PLANT. 
equal degree, and, figuratively, perhaps 
literally, lubricate it with the oil of joy. 
More especially must we come to this con- 
clusion, while in conjunction herewith, we 
survey, in various species of the vegetable 
kingdom, as strong a contractility and irri- 
tability as are to be met with in the most 
contractile and irritable muscles of the most 
sentient animals. 
“ Yet could it even be proved that the 
vessels of plants are incapable of being 
made to contract by any power whatever, 
still should we have no great difficulty in 
conceiving a perfect circulatory system in 
animals or vegetables without any such 
cause, whilst we reflect that one half of 
the circulation of the blood in man himself 
is accomplished without such a contrivance ; 
and this, too, the more difficult half, as 
every one knows that the veins have, for 
the most part, to oppose the attraction of 
gravitation, instead of being able to take 
advantage of it. 
“ To argue, therefore, against the exist- 
ence of a circulation of blood, or sap, in 
plants, from the single circiunstance that 
we are not able to prove demonstrably their 
possession either of muscular fibres, or of a 
regular systole and diastole, is merely to 
argue ex ignorantid, and in defiance of facts 
and experiments which, if not absolutely 
decisive, are perhaps as decisive as the 
nature of the case will allow.” 
Having established this point the author 
proceeds to point out some striking resem- 
blances in plants to the economy and habits 
of animals. To these we can but briefly 
allude. 
Plants like animals are propagated by 
sexual connection : “ although among vege- 
tables we meet with a few instances of pro- 
pagation by other means, as, for instance, 
by slips and offsets, or by buds and bulbs, 
the parallelism, instead of being hereby 
diminished, is only drawn the closer ; for we 
meet with just as many instances of the 
same varieties of propagation among ani- 
mals. Thus the hydra, or polype, as it is 
mere generally called, the asterias, and’ 
several species of the leech, as the hirudo 
viridis, for example, are uniformly propa- 
gated by . lateral sections, or instinctive slips 
or offsets; while almost every genus of 
zoophytic worms is only capable of increase 
by buds, bulbs, or knobs. 
“ The blood of plants, like that of gni- 
mals, instead of being simple is compound, 
and consists of a great multitude of com- 
pacter corpuscles, globules for the most 
part, but not always globules, floating in a 
looser and almost diaphanous fluid. From ■ 
this common current of vitality, plants, 
like animals, secrete a variety of substances 
of different, and frequently of opposite 
powers and qualities, — substances nutritive, 
medicinal, or destructive. And as in ani- 
mal life, so also in vegetable, it is often 
observed that the very same tribe, or even 
individual, that in some of its organs secretes 
a wholesomealinient,in other organs secretes 
a deadly poison. As the viper pours into 
the reservoir situated at the bottom of his 
hollow tusk a fluid fatal to other animals, 
while in the general substance of his body 
he offers us not only a healtliful nutriment, 
but, in some sort, an antidote for .the venom 
of liis jaw : so the jatropha manihot, or 
Indian cassava, secretes a juice extremely 
poisonous in its root, while its leaves are 
regarded as a common esculent in the 
country, and are eaten like spinach leaves 
among ourselves. 
“ Animals, as we all know, are liable to 
a great variety of diseases ; so, too, ' are 
vegetables ; to diseases as numerous, as 
varied, and as fatal ; to jliseases epidemic, 
endemic, sporadic ; to scabies, pernio, ulcer, 
gangrene ; to polysarcia, atrophy, and, above 
all, to invermination. Whatever, in fine, 
be the system of nosology to which we are 
attached, it is impossible for us to put our 
hand upon any one class . or order of diseases 
which they describe, without putting our 
hand, at the same time, upon some disease 
to which plants are subject in common with 
animals. 
“ There are some tribes of animals that 
exfoliate their cuticle annually, such are 
grass-hoppers, spiders, several species of 
crabs, and serpents. Among vegetables we 
meet with a similar variation from the com- 
mon rule, in the shrubby cinquefoil, indi- 
genous to Yorkshire, and the plane-tree of 
the West Indies. Animals are occasionally 
divided into the two classes of locomotive 
or migratory, and fixed or permanent ; 
vegetables may partake of a similar classifi- 
cation. Unquestionably the greater num- 
ber of animals are of the former section, 
yet in every order of worms we meet with 
some instances that naturally appertain to 
the latter, while almost every genus and 
species of the zoophytes can only be in- 
cluded under it. Plants, on the contrary, 
are for the most part stationary, yet there 
are many that are fairly entitled to be re. 
