112 Traces of Unity in 



cules, that life is concerned in antagonizing contraction 

 rather than in causing it, that this antagonizing in- 

 fluence itself might have a physical basis, that, in short, 

 vital motion might have to be regarded as a mode of 

 physical motion. 



And yet more did this conviction grow in strength 

 on the food supplied by two other facts to which my 

 attention was called at a later period. 



Of these two facts the first was brought to light in an 

 epileptic patient in whom it had been thought expedient 

 to try and cut short a succession of very violent convul- 

 sions by taking blood from the temporal artery. The 

 artery was divided when the fit was at its height, and 

 the blood escaped by jets in the usual way, but not of 

 the usual colour. Instead of being red, the blood was 

 black ; instead of being arterial, that is to say, it was 

 venous. The state during the convulsion was evidently 

 that of suffocation ; and, on this account, black unaerated 

 blood had found its way into the arteries, and was 

 being driven through them at the time. The case was 

 intelligible enough as regards the suffocation, for in this 

 state the simple fact is, that black blood does for a time 

 penetrate into and pass along the arteries ; but it was 

 not intelligible as regards convulsion, if convulsion were, 

 as it is assumed to be, a sign of exalted vital action. 

 I could connect such exaltation with increased supply of 

 red blood to certain nerve-centres, but not with the 

 utterly contrary state of things involved in the actual 

 circulation of black blood ; and, do what I would, I 

 could see no other conclusion than that which had 

 been already forced upon me by the history of the 

 poisoned rabbit, namely this, that the convulsion 

 pointed to a state of things which had to do with death 

 rather than with life, that, in short, this state of muscu- 



