Chapter XXI: Part I: c. i (3)

II. 1. The following are natural animal actions, which are frequently catenated with our daily habits of life, as well as excited by their natural irritations. The periods of hunger and thirst become catenated with certain portions of time, or degrees of exhaustion, or other diurnal habits of life. And if the pain of hunger be not relieved by taking food at the usual time, it is liable to cease till the next period of time or other habits recur; this is not only true in respect to our general desire of food, but the kinds of it also are governed by this periodical habit; insomuch that beer taken to breakfast will disturb the digestion of those, who have been accustomed to tea; and tea taken at dinner will disagree with those, who have been accustomed to beer. Whence it happens, that those, who have weak stomachs, will be able to digest more food, if they take their meals at regular hours; because they have both the stimulus of the aliment they take, and the periodical habit, to assist their digestion.

The periods of emptying the bladder are not only dependent on the acrimony or distention of the water in it, but are frequently catenated with external cold applied to the skin, as in cold bathing, or washing the hands; or with other habits of life, as many are accustomed to empty the bladder before going to bed, or into the house after a journey, and this whether it be full or not.

Our times of respiration are not only governed by the stimulus of the blood in the lungs, or our desire of fresh air, but also by our attention to the hourly objects before us. Hence when a person is earnestly contemplating an idea of grief, he forgets to breathe, till the sensation in his lungs becomes very urgent; and then a sigh succeeds for the purpose of more forceably pushing forwards the blood, which is accumulated in the lungs.

Our times of respiration are also frequently governed in part by our want of a steady support for the actions of our arms, and hands, as in threading a needle, or hewing wood, or in swimming; when we are intent upon these objects, we breathe at the intervals of the exertion of the pectoral muscles.

2. The following natural animal actions are influenced by solar periods. The periods of sleep and of waking depend much on the solar period, for we are inclined to sleep at a certain hour, and to awake at a certain hour, whether we have had more or less fatigue during the day, if within certain limits; and are liable to wake at a certain hour, whether we went to bed earlier or later, within certain limits. Hence it appears, that those who complain of want of sleep, will be liable to sleep better or longer, if they accustom themselves to go to rest, and to rise, at certain hours.

The periods of evacuating the bowels are generally connected with some part of the solar day, as well as with the acrimony or distention occasioned by the feces. Hence one method of correcting costiveness is by endeavouring to establish a habit of evacuation at a certain hour of the day, as recommended by Mr. Locke, which may be accomplished by using daily voluntary efforts at those times, joined with the usual stimulus of the material to be evacuated.

3. The following natural animal actions are connected with lunar periods. 1. The periods of female menstruation are connected with lunar periods to great exactness, in some instances even to a few hours. These do not commence or terminate at the full or change, or at any other particular part of the lunation, but after they have commenced at any part of it, they continue to recur at that part with great regularity, unless disturbed by some violent circumstance, as explained in Sect. XXXII. No. 6. their return is immediately caused by deficient venous absorption, which is owing to the want of the stimulus, designed by nature, of amatorial copulation, or of the growing fetus. When the catamenia returns sooner than the period of lunation, it shows a tendency of the constitution to inirritability; that is to debility, or deficiency of sensorial power, and is to be relieved by small doses of steel and opium.

The venereal orgasm of birds and quadrupeds seems to commence, or return about the most powerful lunations at the vernal or autumnal equinoxes; but if it be disappointed of its object, it is said to recur at monthly periods; in this respect resembling the female catamenia. Whence it is believed, that women are more liable to become pregnant at or about the time of their catamenia, than at the intermediate times; and on this account they are seldom much mistaken in their reckoning of nine lunar periods from the last menstruation; the inattention to this may sometimes have been the cause of supposed barrenness, and is therefore worth the observation of those, who wish to have children.

III. We now come to the periods of diseased animal actions. The periods of fever-fits, which depend on the stated returns of nocturnal cold, are discussed in Sect. XXXII. 3. Those, which originate or recur at solar or lunar periods, are also explained in Section XXXII. 6. These we shall here enumerate; observing, however, that it is not more surprising, that the influence of the varying attractions of the sun and moon, should raise the ocean into mountains, than that it should affect the nice sensibilities of animal bodies; though the manner of its operation on them is difficult to be understood. It is probable however, that as this influence gradually lessens during the course of the day, or of the lunation, or of the year, some actions of our system become less and less; till at length a total quiescence of some part is induced; which is the commencement of the paroxysms of fever, of menstruation, of pain with decreased action of the affected organ, and of consequent convulsion.

1. A diurnal fever in some weak people is distinctly observed to come on towards evening, and to cease with a moist skin early in the morning, obeying the solar periods. Persons of weak constitutions are liable to get into better spirits at the access of the hot fit of this evening fever; and are thence inclined to sit up late; which by further enfeebling them increases the disease; whence they lose their strength and their colour.

2. The periods of hectic fever, supposed to arise from absorption of matter, obeys the diurnal periods like the above, having the exacerbescence towards evening, and its remission early in the morning, with sweats, or diarrhoea, or urine with white sediment.

