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ORGANIC  FUNCTIONS
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ANIMALS
       BY JAS. MOULTRIE, M. D.,
PROF. OP PHYSIOLOGY IN THE MEDICAL COLLEGE OP THE STATE OP SOUTH-CAROLINA.
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    CHARLESTON, S. C:

BURGES & JAMES, PRINTERS, ^
     No. 143 Meeting-stkkkt.
          1844. 
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1
                            A


    CHEMICO-PHYSIOLOGICAL DIAGRAM;

Or, A subjective idea of the  Organico-Animal Functions rendered
  Objective.   By Jas. Moultrie, M. D., Professor of Physiology,
  in the Medical College of the State of South-Carolina.   (With
  a plate.)

  In the year 1827, in  an Essay on the "Uses of the Lymph,"
published in  the  American Journal of the  Medical Sciences,
among other things, attempted to be  sustained, will be found the
following Chemico-Physiological Doctrines.  1.  The lacteals and
lymphatics, do not constitute, as they are supposed to do, the ab-
sorbent system of the animal economy; they do not, as the ab-
sorbent theory supposes, remove from  the  organs  the  "cast off
molecules" of which they are composed, or carry out of the body
the "effete"  particles disintegrated by the act of the assimilative
function.  The one is engaged in the preparation and introduction
of chyle, and chyle only, into the blood; the other in elaborat-
ing an organizable product—a recrementicious secretion  destined
to unite with it  for objects of a  common and  nutritious nature.
2. The primary  object of the  lymph, and that for which it is
made to commingle with  the chyle in the thoracie duct, is the vi-
talization of  the latter  fluid.   3. The truly "effete" matter  of
the body is the  carbonaceous element of the venous blood,  to
which may be added  the urea  or azotic element of the urine.
Than these, we know of nothing to which that  term can be ap-
plied.  4.  The venous  and not  the  lacteal or lymphatic system,
therefore, is the "absorbent system," in any disintegratory  or effete
sense of the phrase.  5.  Nature, in  effecting the elimination  of
excrementitious matter from the constituency of the solid or fluid
parts, appears to aim at restoring to the physical  universe, the mat-
ter temporarily borrowed for subsistence, in a state of elementary 
4
     iphcity, or an approximation thereto; that is, the carbon as car-
  oon, the azote, as azote, and hydrogen, and oxygen, as hydrogen
  and oxygen.   The lungs,  she uses  as  one  medium of escape ;
  the kidnies, as a second ;  and, the skin,  as a third, &c.   Hence,
-  the carbonic acid gas of respiration ; the urea of the kidnies ; and,
  the aqueous  exhalations  of the skin, pulmonary  transpiration,
  and urine.
    These doctrines, enforced by other considerations,  and further
  amplified and elucidated, have been  regularly  introduced, in the
  course of lectures on Physiology, delivered by the Author, since
  the establishment of the College in 1833.  It is with no little satis-
  faction, therefore, that he has seen them lately advanced in Europe,
  under circumstances better calculated to establish their  verity.
  It is with the same satisfaction,  too, he perceives that his notions
 respecting the uses of  the lymph, are those which have been also
 adopted by Dr. Carpenter, in his work on the "Principles of Gene-
 ral and Comparative Physiology," and that the other points of the
 inquiry have also received corroboration, as well as greater exten-
 sion and verification, from the able  pen  of Prof. Leebig,  in  his
 more recent publication, on "Animal Chemistry."
    The  encouragement given  by  this last consideration, has in-
 duced him  to republish  them,   accompanied  with such  other
 remarks as   the  perusal  of their works have suggested,  or
 may have been the result of his own unaided reflections.  These
 are offered in the form of a propositional series,  accompanied
 with a monographic delineation, which, by furnishing a sensible
object for the attention to rest upon, may be found to conduce to-
wards their better understanding.   The principal figure represents
the  mechanism of the human oeconomy, as  conceived by the
mind of the author ; an abstraction, or mode of conception, of the
relative situations, connections,  and incident  influences and de-
pendencies, secondary or immediate, of the organic functions  It
is a visual  expression  of a mental type, aiming  to  separate' the
functional phenomena  from the material;  to disembody the spe-
cialized  powers of the organization, from  the accidents of struc
ture or superaded peculiarities of  anatomical form,  with  which
they  are  naturally associated, and  which, in  many  instances 
5
serve not only to complicate, but also to perplex, and often defea.
inquiry.
  The central figure is the heart; the loop to the right, the  pul-
monic vessels ;  and the loop to the left, the systemic.   Interme-
diate to the pulmonic  vessels,  are the  lungs, in  the site of  the
lesser capillary vessels; and in the same relation to the systemic,
is the site  of the function  of assimilation, or greater capillary.
