Organ

“ One servant or clerk does one kind of work while another does something entirely different. Each portion of the body does a different kind of work. Each one of these parts doing a particular work is called an organ. The stomach is an organ to prepare food and the heart is an organ for sending the blood through the body.
Fig. 5 —On the left are shown the branching tubes which carry blood to all parts of the body; on the right are the brain, spinal cord, and nerves which direct the work of the organs. ”

“ The lungs are the principal organs for the function of breathing; the heart, arteries and veins are the organs which have for their function the circulation of the blood; the principal organ concerned in the digestion of food is the alimentary canal, the function of seeing is performed by the organs of sight, the eyes, and so one might continue the catalogue of all the organs of the body and of all the functions performed by the animal. ”

“ The Organ and its Work.—A most interesting question relating to the work of the organ is this: Does the organ work for its own benefit or for the benefit of the body as a whole? Does the hand, for example, grasp for itself or in order that the entire body may come into possession? ”

“ Whatever effect an organ produces when acting in entire predominance, is regarded as the function of that organ and is expressed by that name. Although our names and divisions are arbitrary and designed for convenience, yet they facilitate our consideration of the psychical, and their corresponding physiological functions. Every cerebral manifestation denotes a psychical organ, and in proportion as these acts are transmitted to the body it becomes a physiological organ. ”

“ That the essential identity of bodily organs and tools is no ingenious paradoxical way of putting things is evident from the fact that we speak of bodily organs at all. Organ means tool. There is nothing which reveals our most genuine opinions to us so unerringly as our habitual and unguarded expressions, and in the case under consideration so completely do we instinctively recognise the underlying identity of tools and limbs, that scientific men use the word “organ” for any part of the body that discharges a function, practically to the exclusion of any other term. ”

“ As a rule, those which inhabit a temporary host install themselves in a closed organ; in the muscles, the heart, or the lobes of the brain; those, on the contrary, which have arrived at their destination, and which, unlike the preceding, have a family, occupy the stomach, with its dependencies the digestive passages, the lungs, the nasal fossæ, the kidneys, in a word, all the organs which are in direct communication with the exterior, in order to leave a place of issue for their progeny. ”

“ The history of the Organ runs back so far into the centuries, that no matter what point one might select for examination, it can scarcely be brought into the scope of a lecture except in a very empty and skeleton form. ”

“ The activity, he says, of any organ, e.g. one of the organs of digestion, or the brain or muscles, is dependent on the constitution of that organ. The different ways in which different species, nay even different individuals, walk are evidently conditioned by the structure of the limbs; the activity or function of the organ is, as it were, nothing but an aspect of the organ itself, even if it is not always possible by means of the knife or microscope of the scientist to demonstrate the material cause of the phenomenon. ”

“ The next step was based on the observation that organs are composed of simpler parts called tissues. Often several different kinds of tissue will unite into one organ; for example, the heart is not all muscle but connective tissue and nerves enter into it; the walls of the stomach also contain glands, muscles, nerves, connective tissue, etc., all united to form the one organ—the stomach. The leaf of a plant is not all one kind of tissue, but several different kinds enter into it. We are thus approaching step by step the finer structure of living beings. ”

“ In this the brain again follows a general law, for in all organs the anatomical element has fixed characteristics by which it may be known; the completeness of the organ consists chiefly in the arrangement of these elements, which presents in every animal species its own peculiar form. Every organ is in fact, then, an instrument whose constituent elements remain identical, while their grouping grows more and more involved in the same degree as the function itself displays more variety and complexity. ”

“ The main systems of organs are, in order of importance, the nervous and muscular, the digestive, the circulatory, and the respiratory. Each organ or system of organs may have many forms. If any form of any organ could exist in combination with any form of all the others there would be an enormous number of combinations theoretically possible. But these combinations do not all exist in Nature, for organs are not merely assembled (rapprochés) , but act upon one another, and act all together for a common end. ”

“ Organ is distinguished from system in not pursuing its course through the whole body, nor consisting simply of one and the same mass, but by its occupying a definite part of the body and being composed of several systems. ”

“ All organs, which are purely animal, are penetrated or traversed by the nervous system, just as the lower systems are by the tegumentary formation. No higher organ is the wholly pure evolution of one system, but the systems ever combine with each other ”

“ The internal cellular texture of each organ has but little of the vital character which distinguishes that organ; it preserves almost all its general properties; it is, in the structure of different parts, the medium which unites without resembling them. ”

“ On this analogy, many have suggested that every organ in the body—we must go further, and say that every marked feature in every organ in the body—is represented in the germ by a seed which can grow, under favourable circumstances, into just such another organ or feature of an organ. ”

“ I confess this odd and unusual case raised my curiosity to view the Boy well and to discourse with him; there is no disease in the Organ that can be observd; no Vertigo or distemper in the head to interrupt or any way intercept the Spirits in their motions, but to all appearance the fabrick of the Organ is very true and exactly well, and never disturbed with fluxes any way. ”

“ The evolution of a special pumping organ, the heart, associated with the aeration of the body fluids in the gills, led to the perfection of the efficient system of circulation which is found, in the vertebrata.
The blood is to be regarded as alive in as strict a sense as any other- component of the living body. It is a tissue consisting of mobile elements—the blood corpuscles—and a plasma—a colloidal albuminous fluid which is analogous to the more solid intercellular material of other tissues. ”

“ The similarity of the texture of the brain to that of the pancreas, and some other glands of the body, has induced the inquirers into this subject to believe, that a fluid, perhaps much more subtile than the electric aura, is separated from the blood by that organ for the purposes of motion and sensation. ”

