reaction may proceed until the original substance undergoing change is completely transformed into the characteristic end-product. ”

“ The oxygen contained in the inhaled air passes freely through these membranes, is absorbed by the blood, carried to the heart and thence through the arteries and their branches to the different organs and tissues of the body, fanning the fires of life into brighter flame all along its course and burning up the waste products and poisons that have accumulated during the vital processes of digestion, assimilation and elimination. ”

“ A third method of exciting the heart and arteries immediately is by increasing the natural stimulus of the blood, and is well worthy experiment in all fevers with weak pulse; and that consists in supplying the blood with a greater proportion of oxygen; which may be done by respiration, if the patient was to breathe either oxygen gas pure, or diluted with atmospheric air, which might be given to many gallons frequently in a day, and by passing through the moist membranes of the lungs, according to the experiments of Dr. ”