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XXVII. LAWS OF THE DYNAMICAL ACTIONS IN MAN AND ANIMALS.* 



The following laws are based upon a very considerable number 

 of facts which I have observed or found on record in many books, 

 pamphlets and journals. I have collected these facts and I in- 

 tend to publish them in a special paper. 



I ought to say that many Physiologists, and more particularly 

 Fontana, Delaroche, Adamucci, Broussais, Buchez, Re'veille'- 

 Parise, J. Mueller, J. Paget and Carpenter, have pointed out the 

 existence of some parts of some of these laws. 



1. Nervous actions, muscular contraction, contraction of the 

 cellular tissue, the, discharge of the electrical apparatus of some 

 fishes, the galvanic current of certain organs, the galvanic dis- 

 charge which accompanies the muscular contraction, and probably 

 also the phosphorescence of certain animals and the ciliary move- 

 ments, are phenomena which cannot exist without being attended 

 with an organic waste which nutrition alone can provide for. 



2. The faculty of originating these phenomena has a tendency 

 to increase in direct ratio to the rapidity of the circulation of 

 blood, to its abundance, and to the amount of its nutritive ma- 

 terials, both general and special. 



3. During rest, i. e. at the time of the non-existence of these 

 phenomena, the tendency of such a faculty towards augmenta- 

 tion meeting with no obstacle, augmentation actually takes 

 place. 



4. The increase is much more rapidly effected when an action 

 has just been performed, than it is after a prolonged rest. 



5. Nutrition becoming altered in the tissues which remain in- 

 active for a long time, the faculty of producing the above-men- 

 tioned phenomena diminishes by degrees, and even finally 

 disappears when the structure of the tissues has been deeply 

 modified. 



6. The faculty of originating these phenomena increases in 

 direct ratio with the length of the rest, within certain limits ; 

 and when the latter are overleaped, there is a period when no 

 change takes place ; but afterwards the faculty decreases, on 

 the contrary, in direct ratio with the length of the rest. 



* I ought to say that these laws and the facts upon -which they are esta- 

 blished, have been the subject of many communications that I have made to 

 the Societc de Biologic, at Paris, in the year 1848. 



