288 Magendie on Absorption. 



PHYSIOLOGY AND MEDICAL CHEMISTRY. 



Extract of a letter to the Editor, from Mr. Isaac Dooliiile, 

 dated Paris, JVov. 9, 1820. 



Dr. Magendie's Memoir on absorption has excited con- 

 siderable sensation among the facuhy here ; he has been so 

 obhging as to confide to me his manuscript, from which I 

 have made the accompanying translation, for your Journal. 

 Dr. Magendie has looked over my translation, and found it 

 correct, 



Art. IX. — Memoir on the Mechanism of absorption in An- 

 imals of red and warm blood; by F. Magendie, of Paris. 



Read before the Academy of Sciences, at Paris, on the 9th October, 1820. 

 Translated from the French, of the author's manuscript ; by I. Doolittle. 



Whenever any substance, whether liquid, gazeous, or 

 in a state of vapour, is kept for a space of time in immedi- 

 ate contact either with an external or internal surface of our 

 bodies, that substance is absorbed ; or, in other words, it 

 passes into the sanguiferous vessels, mixes and circulates 

 with the blood, and produces thus on our organs, effects, ei- 

 ther salutary or hurtful. 



This Physiological effect is especially remarkable in the 

 action of poisons : a single drop of hydro-cyanic (Prussic) 

 acid, placed on the tongue of a dog, causes death in a few 

 seconds, by being carried to the brain with the blood. I 

 have often produced effects equally prompt, by the applica- 

 tion of substances reputed much less powerful than Prussic 

 acid, by simply taking care to increase proportionally the 

 rapidity of the absorption. 



A result of this nature was well calculated to excite curi- 

 osity ; but our aliments. Our drinks, our medicines and even the 

 air itself, become useful to us only after being absorbed. We 

 contract, by means of absorption, many diseases, some of 

 which are even, dangerous. In a word, our very existence 

 is so closely connected with this phenomenon, that were it 

 to cease for a moment, deatli would be the almost immedi- 

 ate consequence. 