3. The periods of quotidian fever are either catenated with solar time, and return at the intervals of twenty-four hours; or with lunar time, recurring at the intervals of about twenty-five hours. There is great use in knowing with what circumstances the periodical return or new morbid motions are conjoined, as the most effectual times of exhibiting the proper medicines are thus determined. So if the torpor, which ushers in an ague fit, is catenated with the lunar day: it is known, when the bark or opium must be given, so as to exert its principal effect about the time of the expected return. Solid opium should be given about an hour before the expected cold fit; liquid opium and wine about half an hour; the bark repeatedly for six or eight hours previous to the expected return.

4. The periods of tertian fevers, reckoned from the commencement of one cold fit to the commencement of the next cold fit, recur with solar intervals of forty-eight hours, or with lunar ones of about fifty hours. When these of recurrence begin one or two hours earlier than the solar period, it shews, that the torpor or cold fit is produced by less external influence; and therefore that it is more liable to degenerate into a fever with only remissions; so when menstruation recurs sooner than the period of lunation, it shews a tendency of the habit to torpor of inirritability.

5. The periods of quartan fevers return at solar intervals of seventy-two hours, or at lunar ones of about seventy-four hours and an half. This kind of ague appears most in moist cold autumns, and in cold countries replete with marshes. It is attended with greater debility, and its cold access more difficult to prevent. For where there is previously a deficiency of sensorial power, the constitution is liable to run into greater torpor from any further diminution of it; two ounces of bark and some steel should be given on the day before the return of the cold paroxysm, and a pint of wine by degrees a few hours before its return, and thirty drops of laudanum one hour before the expected cold fit.

6. The periods of the gout generally commence about an hour before sun-rise, which is usually the coldest part of the twenty-four hours. The greater periods of the gout seem also to observe the solar influence, returning about the same season of the year.

7. The periods of the pleurisy recur with exacerbation of the pain and fever about sun-set, at which time venesection is of most service. The same may be observed of the inflammatory rheumatism, and other fevers with arterial strength, which seem to obey solar periods; and those with debility seem to obey lunar ones.

8. The periods of fevers with arterial debility seem to obey the lunar day, having their access daily nearly an hour later; and have sometimes two accesses in a day, resembling the lunar effects upon the tides.

9. The periods of rhaphania, or convulsions of the limbs from rheumatic pains, seem to be connected with solar influence, returning at nearly the same hour for weeks together, unless disturbed by the exhibition of powerful doses of opium.

So the periods of Tussis ferina, or violent cough with slow pulse, called nervous cough, recurs by solar periods. Five grains of opium, given at the time the cough commenced disturbed the period, from seven in the evening to eleven, at which time it regularly returned for some days, during which time the opium was gradually omitted. Then 120 drops of laudanum were given an hour before the access of the cough, and it totally ceased. The laudanum was continued a fortnight, and then gradually discontinued.

10. The periods of hemicrania, and of painful epilepsy, are liable to obey lunar periods, both in their diurnal returns, and in their greater periods of weeks, but are also induced by other exciting causes.

11. The periods of arterial hæmorrhages seem to return at solar periods about the same hour of the evening or morning. Perhaps the venous hæmorrhages obey the lunar periods, as the catamenia, and hæmorrhoids.

12. The periods of the hæmorrhoids, or piles, in some recur monthly, in others only at the greater lunar influence about the equinoxes.

13. The periods of hæmoptoe sometimes obey solar influence, recurring early in the morning for several days; and sometimes lunar periods, recurring monthly; and sometimes depend on our hours of sleep. See Class I. 2. 1. 9.

14. Many of the first periods of epileptic fits obey the monthly lunation with some degree of accuracy; others recur only at the most powerful lunations before the vernal equinox, and after the autumnal one; but when the constitution has gained a habit of relieving disagreeable sensations by this kind of exertion, the fit recurs from any slight cause.

15. The attack of palsy and apoplexy are known to recur with great frequency about the equinoxes.

16. There are numerous instances of the effect of the lunations upon the periods of insanity, whence the name of lunatic has been given to those afflicted with this disease.

IV. The critical days, in which fevers are supposed to terminate, have employed the attention of medical philosophers from the days of Hippocrates to the present time. In whatever part of a lunation a fever commences, which owes either its whole cause to solar and lunar influence, or to this in conjunction with other causes; it would seem, that the effect would be the greatest at the full and new moon, as the tides rise highest at those times, and would be the least at the quadratures; thus if a fever-fit should commence at the new or full moon, occasioned by the solar and lunar attraction diminishing some chemical affinity of the particles of blood, and thence decreasing their stimulus on our sanguiferous system, as mentioned in Sect. XXXII. 6. this effect will daily decrease for the first seven days, and will then increase till about the fourteenth day, and will again decrease till about the twenty-first day, and increase again till the end of the lunation. If a fever-fit from the above cause should commence on the seventh day after either lunation, the reverse of the above circumstances would happen. Now it is probable, that those fevers, whose crisis or terminations are influenced by lunations, may begin at one or other of the above times, namely at the changes or quadratures; though sufficient observations have not been made to ascertain this circumstance. Hence I conclude, that the small-pox and measles have their critical days, not governed by the times required for certain chemical changes in the blood, which affect or alter the stimulus of the contagious matter, but from the daily increasing or decreasing effect of this lunar link of catenation, as explained in Section XVII. 3. 3. And as other fevers terminate most frequently about the seventh, fourteenth, twenty-first, or about the end of four weeks, when no medical assistance has disturbed their periods, I conclude, that these crises, or terminations, are governed by periods of the lunations; though we are still ignorant of their manner of operation.

