Physic (medicine)

“ Indeed, nature knows no such specializations as physics, chemistry, biology, and other categories into which we fit our fragments of knowledge. She knows only the particles and their incessant interactions as expressed in phenomena such as magnetism, radiation, life, and death. ”

“ Moreover, the true character of disease has been made clear and intelligible to the physician for the first time by the cognate science of Cellular Pathology.
The discoveries of the nineteenth century in the inorganic world are no less important. Physics has made astounding progress in every section of its province—in optics and acoustics, in magnetism and electricity, in mechanics and thermo-dynamics; and, what is still more important, it has proved the unity of the forces of the entire universe. ”

“ It binds together the molecules which compose the food we eat. When oxygen tears the molecules to pieces and makes them up into smaller ones, the force is set free. As we shall learn in Physics, it can be turned, into heat, muscular motion, electricity, etc. The principle that the different kinds of force can be changed into one another without loss, is called the Conservation of Energy, and is one of the grandest discoveries of modern science.—Popular Physics, pages 35, 39, 278. ”

“ Physics and chemistry walk hand in hand. Scientists cannot cut the tie that joins them together in experimental science. Physics treats of the changes of matter without regard to its internal constitution. The laws of gravitation and cohesion belong to physical science. They concern matter without reference to its composition. Chemistry makes us acquainted with the constituents of the different forms of matter, their proportions and the changes which they are capable of bringing about in each other. ”

“ And, moreover, chemistry aided by physics has concluded that the properties of a body "are dependent on the variations of the energy of the body, and not on its total value," and therefore that "it is unnecessary, even if it were possible, to form any estimate of the energy of the body in its standard state." ”

“ And, in the second place, physiologists, like Du Bois-Reymond, recognize force as the invariable concomitant, if not the essential attribute of matter, and assume that to every constant primordial mass belongs a constant primordial quantity of force, so that the problem of physics, chemistry, and physiology, resolves itself into the quantitative determination of the mechanical interactions of material constants primarily endowed with forces acting equally in all directions, or, as they express it, constant central forces. ”

“ The students of Medicine, who almost exclusively support the Professorship of Chemistry, are induced to do so in consequence of its application to Pharmacy and the different branches of Medicine, viz., Physiology, Pathology, Therapeutics, Materia Medica, and the Practice of Physic. ”

“ If we may imagine the physico-chemical analysis of the body to be carried through to the very end, may we expect to find at last an unknown something that transcends such analysis and is neither a form of physical energy nor anything given in the physical or chemical configuration of the body? Shall we find anything corresponding to the usual popular conception—which was also along the view of physiologists—that the body is "animated" by a specific "vital principle," or "vital force," a dominating "archæus" that exists only in the realm of organic nature? ”

“ Heat, Light, and Electricity are emitted by inorganic matter when undergoing changes, as well as by organic matter. But there is manifested in some classes of living bodies a kind of force which we cannot identify with any of the forces manifested by bodies that are not alive,—a force which is thus unknown, in the sense that it cannot be assimilated to any otherwise-recognized class. I allude to what is called nerve-force. ”

“ We hear physicists of supposed sanity assert that all bodies contract in the direction of their motion and that their weight varies with their speed and the direction in which they are going. We read of "atoms of light," and of corpuscles of electricity which, though they are but a thousandth part of the hydrogen atom, are caught and counted and weighed one by one. ”

“ The most plausible suggestion yet made by this school is that a single omnipresent fluid aether fills the universe; that by various motions of the nature of eddies, the qualities of cohesion, elasticity, hardness, weight, mass or other universal properties of matter are given to small portions of the fluid which constitute the chemical atoms; that these, by modifications in their combination, form, and motion, produce all the accidental phenomena of gross matter ; that the primary fluid by other motions, transmits light, radiant heat, magnetism, and gravitation ”

“ Every particle that enters into the composition of a nerve, a muscle, or a bone, has been placed in its position by molecular force. And unless the existence of law in these matters be denied, and the element of caprice introduced, we must conclude that, given the relation of any molecule of the body to its environment, its position in the body might be determined mathematically. ”

“ The wants imposed by its surroundings create certain organs in science. The problems set to physicists by the engineer who wishes to facilitate transport or to produce better illumination, or by the doctor who seeks to know how such and such a remedy acts, or, again, by the physiologist desirous of understanding the mechanism of the gaseous and liquid exchanges between the cell and the outer medium, cause new chapters in physics to appear, and suggest researches adapted to the necessities of actual life. ”

“ So that motion is essential to matter, is equally indestructible, and is directly proportional to its mass. He held that light, heat, sound, and the excitations of smell and taste, are all the results of molecular motion or vibration, as are also the agencies of electricity, magnetism, and gravitation. ”

“ But our usual scientific custom of interpreting hidden molecular events after the analogy of visible massive ones enables us to frame easily an abstract and general scheme of processes which the physical changes in question may be like. And when once the possibility of some kind of mechanical interpretation is established, Mechanical Science, in her present mood, will not hesitate to set her brand of ownership upon the matter, feeling sure that it is only a question of time when the exact mechanical explanation of the case shall be found out. ”

“ The mode of approach to the problem, so far as science is concerned, is merely to ask if molecules exhibit in living bodies properties which are not to be observed amid inorganic surroundings. In the same way, in a magnetic field soft iron exhibits magnetic properties which are in abeyance elsewhere. The prompt self-preservative actions of living bodies, and our experience of the physical actions of our bodies following the determinations of will, suggest the modification of molecules in the body as the result of the total pattern. ”

