46 OF HEALTH AND HUMAN NATURE. 



notwithstanding that he fancies his victory over the defenders of 

 the blood's life so complete, that like that of the unfortunate 

 Carthaginian Dido, as he says, " in ventos vita recessit." It is as 

 easy to conceive the blood to be alive as the genital fluids. The 

 great asserter of the life of the blood is Mr. Hunter, * and the 

 mere adoption of this view of the facts relative to that fluid by 

 Mr. Hunter, would entitle it to the utmost respect from me who 

 find the most ardent and independent love of truth, and the 

 genuine stamp of genius, in every passage of his works. The 

 freedom of the blood from putrefaction while circulating, and 

 its inability to coagulate after death from arsenic, electricity, and 

 lightning, may, like its inability to coagulate when mixed mill 

 bile, be simply chemical phenomena, independent of vitality. 

 But its inability to coagulate after death from violent exercise, 

 anger, or a blow on the stomach, which deprive the muscles 

 likewise of their usual stiffness ; its accelerated coagulation by 

 means of heat ; perhaps its diminished coagulation by the ad- 

 mixture of opium ; its earlier putridity when drawn from old 

 than from young persons ; its freezing, like eggs, frogs, snails, &c. 

 more readily when once previously frozen (which change may be 

 supposed to have exhausted its powers) ; its directly becoming 



vis vitalis tribuenda vidctur, si unice a genitali utriusque sexus latice discesscris, 

 utpote cui jam arte quain uterino cavo exceptus et inlimc mixtus in foetus for- 

 mationem abit, vitales inhaerere vires formativas, prater alia paterni vultus in 

 nepotes propagata similitude), aliaque id genus phenomena hand infitianda de- 

 monstrare videntur." Comment. Soc. Reg. Societ. Gotting. vol. ix. p. 12. 



* The doctrine of the life of the blood was maintained by Harvey (Exercit 

 L. De Generationis ordine, &C.) Glisson (De ventriculo et intestinis) and Albinus. 

 (Blumcnbach's Commentat. 1. c.) I am surprised that Moses should be adduced 

 as authority for this opinion. When he says [I^viticus. ch. xvii. 11,14.) " For 

 the life of the flesh is in the blood" — " For it is the life of all flesh," he can 

 mean only that when it is withdrawn, life ceases, — that it is necessary to the 

 life of animals. He also says (v. 14.) "the blood of it is for the life thereof." 

 The construction which would make Moses assert that the blood is alire, 

 Involves the absurd assertion that the blood only is alive. 



