Note 153 — Chapter IX

Inquiry into the Laws of the Vital Functions.—Philosophical Transactions, 1815, 1822; Some Observations relating to the Functions of Digestion, ibid., 1829: On the Powers on which the Functions of Life in the more perfect animals depend, and on the manner in which they are associated in the production of their more complicated results, by A. P. W. Philip, M.D., F.R.S., L. and E.—The following extract from the last-quoted of Dr. Philip’s Memoirs, will give a general view of the conclusions of that eminent physiologist:—“With respect to the nature of the powers of the living animal which we have been considering, the sensorial and muscular powers, and the powers peculiar to living blood, we have found belong to the living animal alone, all their peculiar properties being the properties of life. The functions of life may be divided into two classes, those which are affected by the properties of this principle alone, and those, by far the most numerous class, which result from the co-operation of these properties with those of the principles which operate in inanimate nature. The nervous power we have found to be a modification of one of the latter principles, because it can exist in other textures than those to which it belongs in the living animal, and we can substitute for it one of those principles without disturbing the functions of life.

“Late discoveries have been gradually evincing how far more extensive than was supposed, even a few years ago, is the dominion of electricity. Magnetism, chemical affinity, and (I believe from the facts stated in the foregoing paper, it will be impossible to avoid the conclusion) the nervous influence, the leading power in the vital functions of the animal frame, properly so called, appear all of them to be modifications of this apparently universal agent; for I may add we have already some glimpses of its still more extensive dominion.”

Refer to Dr. Reid’s papers.