Organum

“ It follows from this that not only in the organism as a whole, but in every organ, and every part of every organ, this restless change of the inorganic to the organic is going on. Every cell has its own history, and this history is only the same as that of the whole of which it forms a part. ”

“ By introducing substances which are out of harmony with the species, and more particularly with the plasma, we bring into the organism bodies which are, in their whole structure, absolutely disharmonious with the cells of the body. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Out of the blood all of the tissues are wrought, each in its kind, and every tissue is a kind of its own, and there are kinds of kinds, so that the animal organism is a chemical laboratory engaged during the existence of the animal in building up more complex substances and tearing them down into more specialized substances, and this is metabolism, or zoochemistry. ”

“ For example, a group of cells which would behave towards all stimuli impartially were they independent unicellular organisms become, as an organ in a multicellular organism, amenable only to mechanical or only to chemical stimuli,—become, that is to say, an organ of touch and of hearing, or an organ of taste and also of smell; until, finally, when differentiation is sufficiently advanced, the group ends by becoming exclusively the organ of one specified sense, touch or hearing in the one case, taste or smell in the other. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Once formed, the organites are arranged side by side, or end on end, into textures or tissues, and these are grouped into organs, every organ being constituted by a collection of tissues, as every apparatus is by a collection of organs, and the organism by the federation of all the parts. We have more than once insisted on the necessity of synthetic interpretation to complete the indications of analysis: which means that no account of vital phenomena is real unless57 it takes in all the co-operant factors, both those of the organism and the medium. ”

“ But where the part is an active one—a limb, or viscus, or any organ which constantly demands blood, produces waste matter, secretes, or absorbs—then all the other active organs become implicated in the change. The functions performed by them have to constitute a moving equilibrium; and the function of one cannot, by alteration of the structure performing it, be modified in degree or kind, without modifying the functions of the rest—some appreciably and others inappreciably, according to the directness or indirectness of their relations. ”

“ It is in the whole of the organ that these varieties of size take place in animal life; it is oftentimes in insulated parts only in organic life. The reason of this appears to me to be that the harmony of action is necessary, as I have demonstrated, for the animal functions; so that if one side of the brain is more developed than the other, if one eye, one ear, one pituitary membrane, &c. are more developed than their corresponding organs, the perception, the sight, the hearing, the smell, &c. would be inevitably deranged; whilst the secretion of bile, of urine, &c. ”

“ From the common nutritive fluid, the blood, protoplasm is formed in all the tissues of the body, and we must look upon the characteristic elements and products of these tissues as the result of its destructive metabolism. In each organ of the body the protoplasm appears to have special endowments adapted to their specific functions, but these diverse activities are correlated to serve a common purpose in the life of the individual. ”

“ The physiological chemist has at length discovered that the human body, and every organ of that body consists of a certain number of chemical elements, which appear in different parts in different aggregations. These aggregations, however, repeat themselves in the various parts or organs. ”

“ If our ideas concerning the structure of the particular cells of an organ, and the dependence of its functions on this peculiarity, prove correct, then it follows that, as we have already emphasized, each kind of cell must have at its disposal units of its own kind. We may then speak of substances that are "in harmony with" an organ, or even more precisely, "with the cells" ”

“ It immediately manifests all the phenomena of organic life; it forms its own fluids and circulates them; it is nourished and developed; and, very rapidly from being a rudis indigestaque moles, apparently an inorganic drop of fluid, its organs are generated and its form perfected. It daily gains strength and grows; and, while still within the organ of its mother, manifests some of the phenomena of animal life, especially as regards mobility. ”

“ This distinction is diagnostic but not perfectly characteristic; that is, we may safely classify as an animal any organism in which we find a definite, sharply-limited body, and complicated internal viscera, such as a digestive tract, respiratory organs, blood-vessels, internal reproductive organs, and a nervous system and sense-organs; while we may, with almost equal safety, refer to the vegetable kingdom an organism in which the nervous, sensory, and circulating organs are wanting, and the processes of absorption and respiration take place through the outer surface. ”

“ Considerable space is given to physiological anatomy, particularly the structure of glandular organs, the digestive system, nervous system, blood-vessels, organs of special sense, and organs of generation. It not only considers the various functions of the body, from an experimental stand-point, but is peculiarly rich in citations of the literature of physiology. It is therefore invaluable as a work of reference for those who wish to study the subject of physiology exhaustively. ”

“ The organism, however, is not built, but grows. Every organ, every fibre, cell, or tissue is formed from diverse materials, which are first decomposed into their elementary molecules, transformed by the protoplasm or by special solvents formed from it, carried to the places where they are needed by the vital fluids, and there built up atom by atom or molecule by molecule into the special structures of which they are to form a part. ”