In the distinct small-pox the vestiges of lunation are very apparent, after inoculation a quarter of a lunation precedes the commencement of the fever, another quarter terminates with the complete eruption, another quarter with the complete maturation, and another quarter terminates the complete absorption of a material now rendered inoffensive to the constitution.

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SECT. XXXVII.

OF DIGESTION, SECRETION, NUTRITION.

I. _Crystals increase by the greater attraction of their sides.
Accretion by chemical precipitations, by welding, by pressure, by
agglutination._ II. _Hunger, digestion, why it cannot be imitated out
of the body. Lacteals absorb by animal selection or appetency._ III.
_The glands and pores absorb nutritious particles by animal selection.
Organic particles of Buffon. Nutrition applied at the time of
elongation of fibres. Like inflammation._ IV. _It seems easier to have
preserved animals than to reproduce them. Old age and death from
inirritability. Three causes of this. Original fibres of the organs of
sense and muscles unchanged._ V. _Art of producing long life._

I. The larger crystals of saline bodies may be conceived to arise from the combination of smaller crystals of the same form, owing to the greater attractions of their sides than of their angles. Thus if four cubes were floating in a fluid, whose friction or resistance is nothing, it is certain the sides of these cubes would attract each other stronger than their angles; and hence that these four smaller cubes would so arrange themselves as to produce one larger one.

There are other means of chemical accretion, such as the depositions of dissolved calcareous or siliceous particles, as are seen in the formation of the stalactites of limestone in Derbyshire, or of calcedone in Cornwall. Other means of adhesion are produced by heat and pressure, as in the welding of iron-bars; and other means by simple pressure, as in forcing two pieces of caoutchou, or elastic gum, to adhere; and lastly, by the agglutination of a third substance penetrating the pores of the other two, as in the agglutination of wood by means of animal gluten. Though the ultimate particles of animal bodies are held together during life, as well as after death, by their specific attraction of cohesion, like all other matter; yet it does not appear, that their original organization was produced by chemical laws, and their production and increase must therefore only be looked for from the laws of animation.

II. When the pain of hunger requires relief, certain parts of the material world, which surround us, when applied to our palates, excite into action the muscles of deglutition; and the material is swallowed into the stomach. Here the new aliment becomes mixed with certain animal fluids, and undergoes a chemical process, termed digestion; which however chemistry has not yet learnt to imitate out of the bodies of living animals or vegetables. This process seems very similar to the saccharine process in the lobes of farinaceous seeds, as of barley, when it begins to germinate; except that, along with the sugar, oil and mucilage are also produced; which form the chyle of animals, which is very similar to their milk.

The reason, I imagine, why this chyle-making, or saccharine process, has not yet been imitated by chemical operations, is owing to the materials being in such a situation in respect to warmth, moisture, and motion; that they will immediately change into the vinous or acetous fermentation; except the new sugar be absorbed by the numerous lacteal or lymphatic vessels, as soon as it is produced; which is not easy to imitate in the laboratory.

These lacteal vessels have mouths, which are irritated into action by the stimulus of the fluid, which surrounds them; and by animal selection, or appetency, they absorb such part of the fluid as is agreeable to their palate; those parts, for instance, which are already converted into chyle, before they have time to undergo another change by a vinous or acetous fermentation. This animal absorption of fluid is almost visible to the naked eye in the action of the puncta lacrymalia; which imbibe the tears from the eye, and discharge them again into the nostrils.

III. The arteries constitute another reservoir of a changeful fluid; from which, after its recent oxygenation in the lungs, a further animal selection of various fluids is absorbed by the numerous glands; these select their respective fluids from the blood, which is perpetually undergoing a chemical change; but the selection by these glands, like that of the lacteals, which open their mouths into the digesting aliment in the stomach, is from animal appetency, not from chemical affinity; secretion cannot therefore be imitated in the laboratory, as it consists in a selection of part of a fluid during the chemical change of that fluid.

The mouths of the lacteals, and lymphatics, and the ultimate terminations of the glands, are finer than can easily be conceived; yet it is probable, that the pores, or interstices of the parts, or coats, which constitute these ultimate vessels, may still have greater tenuity; and that these pores from the above analogy must posses a similar power of irritability, and absorb by their living energy the particles of fluid adapted to their purposes, whether to replace the parts abraded or dissolved, or to elongate and enlarge themselves. Not only every kind of gland is thus endued with its peculiar appetency, and selects the material agreeable to its taste from the blood, but every individual pore acquires by animal selection the material, which it wants; and thus nutrition seems to be performed in a manner so similar to secretion; that they only differ in the one retaining, and the other parting again with the particles, which they have selected from the blood.

This way of accounting for nutrition from stimulus, and the consequent animal selection of particles, is much more analogous to other phenomena of the animal microcosm, than by having recourse to the microscopic animalcula, or organic particles of Buffon, and Needham; which being already compounded must themselves require nutritive particles to continue their own existence. And must be liable to undergo a change by our digestive or secretory organs; otherwise mankind would soon resemble by their theory the animals, which they feed upon. He, who is nourished by beef or venison, would in time become horned; and he, who feeds on pork or bacon, would gain a nose proper for rooting into the earth, as well as for the perception of odours.

