350 THE BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES AND MEDICINE. 



on the contrary, considers them to be the effect of prop- 

 erties of these vessels which are not mechanical but vi- 

 tal. " The vessels," says he, " have more of the polypus 

 in them than any other part of the body," and he talks 

 of the u living and sensitive principles of the arteries," 

 and even of the " dispositions or feelings of the arteries." 

 " "When the blood is good and genuine the sensations of 

 the arteries, or the dispositions for sensation, are agree- 

 able. ... It is then they dispose of the blood to the 

 best advantage, increasing the growth of the whole, 

 supplying any losses, keeping up a due succession, etc." 

 (I c. p. 133). 



If we follow Hunter's conceptions to their logical 

 issue, the life of one of the higher animals is essentially 

 the sum of the lives of all the vessels, each of which is 

 a sort of physiological unit, answering to a polype ; and, 

 as health is the result of the normal " action of the ves- 

 sels," so is disease an effect of their abnormal action. 

 Hunter thus stands in thought, as in time, midway be- 

 tween Borelli on the one hand, and Bichat on the other. 



The acute founder of general anatomy, in fact, out- 

 does Hunter in his desire to exclude physical reason- 

 ings from the realm of life. Except in the interpreta- 

 tion of the action of the sense organs, he will not allow 

 physics to have anything to do with physiology. 



" To apply the physical sciences to physiology is to 

 explain the phenomena of living bodies by the laws of 

 inert bodies. Now this is a false principle, hence all its 

 consequences are marked with the same stamp. Let us 



