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CHAP. 11. Of the Mode in which Life it maintained. 



1. IN a case of death, while the blood is yet fluid, life is 

 not to be renewed by any means: we may inflate the lungs, or 

 restore the temperature, or stimulate, as it is called, the internal 

 organs, as the stomach and bowels; we may electrify or galvanize 

 the body ; but we shall not re-produce the phenomena of the living 

 state : or, lest some objection should be conceived to this example on 

 the supposition of an injury of the textures or a change of the fluids, 



2. We may amputate a limb, and inject or transfuse blood, 

 which is fit for nutrition, blood which is impregnated with air, 

 arterial blood into its vessels ; but the phenomena of life will not ensue. 



3. It is proved by these facts (and indeed by many others 

 which, with the inference, are sufficiently familiar) that life is not to 

 fa conferred by the only externals which support it, viz. by food, 

 the appropriate parts of which are contained in blood, and by air, 

 of which in its animal relations blood also appears to be the medium. 



4. But we find, that in cases of asphyxia, where life is not 

 extinct, the means above mentioned will succeed in restoring its 

 phenomena; and, what is still more unequivocal and pertinent to 

 our present purpose, we find that the means above mentioned do 

 support life, and that the defect of either is followed by death. 



5. Hence it appears that life is supported by the conjoined 

 influence of ail and food; and that neither, singly, can support it. 

 It is also to be inferred from these facts, that life itself operates 

 upon air and food to the end of its own perpetuation. 



6. This last inference is further proved by the fact that those 

 elements in air and food, which to the living principle furnish life, 

 have no natural affinity; that is, they are not found to unite and 

 produce the | henomena of the living principle spontaneously, how r 

 ever effectual their mutual exposure might be, but are always ready 

 to yield the principle when subjected to its own influence. But as 

 these materials, viz. those derived from earth and air, are found to 

 possess the elements, it is not, as hinted in the article on the Origin of 

 Man by Constitution, an extravagant conjecture to imagine that an 

 accidental union of the elements might, under peculiar circum- 

 stances, take place, though contrary to our experience of their regu- 

 lar tendencies. 