The whole animal system may be considered as consisting of the extremities of the nerves, or of having been produced from them; if we except perhaps the medullary part of the brain residing in the head and spine, and in the trunks of the nerves. These extremities of the nerves are either of those of locomotion, which are termed muscular fibres; or of those of sensation, which constitute the immediate organs of sense, and which have also their peculiar motions. Now as the fibres, which constitute the bones and membranes, possessed originally sensation and motion; and are liable again to possess them, when they become inflamed; it follows, that those were, when first formed, appendages to the nerves of sensation or locomotion, or were formed from them. And that hence all these solid parts of the body, as they have originally consisted of extremities of nerves, require an apposition of nutritive particles of a similar kind, contrary to the opinion of Buffon and Needham above recited.

Lastly, as all these filaments have possessed, or do possess, the power of contraction, and of consequent inertion or elongation; it seems probable, that the nutritive particles are applied during their times of elongation; when their original constituent particles are removed to a greater distance from each other. For each muscular or sensual fibre may be considered as a row or string of beads; which approach, when in contraction, and recede during its rest or elongation; and our daily experience shews us, that great action emaciates the system, and that it is repaired during rest.

Something like this is seen out of the body; for if a hair, or a single untwisted fibre of flax or silk, be soaked in water; it becomes longer and thicker by the water, which is absorbed into its pores. Now if a hair could be supposed to be thus immersed in a solution of particles similar to those, which compose it; one may imagine, that it might be thus increased in weight and magnitude; as the particles of oak-bark increase the substance of the hides of beasts in the process of making leather. I mention these not as philosophic analogies, but as similes to facilitate our ideas, how an accretion of parts may be effected by animal appetences, or selections, in a manner somewhat similar to mechanical or chemical attractions.

If those new particles of matter, previously prepared by digestion and sanguification, only supply the places of those, which have been abraded by the actions of the system, it is properly termed nutrition. If they are applied to the extremities of the nervous fibrils, or in such quantity as to increase the length or crassitude of them, the body becomes at the same time enlarged, and its growth is increased, as well as its deficiences repaired.

In this last case something more than a simple apposition or selection of particles seems to be necessary; as many parts of the system during its growth are caused to recede from those, with which they were before in contact; as the ends of the bones, or cartilages, recede from each other, as their growth advances: this process resembles inflammation, as appears in ophthalmy, or in the production of new flesh in ulcers, where old vessels are enlarged, and new ones produced; and like that is attended with sensation. In this situation the vessels become distended with blood, and acquire greater sensibility, and may thus be compared to the erection of the penis, or of the nipples of the breasts of women; while new particles become added at the same time; as in the process of nutrition above described.

When only the natural growth of the various parts of the body are produced, a pleasurable sensation attends it, as in youth, and perhaps in those, who are in the progress of becoming fat. When an unnatural growth is the consequence, as in inflammatory diseases, a painful sensation attends the enlargement of the system.

IV. This apposition of new parts, as the old ones disappear, selected from the aliment we take, first enlarges and strengthens our bodies for twenty years, for another twenty years it keeps us in health and vigour, and adds strength and solidity to the system; and then gradually ceases to nourish us properly, and for another twenty years we gradually sink into decay, and finally cease to act, and to exist.

On considering this subject one should have imagined at first view, that it might have been easier for nature to have supported her progeny for ever in health and life, than to have perpetually reproduced them by the wonderful and mysterious process of generation. But it seems our bodies by long habit cease to obey the stimulus of the aliment, which should support us. After we have acquired our height and solidity we make no more new parts, and the system obeys the irritations, sensations, volitions; and associations, with, less and less energy, till the whole sinks into inaction.

Three causes may conspire to render our nerves less excitable, which have been already mentioned, 1. If a stimulus be greater than natural, it produces too great an exertion of the stimulated organ, and in consequence exhausts the spirit of animation; and the moving organ ceases to act, even though the stimulus be continued. And though rest will recruit this exhaustion, yet some degree of permanent injury remains, as is evident after exposing the eyes long to too strong a light. 2. If excitations weaker than natural be applied, so as not to excite the organ into action, (as when small doses of aloe or rhubarb are exhibited,) they may be gradually increased, without exciting the organ into action; which will thus acquire a habit of disobedience to the stimulus; thus by increasing the dose by degrees, great quantities of opium or wine may be taken without intoxication. See Sect. XII. 3. 1.

3. Another mode, by which life is gradually undermined, is when irritative motions continue to be produced in consequence of stimulus, but are not succeeded by sensation; hence the stimulus of contagious matter is not capable of producing fever a second time, because it is not succeeded by sensation. See Sect. XII. 3. 6. And hence, owing to the want of the general pleasurable sensation, which ought to attend digestion and glandular secretion, an irksomeness of life ensues; and, where this is in greater excess, the melancholy of old age occurs, with torpor or debility.

From hence I conclude, that it is probable that the fibrillæ, or moving filaments at the extremities of the nerves of sense, and the fibres which constitute the muscles (which are perhaps the only parts of the system that are endued with contractile life) are not changed, as we advance in years, like the other parts of the body; but only enlarged or elongated with our growth; and in consequence they become less and less excitable into action. Whence, instead of gradually changing the old animal, the generation of a totally new one becomes necessary with undiminished excitability; which many years will continue to acquire new parts, or new solidity, and then losing its excitability in time, perish like its parent.

