Note 70 — Chapter IV · OF THE INFLUENCE OF THE DEATH OF THE HEART OVER THAT OF ALL THE ORGANS.
F. Gold translation
It should not be lost sight of, that all this discussion turns upon the application of a principle which is by no means proved: viz. that the different organs, in order to exercise their functions, require to be agitated by a partial or general motion. We have already made it appear, that as it respects the brain, this jarring of the whole mass, to which Bichat attributes so much importance, appears to be a circumstance purely accidental from the entrance of the arterial blood. The same may be said of the oscillatory motion produced in the other organs by the pulsation of the ultimate arterial ramifications.