Physiological Researches Upon Life and Death |
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according action activity affection alterations animal appears arteries asphixia become belongs black blood bodies brain carried cause cease centre cerebral cessation chymical circulation colour communication connexion consequently considerations considered continues contractibility contrary death depend destroyed direct distinguish entirely equally establish examine example excitement exercise exist experiments express external fact feeling fluid fœtus force functions ganglions habit hand heart hence immediately impression influence internal interruption kinds latter less lives locomotion longer lungs manner means mode motions muscles nature necessary nerves never numerous nutrition observed organs pain particularly pass passions perfection phenomena portion powers preceding present principle produced proportion prove quantity reason receive red blood relations remain remarkable respect respiration result seat seen sensations senses sensibility side sometimes soon species sudden suddenly surface texture tion touch veins vessels violent vital voluntary whole
Popular passages
Page iv - Co. of the said district, have deposited in this office the title of a book, the right whereof they claim as proprietors, in the words following, to wit : " Tadeuskund, the Last King of the Lenape. An Historical Tale." In conformity to the Act of the Congress of the United States...
Page iv - An Act for the encouragement of learning, by securing the copies of maps, charts, and books, to the authors and proprietors of such copies during the times therein mentioned." And also to the act, entitled " An Act supplementary to an Act, entitled, " An Act for the encouragement of learning, by securing the copies of maps, charts, and books, to the authors and proprietors of such copies during the time therein mentioned," and extending the benefits thereof to the arts of designing, engraving, and...
Page 37 - ... in 1800. Bichat's views seem so relevant to the present discussion that it may be appropriate to conclude with their quotation: "The action of the mind on each feeling of pain or pleasure, arising from a sensation, consists in a comparison between that sensation and those which have preceded it. The greater the difference between the actual and past impressions, the more ardent will be the feeling. That sensation would affect us most which we had never experienced before. "It follows, therefore,...
Page 113 - fundamental law of the distribution of vital powers . . . that when they are increased in one part, they are diminished in all the rest of the living economy...
Page 37 - ... frequency of their repetition, because the comparison becomes less sensible between their past and actual state. Every time that we see an object, hear a sound, or taste a dish, we find less difference between what we experience and what we have experienced. "The nature of pleasure and of pain is thus to destroy themselves, to cease to exist, because they have existed. The art of prolonging the duration of our enjoyments consists in varying their causes.
Page 66 - The one constantly varying in their intenseness, energy, and development, often pass with rapidity from the lowest degree of prostration to the highest point of exaltation...
Page 45 - ... immediate effects of the emotions and passions upon the organic system. He says : " Strict observation proves to us that the parts subservient to the internal functions are constantly affected by them, and are ever determined according to the state in which they may be. The effect of every kind of passion is to produce some change, some alteration in organic life. Anger accelerates the circulation, and increases, often in an incommensurable proportion, the effort of the heart ; it is on the force,...
Page 55 - ... excito-motory and reflex action, which, as we shall see, is the parent of this theory. But again, says he, " Perhaps the internal organs do not act upon the voluntary muscles by the intermediate excitement of the brain, but by direct nervous communications; how they act' is of no consequence, * * what is most essential, is the fact itself; what is evidently in support of it, is, on the one part, the affection of an internal organ by the passions; on the other part the determinate motion to this...
Page 65 - ... which bear the character of vitality, have been alternately the common base on which have rested all physiological explanations. These bases have been successively overturned, and among their ruins the facts alone remain which a rigorous experience of sensibility and mobility furnish. Such, indeed, are the narrow limits of the human understanding, that the knowledge of first causes is almost always denied to it. The thick veil which covers them, envelops in its innumerable folds whoever attempts...
Page 46 - Respiration has a no less immediate dependence on the passions ; those suffocations, that oppression, the sudden effect of profound grief, do they not indicate some remarkable change, some sudden alteration in the lungs ? In the long catalogue of chronic diseases, or of acute affections, the sad attribute of the pulmonary system, are we not often obliged to trace the different passions of the patient to discover the principle of his disease ? " In another chapter he shows the influence of the mental...
Bibliographic information
| Title | Physiological Researches Upon Life and Death Early American medical imprints, 1668-1820 |
| Author | Xavier Bichat |
| Translated by | Tobias Watkins |
| Publisher | Smith & Maxwell, 1809 |
| Length | 300 pages |
| Export Citation | BiBTeX EndNote RefMan |