SEVENTEENTH AND EIGHTEENTH CENTURIES 137 

 fact that Haller did not succeed in producing any term for tissue — muscles, 

 intestines, and other viscera are quoted as organs of the same category. 

 Moreover, the chemical basis of his muscular theory, the composition of 

 lime and earth, is extremely primitive. But in spite of all this Haller, as 

 a result of his work in this field, has won a brilliant name in the history 

 of science. 



His comfendiums of physiology 

 The compendiums which Haller produced still further extended the services 

 he has rendered to the development of biology. In the two works on general 

 physiology cited above he has summarized all the then known physiological 

 facts in a concise and easily accessible form. He starts by taking the simplest 

 component parts of the body, which are divided into solid and fluid. The 

 simplesi^elements of the solid components are, according to him, the fibres, 

 the composition of which has already been mentioned — lime and earth. 

 By cell-tissue, a word which often occurs, is meant what modern histology 

 terms adipose tissue. Haller considers the most vital part of the organism 

 to be the blood-vessel system; it represents the element that connects together 

 his whole physiological theory. In his description of each organ he always 

 starts with its blood-vessels. The more blood-vessels an organ has, the more 

 important it is. Of the thyreoidea he says that we do not know its fuxiction, 

 but it must be an important one, since the organ in question is so rich in 

 blood-vessels. Out of the blood are produced all the fluids of the body in 

 an entirely direct manner; thus he claims to have found direct passages be- 

 tween the arteries and the salivary ducts in the salivary gland; even the 

 lymph he believes to emanate from the arteries. The purpose of respiration 

 is to give the blood warmth. Haller was keenly interested in the structure 

 of the brain, but the results he attained are not to be compared with those 

 gained by Swedenborg at the same time on purely speculative lines. Haller 

 has only vague ideas on the cerebral cortex; the medulla is the most vital 

 part of the brain, and, in his view, the nerves are filled with a fluid which 

 gives rise to mental impressions. Towards many of the biological points of 

 dispute of his own time Haller tries to adopt a somewhat neutral attitude; 

 as, for instance, in the dispute between the ovists and the animalculists, 

 in which, however, he sided on the whole with the latter, since he held 

 that the spermium — " vermiculus seminalis," as he calls it — is the origin 

 of man, just as the larva is that of the fly. On the other hand, he describes 

 the follicle, or the egg, as he, like his contemporaries, calls it, as partaking 

 in the production of the embryo. As regards the question of preformation 

 or epigenesis, he is on the side of preformation. On the whole, he gives a 

 conscientious account of such views as he himself does not accept and dis- 

 plays in these works both creditable impartiality and a universal knowl- 

 edge of literature. He has taken special advantage of the latter quality in 



