THEORY OP RESPIRATION. 263 



be arrested, while the vital motions will not be instantly 

 stopped. 



The conductors of force, the nerves, will convey, 

 as before, to the heart and intestines the power necessa- 

 ry for their functions. This power they will receive 

 from the muscular system, while, as no change of matter 

 takes place in the latter, the supply must soon fail. As 

 no change of matter occurs, no lifeless compounds are 

 separated, neither bile nor urine can be formed ; and 

 the temperature of the body must sink. 



This state of matters soon puts a stop to the process 

 of nutrition, and, sooner or later, death must follow, but 

 unaccompanied by febrile symptoms, which, in this 

 case, is a very important fact. 



This example has been selected in order to show the 

 importance and probable advantage of an examination of 

 the blood in analogous diseased conditions. It cannot 

 be, in the slightest degree, doubtful, that the function as- 

 cribed to the blood-globules may be considered as fully 

 explained and cleared up, if, in such morbid conditions, 

 we shall discover a change in their form, structure, or 

 chemical characters, a change which must be recog- 

 nisable by the use of appropriate reagents. 



If we consider the force which determines the vital 

 phenomena as a property of certain substances, this 

 view leads of itself to a new and more rigorous consid- 

 eration of certain puzzling phenomena, which these very 

 substances exhibit, in circumstances in which they no 

 longer make a part of living organisms. 



