VITALISM. 23 



the proper conditions. And here, it is not only a 

 question of inferior beings; of plants that are pro- 

 pagated by sh'ps ; of the hydra which Trembley cut 

 into pieces, each of which generated a complete hydra ; 

 of the na'is which C. Bonnet cut up into sections, each 

 of which reconstituted a complete annelid. There is 

 no exception to the rule. 



Decentralization of the Vital Principle. — The result 

 is the same in the higher vertebrates, only the experi- 

 ment is much more difficult. At the Physiological 

 Congress of Turin in 1901, Locke showed the heart of 

 a hare, extracted from the body of the animal, and 

 beating for hours as energetically and as regularly as 

 if it were in its place. He suspended it in the air of 

 a room at the normal temperature, the sole condition 

 being that it was irrigated with a liquid composed of 

 certain constituents. The animal had been dead some 

 time. More recently Kuliabko has shown in the same 

 way the heart of a man still beating, although the 

 man had been dead some eighteen hours. The same 

 experiment is repeated in any physiological labora- 

 tory, in a much easier manner, with the heart of a 

 tortoise. This organ, extracted from the body, fitted 

 up with rubber tubes to represent its arteries and 

 veins, and filled with the defibrinated blood of a horse 

 or an ox taken from the slaughter-house, works for 

 hours and days pumping the liquid blood into its 

 rubber aorta, just as if it were pumping it into the 

 living aorta. 



But it is unnecessary to multiply examples. Every 

 organ can be made to live for a longer or shorter 

 period even though removed from its natural position; 

 muscles, nerves, glands, and even the brain itself. 

 Each organ, each tissue therefore enjoys an inde- 



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