“ The idea of an entirely specific structure for each cell of an organ—both from the chemical and physical points of view—is based not only on the supposition that, without such a notion, the special duties and functions of the separate cells of the body would appear incomprehensible, but, above all, on the above-mentioned fact that definite secretions given off by particular organs act constantly and only upon cells of a definite system. ”

“ When we reflect on the part played in the body by the blood, we readily see that a correct idea of how it carries nourishment to the tissues, and how it brings away from them the products of disintegrated protoplasm is of prime importance in physiology. It is the point from which spring all other ideas of the action of tissues, and until this was known the fine analysis of vital processes could not be made. The true idea of respiration, of the secretion by glands, the chemical changes in the tissues, in fact, of all the general activities of the body, hinge upon this conception. ”

“ In the sense in which science usually employs the word "organism," and in which we employ it here, it is equivalent to "living thing" or "living body." The opposite to it, in the broad sense, is the anorganic or inorganic body. Hence the word "organism" belongs to physiology, and connotes essentially the visible life-activity of the body, its metabolism, nutrition, and reproduction.
However, in most organisms we find, when we examine their structure closely, that this consists of various parts, and that these parts are put together for the evident purpose of accomplishing the vital functions. ”

“ In the study of the minute structure of plants and animals the observer has frequently to deal with tissues and organs, most of which possess such softness and delicacy of substance and outline that, even when microscopes of the best construction are employed, the determination of the intimate nature of the tissue, and the precise relation which one element of an organ bears to the other constituent elements, is, in many instances, a matter of difficulty. ”

“ The parts of an organized body, such as the mouth or the foot of an animal, the root or the leaf of a plant, are called the organs, and the work which an organ is intended to perform is called its function. The material out of which any organ is composed is called tissue, and in the human body, for instance, at least six different kinds of tissue 370are found, forming the various organs. We will speak of the various solids and fluids of the body by name, only in connection with their ailments and their care hereafter. ”

“ 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 ”

“ These particles, into which all primitive tissues break up, are called cells. If I were to make a section of a piece of the skin of my hand, I should find that it was made up of these cells. If I examine the fibres which form the various organs of all living animals, I should find that all of them, at one time or other, had been formed out of a substance consisting of similar elements ”

“ Here, again, we find cell added to cell, tissue to tissue, organ to organ, and function to function, the animal body becoming more and more complex in structure, in the mutual action of its correlated parts, and the mutual action with the environment, until we reach the highest complexity of structure and of internal and external relations only in the highest animals. ”

“ We may begin with those modifications of surface which subserve respiration. Though we ordinarily think of respiration as the quite special function of a quite special organ, yet originally it is not so. Little-developed animals part with their carbonic acid and absorb oxygen, through the general surface of the body. Even in the lower types of the higher classes, the general surface of the body aids largely in aërating the blood; and the parts which discharge the greater part of this function are substantially nothing more than slightly altered and extended portions of the skin. ”

“ When we take for our food a portion of animal flesh, it is first resolved, in digestion, into a soluble fluid before it can be absorbed; in the blood it is resolved into the fluid colloidal condition; in the solids it is laid down within the membranes into new structure, and when it has played its part, it is digested again, if I may so say, into a crystalloidal soluble substance, ready to be carried away and replaced by addition of new matter, then it is dialysed or passed through, the membranes into the blood, and is disposed of in the excretions. ”

“ In addition to an immense amount of unquestionable facts, in addition to a knowledge of the elementary properties of organic tissues and an acquaintance with the special laws which represent the action of these tissues in presence of these modifiers, this general result has followed the conquests of biology, namely, that living bodies are now known to be subject to the self-same laws which govern inorganic bodies, and that, under the hand of the experimenter, the course of things within the tissues is precisely the same as without the tissues ”

“ Accepting then the materialistic conception of the organism, we have to consider this further problem. Does the ground of organic processes lie in the whole organism or in its elementary parts? Translated into terms of metabolism—note the physiological point of view—the question runs, are metabolic processes the result of the molecular construction of the organism as a whole, or does the centre of metabolic activity lie in the cell? Is it the cell rather than the organism that is the immediate agent of assimilatory processes? ”

“ Metabolic Relations.—When we consider to what an extent the nature of every biological character is given in its chemical composition, it can be readily understood that, to some authors, physiological chemistry should seem the complete basis of heredity. The characters of every tissue of the body are absolutely dependent on their chemical composition, and even slight variations in chemical composition may completely alter function, appearance or form. ”