8o4 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



ever ; and that every effect is produced from an action in tlie part ; 

 which action is produced by a stiniuhis upon the part which acts, or 

 upon some other part with which this part sympathizes so as to take 

 up the whole action " {loc. cit., p. 15r2). 



And Hunter is as clear as AYolff, wdth w^hose w^ork he was proba- 

 bly unacquainted, that " whatever life is, it most certainly does not 

 depend upon structure or organization " {loc. cit.y p. 114). 



Of course, it is impossible that Hunter could have intended to deny 

 the existence of purely mechanical operations in the animal body. 

 But while, with Borelli and Boerhaave, he looked upon absorption, 

 nutrition, and secretion as operations effected by means of the small 

 vessels, he differed from the mechanical physiologists, who regarded 

 these operations as the result of the mechanical properties of the small 

 vessels, such as the size, form, and disposition of their canals and aper- 

 tures. Hunter, on the contrary, considers them to be the effect of 

 properties of these vessels which are not mechanical, but vital. " The 

 vessels," says he, "have more of the polypus in them than any other 

 part of the body," and he talks of the " living and sensitive principles 

 of the arteries," and even of the ' dispositions or feelings of the arte- 

 ries. . . . When the blood is good and genuine the sensations of the 

 arteries, or the dispositions for sensation, are agreeable. ... It is then 

 they dispose of the blood to the best advantage, increasing the growth 

 of the whole, supplying any losses, keej)ing up a due succession, etc." 

 (loc. cit., p. 133). 



If w^e follow Hunter's conceptions to their logical issue, the life of 

 one of the higher animals is essentially the sum of the lives of all the 

 vessels, each of w^hich is a sort of physiological unit, answering to a 

 polyp ; and, as health is the result of the normal " action of the ves- 

 sels," so is disease an effect of their abnormal action. Hunter thus 

 stands in thought, as in time, midway between Borelli on the one 

 hand and Bichat on the other. 



The acute founder of general anatomy, in fact, outdoes Hunter in 

 his desire to exclude physical reasonings from the realm of life. Ex- 

 cept in the interpretation of the action of the sense-organs, he will not 

 allow physics to have anything to do with physiology. 



" To apply the physical sciences to physiology is to explain the 

 phenomena of living bodies by the laws of inert bodies. Now, this is 

 a false principle, hence all its consequences are marked with the same 

 stamp. Let us leave to chemistry its affinity, to physics its elasticity 

 and its gravity. Let us invoke for physiology only sensibility and 

 contractility." * 



Of all the unfortunate dicta of men of eminent ability this seems 

 one of the most unhappy, when we think of what the application of 

 the methods and the data of physics and chemistry has done toward 

 bringing physiology into its present state. It is not too much to say 



* " Anatomic Generale," t. i, p. 54. 