“ We know that those atoms obey certain conditions which appear to be dependent upon the influences of motion, gravitation, heat, light, electricity, and chemical force. These powers are only known to us by their effects; we only detect their action by their operations upon matter; and although we regard the several phenomena which we have discovered, as the manifestations of different principles, it is possible they may be but modifications of some one universal power, of which these are but a few of its modes of action. ”

“ When a body loses energy by radiation, that energy is restored during an encounter; the way in which this energy is restored will profoundly affect the vibrations of the molecule, and hence the observed spectrum. I have endeavored by means of theoretical considerations, or speculations, as you may perhaps feel inclined to call them, to lead you on to an experimental law which I believe to be of very great importance. The spectrum of a molecule is in fact variable at any given temperature, and changes if the molecule is surrounded by others of different nature. ”

“ And thus, under a logical analysis, which must be admitted to be legitimate, it may be maintained that a body or chemical element resolves itself into a system of centres of force balancing each other at certain distances, and thus rendering the whole molecule or mass extended, as body is known to be. ”

“ The explanation of gravitation, therefore, falls to the ground if the corpuscules are like perfectly elastic spheres, and rebound with a velocity of separation equal to that of approach. If, on the other hand, they rebound with a smaller velocity, the effect of attraction between the bodies will no doubt be produced, but then we have to find what becomes of the energy which the molecules have brought with them but have not carried away. ”

“ The inert, passive atoms, incapable of guiding themselves, are ruled by vital force, which calls them, makes them come, takes hold of them, places and disposes of them according to certain laws, and forms this marvellously-organised body, which the anatomist and the physiologist contemplate with wonder. ”

“ And, for the same reason, they do not necessitate the using up of energy; a sensation has no mass and cannot be conceived to be susceptible of movement. That a particular molecular motion does give rise to a state of consciousness is experimentally certain; but the how and why of the process are just as inexplicable as in the case of the communication of kinetic energy by impact.
When dealing with the doctrine of the ultimate constitution of matter, we found a certain resemblance between the oldest speculations and the newest doctrines of physical philosophers. ”

“ For the nineteenth-century physicist, in displacing the "imponderable fluids" of many kinds—one each for light, heat, electricity, magnetism—has been obliged to substitute for them one all-pervading fluid, whose various quivers, waves, ripples, whirls or strains produce the manifestations which in popular parlance are termed forms of force. This all-pervading fluid the physicist terms the ether, and he thinks of it as having no weight. ”

“ Now our bodies are the scientific appliances which we use to make our common observations of the world. I am sure that no physicist would permit any one to enter his laboratory and hammer on his clocks and galvanometers whilst he was observing with them ”

“ I could add many other considerations, that would still further establish the difference between the physical and vital laws, and consequently between the physical and vital phenomena, and as a consequence from these, the difference of the general character and methods of the physical and physiological sciences. I could show, that inert bodies are formed at hazard, by juxta-position or a combination of their particles, while living bodies, on the contrary, exist in consequence of a certain function, viz. generation ”

“ When all these great truths respecting molar motion, or the movements of visible and tangible masses, had been shown to hold good not only of terrestrial bodies, but of all those which constitute the visible universe, and the movements of the macrocosm had thus been expressed by a general mechanical theory, there remained a vast number of phenomena, such as those of light, heat, electricity, magnetism, and those of the physical and chemical changes, which do not involve molar motion. ”

“ This is done by the force known as chemical affinity. Why do bodies attract one another in proportion to their mass and inversely as the squares of their distance? Why does a lump of sugar, held close over a cup of water, attract the particles of water into itself? Why does a piece of iron in the atmosphere attract to itself the oxygen? We are told it is because of gravitation, capillarity, and chemical affinity. How happens it that these forces have methods of action known as gravitation, capillarity, and chemical affinity? ”

“ The little mass of matter forming the chemical molecule, when it can vibrate freely, as in the gaseous state, emits a peculiar system of waves, a system which varies principally with the chemical species of the molecule, but which varies also, though rather secondarily, with the distance apart of the molecules and the nature and intensity of the forces that induce a vibratory movement in it. ”

“ In order to determine in what manner the electroscopic force is dependent upon the time when it is perceived, and on the place where it is elicited, we must set out from the fundamental laws to which the exchange of electroscopic force occurring between the elements of a body is subject. ”

“ Whence it appears that immense as is the difference in density between ether and ponderable matter, the waves of the one can set the atoms of the other in motion, when the successive impacts of the waves are so timed as to correspond with the oscillations of the atoms. ”

“ Light, they say, is dependent, heat conditional, electricity and magnetism more or less phenomenal, chemical affinity and molecular force mere modes or correlated forms of motion, and all-pervading life itself a mere postulate of the schools, or at best only the result of the dynamic force of molecules. ”

“ And thus there is perfect freedom of motion of the molecules or aggregate matter, although the grains which constitute the nuclei are changing at the rates expressed by 20 miles a second.
To be standing on a floor that is running away at a rate of 20 miles a second without being conscious of any motion, is our continual experience; but to realize that such is the case is, certainly, a tax on the imagination.
Such motion has all the character of a wave in the medium; and that is what the singular surfaces, which we call matter, are—waves. We are all waves.
9. The molecules are individuals. ”

“ We shall admit then the supposition that these two forces may be the same as those which regulate the planetary system, and that the molecules of bodies are subject to circulate round one another, so that each body, though it appears at rest, has really a certain quantity of motion, whose measure will be a function of the mass and the velocity of the molecules in motion. ”