Between the heart and assimilation,  in  the  track  of the arteries,
are  the  kidnies; and between assimilation and  the heart, in the
track of the veins, is the liver. The lungs and liver are depuratory
organs of the venous blood, the former of the general venous, and
the latter of the partial or abdominal; and the kidnies are depurato-
ryorgans of the arterial. From the seat of assimilation, or the gen-
eral capillary system,  arises the lymphatic system, proceeding to
join the lacteal, and  terminating in  the  heart; and from  the
alimentary  apparatus,  arises the lacteal, to pursue in turn  a cor-
responding course and termination.   From the alimentary tube,
arises in an analogous manner, the portal venous system, entering
into  the liver, and connecting itself, by  means  of  the hepatic
branches, with the general venous.
   Considering the heart as  a  centre, the  entire  outline may be
conceived of as  an imperfect circle, from which other results
may be  obtained as to form, by certain abstractions  and  altera-
tions.  If  we remove the heart, join the ends of the loops, where
they are separated by this process, and so arrange the linear por-
tion of the figure which remains, as to make each  part  of the
line equidistant  from any given point, we shall have, according to
the stage at which the transition  may  have advanced, fig. 1, or
fig. 2.   The organs of the life of nutrition, therefore, according
to this mode of evolving their relations, may be said  to constitute
intersceptive portions of the circle, and to be situated in various
parts of its circumference ;  their media of connection being the
arteries and veins, forming the compliments of the figure.
   The lymphatics are represented by a line on the left of fig. 3, as
a tangent  to a  circle  proceeding from assimilation; the lacteals,
bv another line, as a second  tangent, in the  opposite direction.
Prolonged till they meet below, at the point of convergence, as
in fig. 4, they represent the mechanism of the chylo-lymphatic ap- 
6
 paratus, which connects itself with the alimentary, by one of the
 lines, as in fig. 5, showing the relations of this last to the vascular
 system in general and its depuratory appendages.
   Fig. 6,  is an abstract from  the  principal figure, exemplifying
 the intermediate relations of the liver, to the  portal and general
 venous system ; designed to  show  its  special connection with
 the  former as well as the more depuratory  relations to the latter;
 that though it is a purifier of venous blood  in general, in the per-
 formance of that office it has a particular reference to  the abdo-
 minal.
   To the  depuratory  function of this latter organ—the liver—
 the  term  choleosis has been  applied, as well  as ureosis, to  des-
 ignate, in like manner, the analogous office  of the kidnies ; terms,
 which will be  employed in the  future progress  of this inquiry.
 Their introduction appears to be justified, not less by analogy, as
 in the use of the words chylosis, lymphosis, venosis,  &c, than
 their own  immediate  brevity, and other technical conveniences
 of scientific procedure.
  The propositional form has been  given  to the accompanying
 disquisition, for  a variety of reasons, of which  the  most impor-
 tant, interesting to be mentioned, is, that it  accords with what is
 intended to be the whole character of the inquiry—inquiritorial.
  1.  There are two  modes  of contemplating  and investigating
 the phenomena  of Jiving matter: One by considering  life in  the
 abstract;   the other in the concrete.   The abstract is ontological,
 and  regards that principle as an essence ; the concrete, is obser-
 vational, and views it in connection with,  or as an attribute  of,
 organization.  The concrete  is  regarded  as the  only  practical,
 and  therefore, philosophical mode of procedure, or that by which
 any available results can be obtained.
  2. Thus  studied, organized bodies are manifested in two com-
 parative states—the ante-excitatory state, and the joosi-excitatory.
 The former is exemplified by seeds, bulbs, tubers, eggs, hvberna-
 tion  of animals, and rest in general of the organs ;  the latter after
germination,   incubation, and  their  consecutive  increment  or
growth, transformations, and decay.
  3. The  passive  is the natural precedent  to  the active state
often alternating with it, in after existence ;  and the conversion of 
7
the organized bodies from the passive condition into the active o»
the result of the established relation, which has been instituted be-
tween stimuli and susceptibility; the latter  of which is inherent
to organization.   The stimuli, are caloric, air, light, water, elec-
tricity,  and nourishment; air and  nourishment being  those  in
particular which more especially relate to the  objects of our re-
search.
   4.  Philosophically  speaking, both states are living; though the
signification of the term, as it relates to each, is not identical.
   5.  Physiologists have not sufficiently consideted the philosophy
of these two states.   Their notices of life in general have, accor-
dingly, been indiscriminative or obscure.   Examples are evinced
in the writings of Rush, of America, and Brown, of  Scotland.