V. From this idea the art of preserving long health and life may be deduced; which must consist in using no greater stimulus, whether of the quantity or kind of our food and drink, or of external circumstances, such as heat, and exercise, and wakefulness, than is sufficient to preserve us in vigour; and gradually, as we grow old to increase the stimulus of our aliment, as the irritability of our system increases.

The debilitating effects ascribed by the poet MARTIAL to the excessive use of warm bathing in Italy, may with equal propriety be applied to the warm rooms of England; which, with the general excessive stimulus of spirituous or fermented liquors, and in some instances of immoderate venery, contribute to shorten our lives.

_Balnea, vina, venus, corrumpunt corpora nostra_,
_At faciunt vitam balnea, vina, venus!_

Wine, women, warmth, against our lives combine;
But what is life without warmth, women, wine!

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SECT. XXXVIII.

OF THE OXYGENATION OF THE BLOOD IN THE LUNGS, AND IN THE PLACENTA.

I. _Blood absorbs oxygene from the air, whence phosphoric acid changes
its colour, gives out heat, and some phlogistic material, and acquires
an ethereal spirit, which is dissipated in fibrous motion._ II. _The
placenta is a pulmonary organ like the gills of fish. Oxygenation of
the blood from air, from water, by lungs, by gills, by the placenta;
necessity of this oxygenation to quadrupeds, to fish, to the foetus in
utero. Placental vessels inserted into the arteries of the mother. Use
of cotyledons in cows. Why quadrupeds have not sanguiferous lochia.
Oxygenation of the chick in the egg, of feeds._ III. _The liquor amnii
is not excrementitious. It is nutritious. It is found in the esophagus
and stomach, and forms the meconium. Monstrous births without heads.
Question of Dr. Harvey._

I. From the recent discoveries of many ingenious philosophers it appears, that during respiration the blood imbibes the vital part of the air, called oxygene, through the membranes of the lungs; and that hence respiration may be aptly compared to a slow combustion. As in combustion the oxygene of the atmosphere unites with some phlogistic or inflammable body, and forms an acid (as in the production of vitriolic acid from sulphur, or carbonic acid from charcoal,) giving out at the same time a quantity of the matter of heat; so in respiration the oxygene of the air unites with the phlogistic part of the blood, and probably produces phosphoric or animal acid, changing the colour of the blood from a dark to a bright red; and probably some of the matter of heat is at the same time given out according to the theory of Dr. Crawford. But as the evolution of heat attends almost all chemical combinations, it is probable, that it also attends the secretions of the various fluids from the blood; and that the constant combinations or productions of new fluids by means of the glands constitute the more general source of animal heat; this seems evinced by the universal evolution of the matter of heat in the blush of shame or of anger; in which at the same time an increased secretion of the perspirable matter occurs; and the partial evolution of it from topical inflammations, as in gout or rheumatism, in which there is a secretion of new blood-vessels.

Some medical philosophers have ascribed the heat of animal bodies to the friction of the particles of the blood against the sides of the vessels. But no perceptible heat has ever been produced by the agitation of water, or oil, or quicksilver, or other fluids; except those fluids have undergone at the same time some chemical change, as in agitating milk or wine, till they become sour.

Besides the supposed production of phosphoric acid, and change of colour of the blood, and the production of carbonic acid, there would appear to be something of a more subtile nature perpetually acquired from the atmosphere; which is too fine to be long contained in animal vessels, and therefore requires perpetual renovation; and without which life cannot continue longer than a minute or two; this ethereal fluid is probably secreted from the blood by the brain, and perpetually dissipated in the actions of the muscles and organs of sense.

That the blood acquires something from the air, which is immediately necessary to life, appears from an experiment of Dr. Hare (Philos. Transact. abridged, Vol. III. p. 239.) who found, "that birds, mice, &c. would live as long again in a vessel, where he had crowded in double the quantity of air by a condensing engine, than they did when confined in air of the common density." Whereas if some kind of deleterious vapour only was exhaled from the blood in respiration; the air, when condensed into half its compass, could not be supposed to receive so much of it.

II. Sir Edward Hulse, a physician of reputation at the beginning of the present century, was of opinion, that the placenta was a respiratory organ, like the gills of fish; and not an organ to supply nutriment to the foetus; as mentioned in Derham's Physico-theology. Many other physicians seem to have espoused the same opinion, as noticed by Haller. Elem. Physiologiæ, T. 1. Dr. Gipson published a defence of this theory in the Medical Essays of Edinburgh, Vol. I. and II. which doctrine is there controverted at large by the late Alexander Monro; and since that time the general opinion has been, that the placenta is an organ of nutrition only, owing perhaps rather to the authority of so great a name, than to the validity of the arguments adduced in its support. The subject has lately been resumed by Dr. James Jeffray, and by Dr. Forester French, in their inaugural dissertations at Edinburgh and at Cambridge; who have defended the contrary opinion in an able and ingenious manner; and from whose Theses I have extracted many of the following remarks.

