68 



DIVISION III. 



PHYSIOLOGY. 



1. We have now to consider the various phenomena 

 seen to take place in the living plant, and by which 

 such living body is essentially distinguished from the 

 dead. These phenomena, or functions, as we now 

 term them, are manifestly separated from all other pro- 

 cesses going on in nature, by their being subject to 

 laws peculiarly their own, denominated laws of vitality ; 

 the evidences of such laws, taken separately, being 

 called vital actions, and which viewed in the aggregate, 

 constitute life. In entering upon this subject it is of 

 the utmost importance for the student to remember, 

 that in organized bodies phenomena are to be seen which 

 are neither produced by the powers of, nor act in obe- 

 dience to the laws of chemistry and physics ; and that 

 however readily electricity, galvanism, endosmose and 

 exosmose, &c., have been brought forward to explain 

 them, they are essentially defective in relation to the 

 first principles of the philosophy of living bodies as esta- 

 blished by the evidences of nature ; and that it were to be 

 wished that the remark of one of the most philosophical 

 writers on medicine in this country was more often kept 

 in view, as applicable to the study of all living bodies, 

 " that the first important step in medical science is the 