Rush, after defining life  to consist in motion, sensation,  heat, and
thought, says that in  its lowest grade it probably exists without
even  motion ;  from which it is to be inferred he probably had the
comparatively passive state  in view ; and, in another place re-
peats, after Brown, that it is a "forced  state;" which  probably
implies that both authors contemplated the  comparatively  active.
   6.  Remarkable examples of the passive, now and then occur,
showing the practicability of its continuance, in some instances,
and under certain circumstances, for  indefinite periods of time,
and the necessity as  well as  justness  of the discrimination.  In-
stance the hyacinth  taken from  a  Catacomb of  Egypt, which
grew vigorously, according to Prof. Linley, when planted in the
London  Horticultural Society's  garden; and the  "Mya Cariosa
and Purpurea," turned out-of the bed of the Erie Canal, 40 feet
below the surface, after  4000 years inhumation, which, according
to Prof. Eaton, were  alive, and eaten by the workmen who were
engaged in the excavation.   Were we to give an  exclusive ap-
pellation to the term, it should be to susceptibility in the abstract;
that essence being vitality, or life, actual or potential.
   7.  Two observations are deducible from the discrimination just
refered   to:  One, that  the  essence tends to self-accumulation,
within certain  indefinite limits,  in the first state ; the  other,  to
self-exhaustion, in the last.   Hence  the truth of a remark  of Cu-
vier, that death is the necessary consequence of life ; and the ne- 
8
.Option of spring to high Northern latitudes,  where summer so
 suddenly succeeds to winter.
   8. To sustain organic bodies in the state of comparative activi-
 ty, for their allotted duration, four constituent elements of animal
 compounds, viz.—oxygen,  hydrogen, carbon,  and  nitrogen, are
 made to enter and escape the body.
   9. Their mode of entrance is two-fold: through the channel of
 the  lungs by inspiration, and through the digestive  apparatus by
 alimentation.
   10.  Their mode of escape is multiplex : through the channel
 of the lungs  by expiration, the  skin  by diapedesis, the liver by
 choleosis, and kidnies by  ureosis.
   11.  They all enter in certain definite modes of combination, or
 in a given form;  and make their exit in an analogous manner.
   12.  The form of entrance by  alimentation,  is as solids and li-
 quids, constituting the carbonized and nitrogenized compounds of
 vegetable and animal food* and fluid matters of drink.
   13.  The form of entrance by inspiration, is  as  oxygen gas, of
 the atmospheric air.
   14.  The form of escape by the cutaneo-pulmonic channel is as
 elements in the state of water, a mode of combination  which is
 also shared by the kidnies;  by the liver, as bile—a carbo-nitrogen-
 ized product,  according to Liebig ; by the lungs, as carbonic acid
 gas; and by the kidnies, as urea—a nitrogenized product accord-
 ing to many.  These several modes  of  escape constitute what
 are recognized as the functional actions of  the  skin and lungs__
 the cutaneous and pulmonic transpiration ;  choleosis, haematosis,
 and ureosis.
   15. The actions or processes subservient, directly or second-
 arily, to entrance,  make  up the  nutritive or composing series  •
 those, in like  manner, inservient to escape,  the disintegrating or
 decomposing.
   16.  These two series—the composing  and decomposing—have
 relations, direct and mediate, to one of the functions in the track of
 the circle, not yet named—the function of assimilation.  The di-
 rect are to be regarded as  its  "proximate  causes," and partake
 themselves of the same composing and decomposing properties
 They are the immediate nutritive, and the  immediate disintigra- 
9
ting ; two opposite, but congruously related modes of action ; to*
gether composing and  constituting the generic function of assimi-
lation.   One  of  them is consequently directly subservient to life*
the other indirectly.
   17.  The  elementary constituents of animal compounds—oxy-
gen, hydrogen, carbon and nitrogen—show a tendency to escape,
in  a  form  approximative  of  ultimate simplicity; some effect-
ing it more perfectly than others.   Two of them appear to retain
that in which  they enter.   The air expired is an approach to the
simplicity  of  carbon-carbonic  acid gas; the urea  of urine, an
easily decomposable fluid, to the simplicity of nitrogen ; while the
watery parts of this same fluid, the sweat and pulmonic transpir-
ation, may be  regarded as an illustration of the last, in which the
oxygen and hydrogen, entering by alimentation, retain their pris-
tine mode of combination.
   18.  Two of them, in their escaping form—carbonic acid gas, and
urea—are poisonous as respects the tissues and organs, and cannot
for that  reason, be  re-assimillated.  They are anormally related
to  vitality,  or organic susceptibility, and need, therefore, to be
finally or instantaneously ejected.