First, by the late discoveries of Dr. Priestley, M. Lavoisier, and other philosophers, it appears, that the basis of atmospherical air, called oxygene, is received by the blood through the membranes of the lungs; and that by this addition the colour of the blood is changed from a dark to a light red. Secondly, that water possesses oxygene also as a part of its composition, and contains air likewise in its pores; whence the blood of fish receives oxygene from the water, or from the air it contains, by means of their gills, in the same manner as the blood is oxygenated in the lungs of air-breathing animals; it changes its colour at the same time from a dark to a light red in the vessels of their gills, which constitute a pulmonary organ adapted to the medium in which they live. Thirdly, that the placenta consists of arteries carrying the blood to its extremities, and a vein bringing it back, resembling exactly in structure the lungs and gills above mentioned; and that the blood changes its colour from a dark to a light red in passing through these vessels.

This analogy between the lungs and gills of animals, and the placenta of the fetus, extends through a great variety of other circumstances; thus air-breathing creatures and fish can live but a few minutes without air or water; or when they are confined in such air or water, as has been spoiled by their own respiration; the same happens to the fetus, which, as soon as the placenta is separated from the uterus, must either expand its lungs, and receive air, or die. Hence from the structure, as well as the use of the placenta, it appears to be a respiratory organ, like the gills of fish, by which the blood in the fetus becomes oxygenated.

From the terminations of the placental vessels not being observed to bleed after being torn from the uterus, while those of the uterus effuse a great quantity of florid arterial blood, the terminations of the placental vessels would seem to be inserted into the arterial ones of the mother; and to receive oxygenation from the passing currents of her blood through their coats or membranes; which oxygenation is proved by the change of the colour of the blood from dark to light red in its passage from the placental arteries to the placental vein.

The curious structure of the cavities or lacunæ of the placenta, demonstrated by Mr. J. Hunter, explain this circumstance. That ingenious philosopher has shewn, that there are numerous cavities of lacunæ formed on that side of the placenta, which is in contact with the uterus; those cavities or cells are filled with blood from the maternal arteries, which open into them; which blood is again taken up by the maternal veins, and is thus perpetually changed. While the terminations of the placental arteries and veins are spread in fine reticulation on the sides of these cells. And thus, as the growing fetus requires greater oxygenation, an apparatus is produced resembling exactly the air-cells of the lungs.

In cows, and other ruminating animals, the internal surface of the uterus is unequal like hollow cups, which have been called cotyledons; and into these cavities the prominencies of the numerous placentas, with which the fetus of those animals is furnished, are inserted, and strictly adhere; though they may be extracted without effusion of blood. These inequalities of the uterus, and the numerous placentas in consequence, seem to be designed for the purpose of expanding a greater surface for the terminations of the placental vessels for the purpose of receiving oxygenation from the uterine ones; as the progeny of this class of animals are more completely formed before their nativity, than that of the carnivorous classes, and must thence in the latter weeks of pregnancy require greater oxygenation. Thus calves and lambs can walk about in a few minutes after their birth; while puppies and kittens remain many days without opening their eyes. And though on the separation of the cotyledons of ruminating animals no blood is effused, yet this is owing clearly to the greater power of contraction of their uterine lacunæ or alveoli. See Medical Essays, Vol. V. page 144. And from the same cause they are not liable to a sanguiferous menstruation.

The necessity of the oxygenation of the blood in the fetus is farther illustrated by the analogy of the chick in the egg; which appears to have its blood oxygenated at the extremities of the vessels surrounding the yolk; which are spread on the air-bag at the broad end of the egg, and may absorb oxygene through that moist membrane from the air confined behind it; and which is shewn by experiments in the exhausted receiver to be changeable though the shell.

This analogy may even be extended to the growing seeds of vegetables; which were shewn by Mr. Scheele to require a renovation of the air over the water, in which they were confined. Many vegetable seeds are surrounded with air in their pods or receptacles, as peas, the fruit of staphylea, and lichnis vesicaria; but it is probable, that those seeds, after they are shed, as well as the spawn of fish, by the situation of the former on or near the moist and aerated surface of the earth, and of the latter in the ever-changing and ventilated water, may not be in need of an apparatus for the oxygenation of their first blood, before the leaves of one, and the gills of the other, are produced for this purpose.

III. 1. There are many arguments, besides the strict analogy between the liquor amnii and the albumen ovi, which shew the former to be a nutritive fluid; and that the fetus in the latter months of pregnancy takes it into its stomach; and that in consequence the placenta is produced for some other important purpose.

First, that the liquor amnii is not an excrementitious fluid is evinced, because it is found in greater quantity, when the fetus is young, decreasing after a certain period till birth. Haller asserts, "that in some animals but a small quantity of this fluid remains at the birth. In the eggs of hens it is consumed on the eighteenth day, so that at the exclusion of the chick scarcely any remains. In rabbits before birth there is none." Elem. Physiol. Had this been an excrementitious fluid, the contrary would probably have occurred. Secondly, the skin of the fetus is covered with a whitish crust or pellicle, which would seem to preclude any idea of the liquor amnii being produced by any exsudation of perspirable matter. And it cannot consist of urine, because in brute animals the urachus passes from the bladder to the alantois for the express purpose of carrying off that fluid; which however in the human fetus seems to be retained in the distended bladder, as the feces are accumulated in the bowels of all animals.

2. The nutritious quality of the liquid, which surrounds the fetus, appears from the following considerations. 1. It is coagulable by heat, by nitrous acid, and by spirit of wine, like milk, serum of blood, and other fluids, which daily experience evinces to be nutritious. 2. It has a saltish taste according to the accurate Baron Haller, not unlike the whey of milk, which it even resembles in smell. 3. The white of the egg which constitutes the food of the chick, is shewn to be nutritious by our daily experience; besides the experiment of its nutritious effects mentioned by Dr. Fordyce in his late Treatise on Digestion, p. 178; who adds, that it much resembles the essential parts of the serum of blood.