“ As many of those present do not propose to make a study of the organ, I shall avoid [Pg 12] treating of the instrument itself in any technical sense, and would offer a few thoughts on the subject of
The Influence Of the Organ in History,
with a glance at the "schools of playing" thus created.
The Organ is called the "king of instruments."
This phrase has been used so often that it has become decidedly well worn and trite. None the less, however, is the expression full of significance ”

“ Let us take an organ for example in each of the two lives. I have always seen that in a small brain the corpus callosum, the thalami nervorum opticorum, the corpora striata, &c. are in proportion to the whole size of the organ. ”

“ The nerves and brain, together, form one great organ; and a sound state of the whole organ, even from the analogy of other grosser organs, may well be supposed to be necessary for the healthy state and perfect function of each separate part. ”

“ but at yours, sir!—And meaty jelly too, especially when a little salt, which is the case where there’s ham, is mellering to the organ, is very mellering to the organ.’ Mr Wegg did not say what organ, but spoke with a cheerful generality. ”

“ Vital Organs of Man and Woman.—The anatomist also observes an interesting difference in the size of the various vital organs. For example, while a woman has a heart proportionally smaller than the same organ in man, she has a larger liver. ”

“ Finally, though the figures of bodies are in truth resembled by the figure of the part of the organ of touch, which is stimulated into motion; and that organ resembles the solid body, which stimulates it, in its property of solidity; and though the sense of hearing resembles the vibrations of external bodies in its capability of being stimulated into motion by those vibrations; and though our other organs of sense resemble the bodies, that stimulate them, in their capability of being stimulated by them ”

“ Increased action of any organs means an increased determination of blood to that organ; an increased determination of blood to any organ means increased action of the old that organ, hence we have a vicious circle established, which at first causes functional disturbances and later anatomical change. ”

“ The heart is a complicated organ consisting of muscle tissue, nerve fibers, blood vessels, etc. Muscles, nerves and blood vessels are in their turn composed of living cells, each of which contains the mechanism of a life cycle. ”

“ For the present I will only say and set forth without demonstration—by good leave of the learned and with due respect to the ancients—that the heart, as the beginning, author, source, and origin of everything in the body and the first cause of life, should [67] be held to include the veins and all the arteries and also the contained blood; just as the brain, including all its nerves and sensory organs and spinal marrow, is the one adequate organ of sensation, as the phrase is. ”

“ The systems of animal life divide only into two kinds of organs, into those of sensation and those of motion, into the solar and planetary, or central and peripheric.
a. MOTOR ORGANS.
2369. Bone and muscle are not societies, but only poles of one system. There is therefore no mere bony organ, and no mere muscular organ. Meanwhile we will here regard them in particular or "per se."
1. Osseous Organs.
2370. The first bones were branchial arches or tracheal rings. When the lungs were developed from the branchiæ, the branchial arches were repeated as ribs or pulmonary arches. ”

“ All higher types exhibit this differentiation. Be it muscle or gland or other operating organ, the cause of its activity lies not in itself but in a nervous agent, local or central, with which it is connected. ”

“ Although the organ called the brain is located in the head, and although that called the heart is in the abdomen, yet some sense of control over bodily motions curiously exists separately in the ganglions of different parts of the body. ”

“ Why?"
"Cause if sister keeps on eatin' so much candy, she'll Rotterdam head off."
PHYSIOLOGY
The teacher explained to her young pupils some facts concerning various organs of the body, including the eye as the organ of sight, the ear as the organ of hearing, and the like. Then she asked the pupils to repeat to her what they had learned. There was a short silence, which was broken by a bright little boy, who spoke as follows:
"I see with my eye organ, I hear with my ear organ, I smell with my nose organ, I eat with my mouth organ, and I feel with my hand organ." ”

“ The relaxation or softness of an organ is often judged by its flattening on the board, or by its hanging down over the index-finger when this is placed beneath its middle and the organ raised, or by the jelly-like tremors of the organ when the dish containing it is agitated. ”

“ Hence the whole muscular system may be considered as one organ of sense, and the various attitudes of the body, as ideas belonging to this organ, of many of which we are hourly conscious, while many others, like the irritative ideas of the other senses, are performed without our attention. ”

“ When any moving organ is excited into such violent motions, that a quantity of pleasurable or painful sensation is produced, it frequently happens (but not always) that new motions of the affected organ are generated in consequence of the pain or pleasure, which are termed inflammation.
These new motions are of a peculiar kind, tending to distend the old, and to produce new fibres, and thence to elongate the straight muscles, which serve locomotion, and to form new vessels at the extremities or sides of the vascular muscles. ”

“ First, other congeries of glands occupy but a particular part of the system, or constitute a particular organ, as the liver, or kidneys; but those glands, which secrete the mucus, and perspirable matter, which are called capillaries, are of very great extent; they receive the blood from the arteries, separate from it the mucus, which lines every cell, and covers every cavity of body; and the perspirable matter, which softens and lubricates the whole surface of the skin, and the more extensive surface of the air-vessels, which compose the lungs. ”

“ There is a trinity in our anatomy. Three systems, to which all the organs are directly or indirectly subsidiary, divide and control the body. First, there is the nutritive system, composed of stomach, intestines, liver, pancreas, glands, and vessels, by which food is elaborated, effete matter removed, the blood manufactured, and the whole organization nourished. This is the commissariat. Secondly, there is the nervous system, which co-ordinates all the organs and functions; which enables man to entertain relations with the world around him, and with his fellows ”