   19. But these same two  elements, in the form just  noticed, are
the only known disintigratory  matter of  the  organization—the
only true, discoverable effete matter, actually "cast-off" from the
substance of the body  in notable quantity.
   20. Therefore, if the theory of absorption, which physiologists
have usually  held  of the  lymphatics  and  lacteals  be correct,
they should constitute the chief ingredients of the lymph and
chyle.
   21. Observation shows, however, this  not to be the fact; but
that they enter uniformly into the venous blood,  and are carried,
in part, to that portion of the arterial which is intermediate  to the
lungs  and  kidnies.
   22. Commencing at assimilation, the  site of the transforma-
tion of arterial into venous blood, or place of composition and
decomposition, the venous, carrying along with it the poisonous
elements just  mentioned, experiences three physiological intercep-
tions, by the liver, the lungs, and the kidnies; and is subjected  to
            2 
10
 the respective  actions  of those organs, consecutively ;  to wit,
 choleosis, hsematosis, and  ureosis.
    23.  By the first—choleosis—both elements are eliminated to-
 gether, in combination, as bile ; by  the second—haematosis—one
 of them alone, as carbonic acid gas ; and by the third—ureosis
 —the other, singly also, as urea and uric  acid of urine.
   24.  From this it appears that the liver and the lungs—choleo-
 sis and haematosis—are the depuratory organs and functions pro-
 per to the venous system, while the kidnies—ureosis—are the de-
 puratory organs and  functions of the arterial.   This consideration
 explains the peculiarity of their location, and the reason of their
 intermediation between  the radicles, as they  are  anatomically
 called, of the opposing "vascular trees;" one organ occupying the
 space appropriated to the  portal capillaries, the others the pulmo-
 nic, and the renal.
   25.  The remaining  capillaries constitute  the site of  assimi-
 lation ; the function,  par excellence, to which all of the rest are
 tributary.
   26.  The  functions enumerated, necessarily imply transforma-
 tion ; a term which denotes intestine change among the  particle s
 of organizable and organized matter ;  mutations of the  relations
 of the  chemical  elements; distruction of old,  and  reproduction
 of new animal compounds.
   27.  Assimilation and the other functions of the circle, are an-
 tagonistic not only as to locality, but modes of transformation;
 that being from arterial into venous, this from venous into arteria]
 blood.  Assimilation,  therefore, the end of the composing  series,
 and  beginning of the  decomposing,   is the point in  the  track of
that circle, where the relations of priority and sequence, as they
 severally apply to each, are reversed.
  28. Assimilation, however, is a generic and not a specific func-
tion ; appearing  to be the basic element of several  subordinate
functions, or actions ; some constituting a composing division or
series,  others a decomposing.  The  former include nutrition  pro-
per, secretion, and lymphosis ; the latter colorification, excretion,
and venosis.   These,  as well as the depuratory, require re-ex-
amination and investigation.  We shall dwell, somewhat discur-
sively, perhaps, upon each in turn. 
11
  29. Assimilation,  generically  understood, is  the function  in
which the animal may be said, organically  and emphatically,  to
live.  And, therefore it is, that the entering and escaping  pro-
cesses, are, more or less directly or indirectly, subordinate to its
transformations.   Its laboratory, as we have said, is the systemic
capillary system ; the arterial blood is its material of elaboration;
and the venous its repository of unused or disintegrated results.
   30. The chemical constituents of the animal  compounds, en-
tering and escaping the body, derive their utility from  their rela-
tion to assimilation; some of them  having for their aim the main-
tenance of one or more of the actions or functions of one or both
of  the series, and some another.   According to  Liebig, they are
intended for a two-fold purpose—nutrition and respiration.  The
last is a remote or consecutive relation, having  a reference  to
their  ultimate escape, after serving the more immediate purpose
of  their entrance:  their immediate or direct, is,  to assimilation.
The  oxygen  of  inspiration goes, for example,  to administer, in
common with the carbonaceous portions of the food, immediately
to calorification ;  the nitrogenized portions of the same  alimenta-
ry  mass,  and  whatever it  also  may  contain of  hydrogen,
to  nutrition proper; and the oxygen and hydrogen, constitu-
ting the watery  portions of the  same—drinks—to serve  as a
means of  solution and  conduction  to the animal compounds con-
tained in the circulating fluids of the body, as well as to preserve
the fluidity of the secretions and excretions.  Hence the mainte-
nance throughout, of their original form  of entrance; the inap-
plicability, in  a vital sense, to them, of the  terms loss  or gain;
and probability, in fact, of their absolutely purely inorganic char-
acter. Liebig in reference to water, remarks, thatit, as  wall as fat,
is destitute of nitrogen, and they are, as his theory intimates, for
that reason, amorphous or unorganized.