3. A fluid similar to the fluid, with which the fetus is surrounded, except what little change may be produced by a beginning digestion, is found in the stomach of the fetus; and the white of the egg is found, in the same manner in the stomach of the chick.

Numerous hairs, similar to those of its skin, are perpetually found among the contents of the stomach in new-born calves; which must therefore have licked themselves before their nativity. Blasii Anatom. See Sect. XVI. 2. on Instinct.

The chick in the egg is seen gently to move in its surrounding fluid, and to open and shut its mouth alternately. The same has been observed in puppies. Haller's El. Phys. I. 8. p. 201.

A column of ice has been seen to reach down the oesophagus from the mouth to the stomach in a frozen fetus; and this ice was the liquor amnii frozen.

The meconium, or first fæces, in the bowels of new-born infants evince, that something has been digested; and what could this be but the liquor amnii together with the recrements of the gastric juice and gall, which were necessary for its digestion?

There have been recorded some monstrous births of animals without heads, and consequently without mouths, which seem to have been delivered on doubtful authority, or from inaccurate observation. There are two of such monstrous productions however better attested; one of a human fetus, mentioned by Gipson in the Scots Medical Essays; which having the gula impervious was furnished with an aperture into the wind-pipe, which communicated below into the gullet; by means of which the liquor amnii might be taken into the stomach before nativity without danger of suffocation, while the fetus had no occasion to breathe. The other monstrous fetus is described by Vander Wiel, who asserts, that he saw a monstrous lamb, which had no mouth; but instead of it was furnished with an opening in the lower part of the neck into the stomach. Both these instances evidently favour the doctrine of the fetus being nourished by the mouth; as otherwise there had been no necessity for new or unnatural apertures into the stomach, when the natural ones were deficient?

From these facts and observations we may safely infer, that the fetus in the womb is nourished by the fluid which surrounds it; which during the first period of gestation is absorbed by the naked lacteals; and is afterwards swallowed into the stomach and bowels, when these organs are perfected; and lastly that the placenta is an organ for the purpose of giving due oxygenation to the blood of the fetus; which is more necessary, or at least more frequently necessary, than even the supply of food.

The question of the great Harvey becomes thus easily answered. "Why is not the fetus in the womb suffocated for want of air, when it remains there even to the tenth month without respiration: yet if it be born in the seventh or eighth month, and has once respired, it becomes immediately suffocated for want of air, if its respiration be obstructed?"

For further information on this subject, the reader is referred to the Tentamen Medicum of Dr. Jeffray, printed at Edinburgh in 1786. And it is hoped that Dr. French will some time give his theses on this subject to the public.

* * * * *

SECT. XXXIX.

OF GENERATION.

Felix, qui causas altà caligine mersas
Pandit, et evolvit tenuissima vincula rerum.

I. _Habits of acting and feeling of individuals attend the soul into a
future life, and attend the new embryon at the time of its production.
The new speck of entity absorbs nutriment, and receives oxygene.
Spreads the terminations of its vessels on cells, which communicate
with the arteries of the uterus; sometimes with those of the
peritoneum. Afterwards it swallows the liquor amnii, which it produces
by its irritation from the uterus, or peritoneum. Like insects in the
heads of calves and sheep. Why the white of egg is of two
consistencies. Why nothing is found in quadrupeds similar to the yolk,
nor in most vegetable seeds._ II. 1. _Eggs of frogs and fish
impregnated out of their bodies. Eggs of fowls which are not
fecundated, contain only the nutriment for the embryon. The embryon is
produced by the male, and the nutriment by the female. Animalcula in
semine. Profusion of nature's births._ 2. _Vegetables viviparous. Buds
and bulbs have each a father but no mother. Vessels of the leaf and bud
inosculate. The paternal offspring exactly resembles the parent._ 3.
_Insects impregnated for six generations. Polypus branches like buds.
Creeping roots. Viviparous flowers. Tænia, volvox. Eve from Adam's rib.
Semen not a stimulus to the egg._ III. 1. _Embryons not originally
created within other embryons. Organized matter is not so minute._ 2.
_All the parts of the embryon are not formed in the male parent. Crabs
produce their legs, worms produce their heads and tails. In wens,
cancers, and inflammations, new vessels are formed. Mules partake of
the forms of both parents. Hair and nails grow by elongation, not by
distention._ 3. _Organic particles of Buffon._ IV. 1. _Rudiment of the
embryon a simple living filament, becomes a living ring, and then a
living tube._ 2. _It acquires irritabilities, and sensibilities with
new organizations, as in wounded snails, polypi, moths, gnats,
tadpoles. Hence new parts are acquired by addition not by distention._
3. _All parts of the body grow if not confined._ 4. _Fetuses deficient
at their extremities, or have a duplicature of parts. Monstrous births.
Double parts of vegetables._ 5. _Mules cannot be formed by distention
of the seminal ens._ 6. _Families of animals from a mixture of their
orders. Mules imperfect._ 7. _Animal appetency like chemical affinity.
Vis fabricatrix and medicatrix of nature._ 8. _The changes of animals
before and after nativity. Similarity of their structure. Changes in
them from lust, hunger, and danger. All warm-blooded animals derived
from one living filament. Cold-blooded animals, insects, worms,
vegetables, derived also from one living filament. Male animals have
teats. Male pigeon gives milk. The world itself generated. The cause of
causes. A state of probation and responsibility._ V. 1. _Efficient
cause of the colours of birds eggs, and of hair and feathers, which
become white in snowy countries. Imagination of the female colours the
egg. Ideas or motions of the retina imitated by the extremities of the
nerves of touch, or rete mucosum._ 2. _Nutriment supplied by the female
of three kinds. Her imagination can only affect the first kind. Mules
how produced, and mulattoes. Organs of reproduction why deficient in
mules. Eggs with double yolks._ VI. 1. _Various secretions produced by
the extremities of the vessels, as in the glands. Contagious matter.
Many glands affected by pleasurable ideas, as those which secrete the
semen._ 2. _Snails and worms are hermaphrodite, yet cannot impregnate
themselves. Final cause of this._ 3. _The imagination of the male forms
the sex. Ideas, or motions of the nerves of vision or of touch, are
imitated by the ultimate extremities of the glands of the testes, which
mark the sex. This effect of the imagination belongs only to the male.
The sex of the embryon is not owing to accident._ 4. _Causes of the
changes in animals from imagination as in monsters. From the male. From
the female._ 5. _Miscarriages from fear._ 6. _Power of the imagination
of the male over the colour, form, and sex of the progeny. An instance
of._ 7. _Act of generation accompanied with ideas of the male or female
form. Art of begetting beautiful children of either sex._ VII.
_Recapitulation._ VIII. _Conclusion. Of cause and effect. The atomic
philosophy leads to a first cause._

