PHYSIOLOGY OF ORGANIC LIVE. 119 



distinct from it, but co-existing and connate 

 with it. That the blood is alive, was considered 

 by SERVETUS, two hundred and fifty years ago, 

 (it made one of the charges preferred against 

 him before he was brought to the stake), a 

 well as by onr illustrious countrymen HERVEY. 

 and HUNTER. It is greatly to be deplored, for 

 the cause of science, that Mr. Hunter's active 

 and comprehensive mind should have been 

 destitute of those collateral branches of know- 

 ledge which are intimately connected with the 

 science of physiology : he saw truth, but he 

 saw it at an unapproachable distance, he saw 

 it in a fog, he saw 7 it through a glass darkly. 

 Although Mr. Hunter revived the exploded 

 doctrine of the vitality of the blood, he never- 

 theless supposed that this vitality was, as it 

 were, separated from the other parts of the sys- 

 tem ; that the blood had a life, sui generis, or 

 as he termed it, that the blood was an animal 

 within an animal ; imperium in imperio ; that 

 it possessed a sort of animation or power of ac 

 tion within itself, similar to muscular contrac 

 tion ; that it was by virtue of this power, that 

 bones were formed and renewed, and the va- 

 rious processes of secretion and of growth 

 carried on ; that, in fact, all the phenomena 

 which are produced by it proceeded from pow- 

 ers inherent in it. 



These false assumptions grubbed up the road 