   31.  We  need a better analysis than has yet been given of the
phenomena  of this function—assimilation.   Physiologists  have
not given us a sufficiently clear or distinct  exposition of its com-
ponent elements.   They do not seem to have determinate  con-
ceptions of the  agreements  and differences of nutrition proper,
secretion,  excretion, and their other  associate  functions.  We
shall for this reason,  attempt  one.   According to the  principles 
12
thus far unfolded, and still further  to be explained,  they differ in
a three  fold manner:  1, as to elimination ; 2. as to organization ;
and, 3.  as to use.
  32. Elimination is two-fold: immediate and consecutive.  The
elimination of carbonic acid gas, at the seat of assimilation, or the
systemic capillary system, where it is formed by the immediate
union of the oxygen of respiration and  carbonaceous element of
the food, is immediate elimination;  its escape from the lungs, by the
agency of respiration—a subsequent act—consecutive elimination.
  33. Organization is  also two-fold:  diffused and specialized.—
The diffused is that wherein  all of the functions are performed in
common: the  specialized, wherein  parts are separated  or  set
apart, isolated as it were, for the performance of particular offices,
as for example, an organ for a function.
  34.  Use is two-fold also:  proximate, and  sequential.   The  de-
carbonization, and denitrogenation,  of the venous  blood,  is  the
proximate use  of  choleosis;  the use which the bile subsequently
subserves, as it respects Respiration, according to Liebig, or Ali-
mentation, according to Tiedemann  and Gmelin, its sequential.
  35. Nutrition,  with respect to  the first—elimination—is one.
It knows no destinction of  immediateness  and  consecutiveness.
It is wholly immediate.   It  is,  with respect to  the second—or-
ganization—both diffused and specialized: it is  specialized in as
much as it is a property of the systemic capillaries,  separate from
the other capillaries;  and unspecialized or diffused,  as it occupies
the same system of vessels in common with all of the other func-
tions of the assimilative series.   And with respect  to the  third—
use—it is proximate as well  sequential.   Its proximate, is the im-
mediate reproduction of the  particles  disintegrated from the  tis-
sues and organs, or further developments of growth; its  sequen-
tial, the contribution of elements which it furnishes to calorification,
venosis, and the excretions.
   36.  Secretion  also  has no  distinction of immediateness  and
consecutiveness.   Like nutrition these are a unit.   So  also with
respect to diffusion and specialization.   It is diffused, in the sense
in  which  nutrition  is diffused, having  a common seat in  the
systemic capillaries; and specialized in  being isolated from  the
other capillaries.  It also has  a more particular specialization__ 
13
a specialization in a more technical sense of the term ; being re-
stricted to the serous  and synovial  membranes,  pancreas,  and
salivary glands.  So also, as respects proximity  and  sequence.
Its proximate use is various; the serous and synovial having for
their object the avoidance of friction between surfaces exposed to
friction; the pancreatic and  salivary objects  connected with the
ends of alimentation.  Its sequential, the supply of the materials
immediately composing the excretions,  such  as  the albuminous
ingredients of the cutaneous and pulmonic exhalations, the  folli-
cular, &c.
   37.  Excretion, as respects elimination, is of a two-fold charac-
ter : immediate and consecutive.  Immediate elimination consists
in the seperation of the effete particles at the seat of assimilation,
from the places which they previously occupied in the tissues and
organs; consecutive in  their  after  escape  from the pulmonic
cells.   The immediate, is a diffused or unspecialized  function co-
extensive, and consentaneous, as to activity in general, with nu-
trition proper ; the consecutive, a specialized one, the particular
organic provisions or conditions for which are, the liver, the  kid-
nies, the lungs,  the cutaneous  and pulmonary integumentation,
&c.  The first  and  the  third—the  liver and  the  lungs—the
haematic and ureotic—have  no distinction of proximate and se-
quential use; the object of both being that of instantaneous or
final ejectment.  The proximate  use of the  cutaneous and pul-
monic, is the softening of the integumentation of the former, with
a view to the perfecting of the relative functions, and the regu-
lation of the animal temperature by both;  its sequential, ultimate
freedom  from unassimilative  matter.    The  proximate  of the
second—the liver—choleotic—is, if the theory of the re-absorption
of the bile, by Liebig be correct, the  maintenance of  haematosis
and ureosis.