I. The ingenious Dr. Hartley in his work on man, and some other philosophers, have been of opinion, that our immortal part acquires during this life certain habits of action or of sentiment, which become for ever indissoluble, continuing after death in a future state of existence; and add, that if these habits are of the malevolent kind, they must render the possessor miserable even in heaven. I would apply this ingenious idea to the generation or production of the embryon, or new animal, which partakes so much of the form and propensities of the parent.

Owing to the imperfection of language the offspring is termed a _new_ animal, but is in truth a branch or elongation of the parent; since a part of the embryon-animal is, or was, a part of the parent; and therefore in strict language it cannot be said to be entirely _new_ at the time of its production; and therefore it may retain some of the habits of the parent-system.

At the earliest period of its existence the embryon, as secreted from the blood of the male, would seem to consist of a living filament with certain capabilities of irritation, sensation, volition, and association; and also with some acquired habits or propensities peculiar to the parent: the former of these are in common with other animals; the latter seem to distinguish or produce the kind of animal, whether man or quadruped, with the similarity of feature or form to the parent. It is difficult to be conceived, that a living entity can be separated or produced from the blood by the action of a gland; and which shall afterwards become an animal similar to that in whose vessels it is formed; even though we should suppose with some modern theorists, that the blood is alive; yet every other hypothesis concerning generation rests on principles still more difficult to our comprehension.

At the time of procreation this speck of entity is received into an appropriated nidus, in which it must acquire two circumstances necessary to its life and growth; one of these is food or sustenance, which is to be received by the absorbent mouths of its vessels; and the other is that part of atmospherical air, or of water, which by the new chemistry is termed oxygene, and which affects the blood by passing through the coats of the vessels which contain it. The fluid surrounding the embryon in its new habitation, which is called liquor amnii, supplies it with nourishment; and as some air cannot but be introduced into the uterus along with a new embryon, it would seem that this same fluid would for a short time, suppose for a few hours, supply likewise a sufficient quantity of the oxygene for its immediate existence.

On this account the vegetable impregnation of aquatic plants is performed in the air; and it is probable that the honey-cup or nectary of vegetables requires to be open to the air, that the anthers and stigmas of the flower may have food of a more oxygenated kind than the common vegetable sap-juice.

On the introduction of this primordium of entity into the uterus the irritation of the liquor amnii, which surrounds it, excites the absorbent mouths of the new vessels into action; they drink up a part of it, and a pleasurable sensation accompanies this new action; at the same time the chemical affinity of the oxygene acts through the vessels of the rubescent blood; and a previous want, or disagreeable sensation, is relieved by this process.

As the want of this oxygenation of the blood is perpetual, (as appears from the incessant necessity of breathing by lungs or gills,) the vessels become extended by the efforts of pain or desire to seek this necessary object of oxygenation, and to remove the disagreeable sensation, which that want occasions. At the same time new particles of matter are absorbed, or applied to these extended vessels, and they become permanently elongated, as the fluid in contact with them soon loses the oxygenous part, which it at first possessed, which was owing to the introduction of air along with the embryon. These new blood-vessels approach the sides of the uterus, and penetrate with their fine terminations into the vessels of the mother; or adhere to them, acquiring oxygene through their coats from the passing currents of the arterial blood of the mother. See Sect. XXXVIII. 2.

This attachment of the placental vessels to the internal side of the uterus by their own proper efforts appears further illustrated by the many instances of extra-uterine fetuses, which have thus attached or inserted their vessels into the peritoneum; or on the viscera, exactly in the same manner as they naturally insert or attach them to the uterus.