PHYSIOLOGY. 
CLASS II. 
Functions CON- 
TRIBUTING TO , 
the preserva-^' 
TION OF THE 
SPECIES 
( Liife of the Spe- 
cies, J 
' First Order. 'J 
Whether they re- I ('Geaeral difFerenees of sex. 
quire the co- ■'"•{Hermaphrodites. 
operation of I Generation. l^systems of generation. 
both sexes J 
({Pregnant uterus. 
1' History of the embryo, 
f Gestation ■< ; fetus. 
Second Order. 
Or belong exclu-< 
sively to the fe 
male 
■t 
coverings of 
the fetus. 
Parturition. 
f State of the uterus after par- 
turition. 
LLochia. 
t-SuCKLiNG 5 Action of the breasts., 
I Milk. 
[Infancy — Dentition — 
Growth of the J Ossification. ' 
LPuberty— Menstruation. 
('Sanguineous. 
, J Choleric. 
Temperaments'} Melancholic. 
LPliJegmatic. 
Man- tj- 
«ooi>.^ . Caucasian. 
I Races of man-J 
-I Malay. 
^American. 
Decline 
Body.... 
OF the 
Death. 
Putrefaction". 
f A^e of decrease. 
Old age. 
LDecrepitude.' 
To trace out completely all the subjects 
Which this table exhibits, woidd lead into a 
very wide field of discussion ; we shall, af- 
ter devoting a shott space to the considera- 
tion of those vital powers which animate 
living bodies, shortly consider the principat 
functions. 
Of the Vital Powers, Sensibility ami 
Contractility. 
Struck with the numerous differences 
that are observable between organized arid 
living, and inorganic matters, philosophers 
have admitted in the foririer a peculiar 
principle of action, a force which maintains 
the harmony of their functions, and directs 
them all to one object ; the preservation of 
the individual and of the species. No one 
at present doubts the existence of a living 
principle, which subjects the beings endued 
Witli it to a different order of laws from 
those which govern inanimate things, and 
whose principal effects are seen, in its re- 
moving the bodies which it animates from 
the agency 'of chemical affinities, to which 
the multiplicity of their elements would 
otherwise have rendered them prone j and 
in its maintaining their temperature at aiif 
uniform standard. All the phenomena ob- 
served in the living animal body might be 
ei ted in proof of this principle. The ef- 
fects produced on the food by the diges- 
tive organs ; its absorption by the lacteals ; 
the circulation of the nutritive juices in the 
blood-vessels ; the changes Which they un- 
dergo in the lungs and secretory glands ; 
the capability of receiving impressions fi om 
external objects, and the power of ap- 
proaching to, or avoiding them, all demon- 
strate its existence. But we prove it more 
directly by means of the two properties, 
with which the organs of these functions are 
endued. These are sensibilitj^, or the fa- 
culty of feeling ; the aptness to receive, 
from the contact of foreign bodies, more or 
less vivid impressions, which change the or- 
der of their motions, accelerate or retards 
suspend or terminate, them ; and contracti- 
lity, by which parts, when irritated, con> 
tract, act, or execute motions. 
By means of the senses, and of the nerves 
which are continued from them to the 
brain, we perceive or feel the impression, 
made on our bodies by external objects, 
Z 