   38.  Lymphosis, another of the assimilative series,  viewed by
the  light  which  these considerations  cast  upon  the subject, is a
composing,  and  not a decomposing function.   It is allied to the
secretions, and not to the excretions; showing, in the derivation
of the  materials which compose the lymph, and  in its situa-
tion as a function, a close resemblance to the  pancreatic and
salivary ;  since  all are  products of  the  arterial blood—all are 
14
composed of nitrogenized elements held in solution or suspension
in water—and all,  for  that  reason,  capable  of  re-assimilation.
Lymph, in fact, is a nitrogenized animal compound, free from ad-
mixture with carbonaceous elements, and therefore, not as, "water
and fat are," amorphous or unorganized, but at least, the reverse of
that which they are represented to be.  It, in an especial manner, is
void of carbonic acid and urea—the ingredients so prejudicial or
dangerous to assimilation or organic life, the  disintegratory pro-
ducts of venosis ; but is composed of elements identical with the
"liquor sanguinis"—of "water  and albumen—and for that reason,
as well as the foregoing, does not require to undergo  depuration.
Its return to the venous  blood, at  the  heart, must  have other
objects in view than its own immediate purfication: and this is man-
ifest not less from what has been  said,  than inferences deducible
from a due consideration of the apparatus, and  the experimental
tests,  to which it has by many been subjected.   The apparatus is
a specialized one, denoting definiteness of purpose, and  is com-
pository rather than decompository; whilst experience shows that
it uniformly refuses admittance to whatever is effete,  foreign,  or
adventitious, the exceptions, if any, proving that  they are anor-
mal  results,  or justifying the belief that their entrance is circui-
tous,  rather than immediate or direct.  Commonality of function,
as a  philosophical deduction,  can only be infered where there
appears commonality of  organization;  as specialization  also may
be from an  antagonistic consideration.  Carpenter says, in his
Principles of General and Comparative Physiology, published in
London, in  1839,* it may  be presumed the admixture of this
highly elaborated fluid with the crude matter of the clyle  has  an
important effect in  assimilating the latter, and in preparing, it to
enter the general current of the  circulation; an opinion in which
he will  find himself anticipated, as stated in the  preliminary, in
the Essay  before referred to, in the  volume  of the American
Journal of the Medical Sciences.
  39. Venosis, on  the other hand, is a disintegratory power, of
the decomposing series:  and the evidence of this is the reverse of
the preceding.  The veins alone, so far as experiment shows are,
'Page 2S3, Sec. 360. 
                              i5

the vessels which do receive, accommodate, and conduct to their
own appropriate emunctories or depuratory organs, the  compo-
nents truly inimical and therefore entitled to be considered "effete."
They alone, take up, indiscriminately, the varied and multifarious
articles, with which their absorbent powers, together with those
of the -lymphatics and lacteals, have been  so  repeatedly tested.
They alone contain the unassimilable products of decomposition,
actually recognizable as such—the carbonic acid and urea.  They
alone, are the real  absorbents, in the "effete" signification of the
term ; the "scavingers," as the lymphatics are wont, in a fallacious
sense, to be called, whose duty it is to remove from the body the
"cast-off molecules" of the tissues and the  organs.
  40. Calorification, belongs, in like manner, to the decomposing
series.   It is closely  related to venosis ;  supplying this last, in
part, with the very materials, which render the venous blood  so
decidedly hostile to the life of nutrition.  Its  sensible manifesta-
tion, is a result of the detachment of the carbonaceous matter of
assimilation, as illustrated in the labours of Liebig, by the decom-
posing agency of the  oxygen  of respiration.  Its  proximate  or
eliminary effect, therefore, is the removal, from the seat of assim-
ilation, of the particles of  matter  which have become inutile or
deadly from  use.                                     •<
  41. These expositions, as far as we have advanced, furnish an
explanation of the reason of the ordinal arrangement of the de-
puratory organs;  their being placed along  the circumference  of
a circle  as  exemplified  in  the diagram.   The  following  is the
order of position: 1. Choleosis; 2. Hsematosis;  and 3.  Ureosis.
  42. The  subserviency of choleosis  to haematosis and ureosis,
which-has been already mentioned while  teating of their proxi-
mate and sequential uses, together with many other considerations
of a  physical and anatomical  nature, still further  explain  the
cause  of its intermediation, as a  specialized  function,  between
assimilation  as  it  were,  in the  rear,  and these two  latter in
the front.  It is enabled, by this relation, to intercept the venous
blood of the abdominal viscera ; to eliminate from it the bile ; and
afterwards to transmit it to the general venous system, to be sub-
jected to the  laws by which  it is in turn controlled.  Choleosis, 
16
therefore, has a special relation to the alimentary function : the
liver, is the depuratory organ of  the  digestive apparatus.   Bile,
however, the product of  choleosis, is  a carbo-nitrogenized com-
pound,  composed as chemical analysis  explains, of the  basic
elements of the  matter of haematosis, as well as of ureosis.   It
combines, for that reason, the functional attributes of each, and
identifies itself with them in some common use or end.
