FUNCTIONS OF MAN. 69 



All these different properties of animal solids are independent of the 

 vital properties. They continue for some time after the total extinc- 

 tion of life in all its phenomena, and< appear to be connected either 

 with the physical arrangement of the molecules, the chemical compo- 

 sition of the substance in which they reside, or with peculiar properties 

 in the body that is made to act on the tissue. They do not, indeed, 

 seem to be affected, until the progress of decomposition has become 

 sensible. Hence, many of them have been termed collectively, by 

 Haller, vis mortua. 



2. FUNCTIONS OF MAN. 



Having described the intimate structure of the tissues, we pass to 

 the consideration of the functions ; the character of each of which is, 

 that it fulfils a special and distinct office in the economy, for which 

 it has in general an organ or instrument, or evident apparatus of organs. 

 Physiologists have not, however, agreed on the number of distinct 

 offices ; and hence the difference, in regard to the number and classi- 

 fication of the functions, that prevails amongst them. The oldest 

 division is into the vital, natural, and animal; the vital functions in- 

 cluding those of such importance as not to admit of interruption, cir- 

 culation, respiration, and innervation; the natural functions those that 

 effect nutrition, digestio.n, absorption, and secretion; and the animal, 

 those possessed exclusively by animals, sensation, locomotion, and voice. 

 This classification, with more or less modification, prevails at the pre- 

 sent day. 



The character of this work will not admit of a detail of every classi- 

 fication which has been proposed; that of Bichat, however, has occu- 

 pied so large a space in the public eye, that it cannot well be passed 

 over. It is followed by M. Richerand, 1 and many modern writers. 

 Bichat includes all the functions under two heads. functions of nutri- 

 tion, which concern the life of the individual, and functions of reproduc- 

 tion, which concern the life of the species. Nutrition requires, that the 

 being shall establish relations around him to obtain the materials of 

 which he may stand in need ; and, in animals, the functions that esta- 

 blish such relations, are under the volition and perception of the being. 

 Hence they are divided into two sets ; those that commence or precede 

 nutrition ; have external relations ; are dependent upon the will, and 

 executed with consciousness; and those that are carried on within the 

 body spontaneously, and without consciousness. Bichat adopted this 

 basis; and, to the first aggregate of functions, he applied the term 

 animal life, because it comprised those that characterize animality; the 

 latter he termed organic life, because the functions comprised under it 

 are common to every organized body. Animal life included sensation, 

 motion, and expression ; organic life, digestion, absorption, respiration, 

 circulation, nutrition, secretion, &c. In animal life, Bichat recognized 



and the latter in the same Journal for August, 1836. p. 276 ; Nov. 1837, p. 122 : and Aue. 

 1838, p. 302. 



1 Nouveaux Elemens de Physiologic, 13eme edit., par M. Berard, aine, edit. Beige, p. 42, 

 Bruxelles, 1837: or Amer. reprint of Copland's edit, of De Lys's translation, New York, 

 1836. 





