DR. PHILIP ON THE NATURE OP DEATH. 175 



by many experiments, the motion of the blood continues in these vessels for several hours 

 after respiration lias ceased, that is, as long as the blood can be drawn from the larger 

 arteries, — the cause of these arteries being found empty some time after death*. 



But this is not all ; the nerves of the ganglionic, as well as cerebral system, retain 

 their power for a certain time after the supply of that power from the brain and 

 spinal marrow has ceased -f-. The blood therefore still finds the secreting surfaces in 

 a state more or less capable of their functions, and the secreting processes, as I ascer- 

 tained by frequently repeated experiments, still go on J: nor is even this all, for the 

 brain and spinal marrow depend for the continuance of their functions on the same 

 powers as other organs ; and I found, by an experiment made on so large a scale 

 that it was impossible to be deceived in the result, that there is an actual supply of 

 nervous influence after the sensorial functions have ceased, that is, after what is 

 called death ^. 



SUCH is the natural decay of our frames ; but, as I have already had occasion to 

 observe, it is very rare for it to run its course uninterruptedly, particularly in civilized 

 life. It is almost always disturbed by adventitious causes accelerating it, or the 

 decay of particular parts, which, in consequence of the mutual dependence of the 

 various functions, disorders the whole. Although these causes are of infinite variety, 

 the laws of our frame are limited, and therefore many must operate on the same prin- 

 ciple. This leads us to believe that, however varied the causes of disease, it may be 

 possible to reduce their more ultimate effects to a few general heads. The exhaustion 

 of the sensitive system, for example, is of the same nature, whatever be the cause of 

 excitement ; and other forms of debility, affecting either the sensitive or vital system, 

 cannot be very various, however various the causes which produce them. We have 

 reason to believe that the endless variety of disease depends more on the peculiar 

 nature and functions of the different organs affected, and the peculiar manner in 

 which different causes affect them, than on any great variety in the states which con- 

 stitute the more immediate causes of death. However various the effects of disease, 

 there must be but a few points to which they all tend, because the last in the chain 

 of causes which produces what is called death, we shall find, is always the same, and 

 seated in the same parts. On these principles we may hope to reduce the effects of 

 the adventitious causes of death to a few heads, and thus to obtain such a view of 

 the subject as shall enable us to trace the nature, and consequently the operation, of 

 the causes of our decay in individual instances, and therefore to perceive more clearly 

 the operation of the means which tend to counteract them. In the prosecution of the 



* Experimental Inquiry, Part II. Experiments 66 and 67. 



t See the Observations on the Experiments, which prove the evolution of caloric from the blood after what 

 is called death, in the second part of the Inquiry just referred to, 

 t Ibid. Experiments 65, 69, 70. 

 § Experimental Inquiry, Part II. Experiment 65. 