  43. Its analogy to haematosis, as  a  de-carbonizing process, was
remaked by Tiedemann and Gmelin, in their theory of the Uses of
the Liver ; and since the publication  of their  reflections  upon  it,
the view has been favorably received by Physiologists.   It has
latterly met with  a similar reception,  as well as further corrobor-
ation, from Liebig.   His ideas, however, of the sequential use of
the bile, differ from theirs.  They consider it as a co-essential  of
Alimentation ; he, as having ulterior references to Respiration.  In
the view of the former, therefore, its natural outlet to the body is
the intestinal canal;  in tljat of the latter, the respiratory channels.
In that  instance, the  form of  its elimination  is as  bile ; in  this  as
carbonic acid gas.  Neither of these  ideas,  it must be confessed,
however, is unattended with  difficulties.   The colourless stools of
jaundice, the fact that the combustive change, or  combination  of
oxygen and carbon  on  which this depends,  takes place  in the
systemic capillaries, and is consequently  an assimilative and not
a pulmonic act;  together with the necessity of imputing superero-
gatory power, which the contrary theory supposes; are opposed
to the hypothesis of  Liebig :  the  average daily amount  of faecal
discharge,  relatively  to  the  reputed  daily  quantity of this fluid
secreted ; and absence from the/ormer of "choleic acid and soda"
—the essential constituents of the latter; to  that of  Tiedemann
and Gmelin.
   44.  Its analogy to ureosis, as a deazotizing process, is  a  new
observation, and for the first  time, so  far as known, here announc-
ed, as a determinate  object of notice.  We owe to the quantitative
chemistry of Liebig, however, the analysis  which has led us  to
present it in this  corresponding connection,
  45.  The uses, as well  as disposal, of the bile, proximate or final
constitute,  therefore, a residuary order of phenomena, to be here- 
17
after investigated by the progressing lights of organic chemistry
and physiology.                                               '
  46. The  ordinal arrangement presented in the monographic
delineations, and the facts precedently investigated, render it proba-
ble, at least, that the liver, as intimated before, is  the specialized
depuratory  organ  of  the  alimentary  apparatus;  the lungs  the
same of the general venous system ; and the kidnies of the arte-
rial.
  47. The foregoing considerations also explain why "absorption"
as a specialized function, has  not  here  been'included  among the
assimilative series.   It  is  because the ends which it purposes to
pursue, are adequately provided for by venosis. Wherever veins.
or venosis exists, there also  exists absorption.   We cannot say the
same of the lymphatics or of lymphosis. Some error has obtained
upon this subject from the habit of confounding absorption,  in the
specialized or effete sense here understood, and which is so general-
ly received, with a more general power, which is the apparent pro-
perty of  the whole organization—imbibition or  transudation.
This latter  occurs  wherever porosity Obtains, influenced  in or-
ganic bodies by the laws in general of endosmose and exosmose.
In this sense, the pulmonic veins are "absorbents," seeing that
their natural office  is to imbibe oxygen gas; the systemic also, as
they imbibe carbonic acid; the chyliferous, the elements of chyle;
the lymphatics lymph;  and so  on with respect  to every  tissue
through which aqueous or  other particles  are  in any  manner
permitted to pass.  But it  is obvious that those which have been
mentioned, do something more  than  imbibe or transude;  some-
thing which is "sui generis," as it relates to each;  by  which they
are also enabled to transform, as well as to move onward or circu-
late, the matters they have previously imbibed and transformed.
It is in truth, this usui generis" property, this transforming power,
which alone entitles them  to be distinguished  as specialized func-
tions, and to receive the  physiological epithets  by which they
are designated.   It is  this property  or power,  too,  which ac-
counts for the uniform characteristics  of blood, wherever found;
and of lymph, the same; as well as of the other products of their
respective organs  or apparatus.  It appears,  then, that  absorp-
tion, a term of such general acceptation, is one of vague and inde-
           3 
18
 finite  signification,  often  misleading by  its ambiguity,  and of
•greater or less simplicity of meaning, as it happens to relate to
 phenomena depending upon one or more of the  agencies which
 have been explained; an additional reason for its exclusion.
