92-(62) PHYSIOLOGICAL SIGNIFICANCE OF VITAL FORCE. 



thoracic duct wliicli mounts upward along the ribs, to 

 that one which was taken from Adam for the body of 

 Eve ; and others thought the ta?nia ' ' passed through the 

 Avails of the blood vessels to the vesicular seminales." 



Logical deduction and scientific research, according to 

 the beliefs and methods of the age, permitted such doc- 

 trines to receive for a time the approval of popular as- 

 sent. But the spirit of inquiry was abroad in the world, 

 and the advance of embryological science soon gave the 

 demonstration that the doctrine of "included germs 11 

 had no foundation in fact, and so it was numbered with 

 errors of the past. 



Cuvier, who had with such ability compared the struc- 

 ture of animal organs and classified the facts of animal 

 life in their statical and anatomical relationship, was a 

 "vitalist, " and thought the vital properties of the body 

 a kind of entity — independent of physical or chemical 

 forces. 



He was followed by Bichat who sought, by a study of 

 the tissues which composed the organs, to learn the na- 

 ture of their functions or the dynamics of the living- 

 body. He found the twenty-one kinds of tissue existing 

 in the human body differing in function, though all were 

 endowed with two common properties — extensibility and 

 contractility. 



While he made phenomena depend on the properties 

 of matter, he nevertheless followed Stahl as a " vital- 

 ist.'* and claimed that vital and physical properties are 

 not only distinct from but antagonistic to each other. 

 " The vital pmperties preserve the living body by coun- 

 teracting the physical properties that tend to destroy it.' 1 

 Each class of phenomena is under distinct laws and the 

 conflict between them is active and constant. As one or 

 the other triumphs life or death results, and '•health and 

 disease are but the vicissitudes of the strife. 11 



Life is. by Bichat. defined as " the group of functions 

 that resist death.'* and is under the direct supen ision of a 

 special principle called at different times, "soul,' 1 "arch- 

 eon, 11 "psyche** or "vital force. 1 ' The philosophic theory 

 which postulated this undetermined factor was known 

 by the generic term of "vitalism, 11 which, under Stall! 

 ;ind Bichat. took accurate definition and deeply impressed 



