1865.] restoring the Life of Warm-blooded Animals, fyc. 359 



process would be applicable after every other kind of suspension that was 

 unattended by mechanical injury of structure. 



Throughout the inquiry I have kept steadily in view a process for resto- 

 ring the development of force which is constantly and successfully being 

 performed. A simple process enough ! I mean the relighting of a taper. 

 I see in the taper as it is burning the analogue of living action. The com- 

 bustible substance having the force stored up in it circulating through 

 the wick as through so many vessels, becoming distributed in the presence 

 of incandescent heat so as to combine with oxygen ; then itself liberating 

 force, burning, and in the process showing spontaneous action, the analogue 

 of living action. 



From this analogy I gather, further, that if I could set the blood burn- 

 ing as it burns in life, after its natural combustion has been suspended, I 

 should relight the animal lamp, and that the redevelopment of force in the 

 form of animal motion, which is life, would be reestablished. 



But how in the case of the animal body is the light to be applied ? That 

 is the difficulty. 



Suppose that the taper or the fire were known only to us from their 

 spontaneous manifestations, would the task to restore their burning if 

 that had gone out be less difficult ? What philosophical process should 

 we adopt? We should first most naturally take fire from fire when 

 that were possible. But how, when that were not possible, should we pro- 

 ceed to obtain the spark for kindling that which we might well know would 

 burn spontaneously after kindling, the proper conditions being supplied ? 

 In such case we should most naturally look for the process by which fire is 

 spontaneously exhibited, and we should discover it in the friction of one 

 body with another ; in the friction of stone, for example, with iron. 

 Straightway we should imitate this and produce fire, and know how to 

 renew and perpetuate it. 



Again, in our observation of burning bodies we should see often that a 

 point of flame well-nigh extinguished would rekindle under a little addi- 

 tional friction of air, or an additional communication of matter that would 

 burn, and we should acquire an art of sustaining fire by these measures. 



Lastly, as we went on observing we should discover that the force elicited 

 in the combustion could be so applied as to set in motion almost endless 

 mechanism ; and we should learn, as we have learned, that however com- 

 plicate the mechanism, however numerous its parts, it takes all its motion 

 from the fire. 



The physiologist who would distinguish himself by learning the art of 

 resuscitation must, I have thought, place himself precisely in the same 

 condition as the primitive man who, in the matter of ordinary combustion, 

 would pass to the civilized man through the phases I have described ; and 

 it seems to me that, so far as we have progressed we have become acquainted 

 with three natural steps in the inquiry at least. We have discovered that 

 when the animal fire ig declining from want of air, it may be fanned into 



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