   48. In works on Physiology, hcematosis is said to be the essen-
 tial object of respiration.  This needs  remark.  Haematosis, ac-
 cording  to  the principles which have  been expounded, is the
 essential object of the chemical phenomena of respiration.   This
 latter function is of a more comprehensive  character, having in
 view the fulfilment of a double purpose.  Respiration, as it ap-
 pears, in the figured circle, is the antagonistical or opposite func-
 tion to assimilation.   It, nevertheless, has a  relation to the cere-
 bal functions, and  constitutes  the  common bond  which unites the
 animal with the organic man.  Its relations, are, therefore, as we
 have said, twofold:  one having reference to the organic life, the
 other to the  relative.   The phenomena manifested  by  it, how-
 ever, are of a  three-fold  character,  to  wit:  chemical,  physical,
 and mechanical.   The first alone7—the chemical—are those which
 directly relate to hcematosis. consisting  as they do of changes ta-
 king  place simultaneously in the air of respiration and of the blood
 This is of the order of organic life.   The physical, or second, are
 of a  different character, and  consist of changes, confined to the
 air,  affecting its  volume or  bulk  only—the  alterations in its
 quantity, produced by inspiration and expiration.   These are
 changes  having reference to vocal sounds, a series of functional
 phenomena directly relating to the relative  life.  The mechani-
 cal, or third, support the two preceding, and are the immediate
 means by which they are enabled to accomplish their respective
 ends.  All of these require the  presence of suitable  objects to
 sustain them; objects having  relations  to each, as  determinate
 as any  of those which  relate  to the organs and  functions which
 have been mentioned.   One of the atmospheric constituents effects
 that purpose for the chemical, and the other for  the physical and
 mechanical.   Oxygen does it  for the first; nitrogen for the se-
 cond and third.  Physiologists  have hitherto been greatly per-
 plexed to discover any obvious utility  for the  nitrogen. As it
 respects this function, it appears to them to be altogether neutral.
 But this  is  owing to their having sought for it  where it  was not 
                             19

 naturally to be found.   Having failed in their explorations of the
 chemical, they should have  inquired for  it amidst  the1 physical.
 As a supporter of inspiration, it is connected with the physical
 phenomena.  It is destined to maintain the animal functions, not
 the organic, the life of  relation not ofaautrition.
   49. The inspection of the chief figure^ with  a special regard
 to what has been  said of the circumferential,relations of the func-
 tions, explains,  and in a satisfactory manner, too,  perhaps,  the
 mode of origin of many of the iUs  which are  known tp result
 from lesions  of their  organs. *It  explains  the accumulations
 which are apt to take place in the blood, and consecTutive  diffu-
 sions in the body  resulting from  embarrassed choleosis,  ureosis,
 hcematosis, &c, the accumulation of bile from hepatic, derange-
 ments;  urea, from affections of the  kidnies, or where they 'vhave
 been extirpated, as in the  experiments of Prevost, and  Dumas,
 and Segalas; and  the various forms&of dropsy, general and topi-
 cal, from transudations into the'cellular tissue and general cavities,
 arising  from structural or other diseases of the heart.   ,
  50. The manner in which the  lymphatic and lacteal  systems
 are made to unite, before they pour their contents  into the* ven-
 ous system, is  not without an object.  This, as well as the ends
 which  the  salivary and pancreatic secretions  subserve in  the
 ceconomy, are  dependent upon a principle well known to physi-
 ologists.  Such is  the natural repulsion existing*between inorganic
 particles and organic entities, that the former cannot be  assimi-
 lated by the latter, except  by processes  the most gradual and
 progressive.  The danger  of suddenly introducing foreign  sub-
 stances  into the circulation, turns upon  this principle.  It can
 only be  safely accomplished where this is managed by tardy steps.
Otherwise assimilation becomes  embarrassed, and  death is  njf_~
unfrequently the  consequence.   The dbnsecutive  relatiojrfof
functions is designed to  guard againW this result, and  is (based
upon this consideration.  The rule  pervades the entire  series of
organic phenomena, reaching  from^paanducation to assimilation.
It is manifested  in the  multifarious changes  which the  food is
 required to undergo, before it is  fitted for  the  purposes of this
 latter function.   Another principal  office of the lymph, besides
that already mentioned,  in  accordance with this exposition, there-
X 
r*
20
fore, wodtappear toV, the  dilution of unassimilated matter by
matter whichjias been assimilated.   So also with respect to the
saliva and secittion of the pancreas.  The same law renders it
necessary, that the pancreatic albumen  should  in  like manner
commingle with the ajbuo^n  formed by the transforming agency
of the chymifactive  apparatus;  that, the  product of a  process
purely chemical, before it be received into the chvliferous vessels,
should be incorporated  with  one,  otherwise  of identical proper-
ties, which is the  result of a dis^'nctly organic operation.
0
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