Zoonomia Volume I Part 1

Zoonomia.

Vol. I.

by Erasmus Darwin.

PREFACE.

The purport of the following pages is an endeavour to reduce the facts belonging to ANIMAL LIFE into cla.s.ses, orders, genera, and species; and, by comparing them with each other, to unravel the theory of diseases. It happened, perhaps unfortunately for the inquirers into the knowledge of diseases, that other sciences had received improvement previous to their own; whence, instead of comparing the properties belonging to animated nature with each other, they, idly ingenious, busied themselves in attempting to explain the laws of life by those of mechanism and chemistry; they considered the body as an hydraulic machine, and the fluids as pa.s.sing through a series of chemical changes, forgetting that animation was its essential characteristic.

The great CREATOR of all things has infinitely diversified the works of his hands, but has at the same time stamped a certain similitude on the features of nature, that demonstrates to us, that _the whole is one family of one parent_. On this similitude is founded all rational a.n.a.logy; which, so long as it is concerned in comparing the essential properties of bodies, leads us to many and important discoveries; but when with licentious activity it links together objects, otherwise discordant, by some fanciful similitude; it may indeed collect ornaments for wit and poetry, but philosophy and truth recoil from its combinations.

The want of a theory, deduced from such strict a.n.a.logy, to conduct the practice of medicine is lamented by its professors; for, as a great number of unconnected facts are difficult to be acquired, and to be reasoned from, the art of medicine is in many instances less efficacious under the direction of its wisest pract.i.tioners; and by that busy crowd, who either boldly wade in darkness, or are led into endless error by the glare of false theory, it is daily practised to the destruction of thousands; add to this the unceasing injury which accrues to the public by the perpetual advertis.e.m.e.nts of pretended nostrums; the minds of the indolent become superst.i.tiously fearful of diseases, which they do not labour under; and thus become the daily prey of some crafty empyric.

A theory founded upon nature, that should bind together the scattered facts of medical knowledge, and converge into one point of view the laws of organic life, would thus on many accounts contribute to the interest of society. It would capacitate men of moderate abilities to practise the art of healing with real advantage to the public; it would enable every one of literary acquirements to distinguish the genuine disciples of medicine from those of boastful effrontery, or of wily address; and would teach mankind in some important situations the _knowledge of themselves_.

There are some modern pract.i.tioners, who declaim against medical theory in general, not considering that to think is to theorize; and that no one can direct a method of cure to a person labouring under disease without thinking, that is, without theorizing; and happy therefore is the patient, whose physician possesses the best theory.

The words idea, perception, sensation, recollection, suggestion, and a.s.sociation, are each of them used in this treatise in a more limited sense than in the writers of metaphysic. The author was in doubt, whether he should rather have subst.i.tuted new words instead of them; but was at length of opinion, that new definitions of words already in use would be less burthensome to the memory of the reader.

A great part of this work has lain by the writer above twenty years, as some of his friends can testify: he had hoped by frequent revision to have made it more worthy the acceptance of the public; this however his other perpetual occupations have in part prevented, and may continue to prevent, as long as he may be capable of revising it; he therefore begs of the candid reader to accept of it in its present state, and to excuse any inaccuracies of expression, or of conclusion, into which the intricacy of his subject, the general imperfection of language, or the frailty he has in common with other men, may have betrayed him; and from which he has not the vanity to believe this treatise to be exempt.

ZOONOMIA.

SECT. I.

OF MOTION.

The whole of nature may be supposed to consist of two essences or substances; one of which may be termed spirit, and the other matter. The former of these possesses the power to commence or produce motion, and the latter to receive and communicate it. So that motion, considered as a cause, immediately precedes every effect; and, considered as an effect, it immediately succeeds every cause.

The MOTIONS OF MATTER may be divided into two kinds, primary and secondary.

The secondary motions are those, which are given to or received from other matter in motion. Their laws have been successfully investigated by philosophers in their treatises on mechanic powers. These motions are distinguished by this circ.u.mstance, that the velocity multiplied into the quant.i.ty of matter of the body acted upon is equal to the velocity multiplied into the quant.i.ty of matter of the acting body.

The primary motions of matter may be divided into three cla.s.ses, those belonging to gravitation, to chemistry, and to life; and each cla.s.s has its peculiar laws. Though these three cla.s.ses include the motions of solid, liquid, and aerial bodies; there is nevertheless a fourth division of motions; I mean those of the supposed ethereal fluids of magnetism, electricity, heat, and light; whose properties are not so well investigated as to be cla.s.sed with sufficient accuracy.

_1st._ The gravitating motions include the annual and diurnal rotation of the earth and planets, the flux and reflux of the ocean, the descent of heavy bodies, and other phaenomena of gravitation. The unparalleled sagacity of the great NEWTON has deduced the laws of this cla.s.s of motions from the simple principle of the general attraction of matter. These motions are distinguished by their tendency to or from the centers of the sun or planets.

_2d._ The chemical cla.s.s of motions includes all the various appearances of chemistry. Many of the facts, which belong to these branches of science, are nicely ascertained, and elegantly cla.s.sed; but their laws have not yet been developed from such simple principles as those above-mentioned; though it is probable, that they depend on the specific attractions belonging to the particles of bodies, or to the difference of the quant.i.ty of attraction belonging to the sides and angles of those particles. The chemical motions are distinguished by their being generally attended with an evident decomposition or new combination of the active materials.

_3d._ The third cla.s.s includes all the motions of the animal and vegetable world; as well those of the vessels, which circulate their juices, and of the muscles, which perform their locomotion, as those of the organs of sense, which const.i.tute their ideas.

This last cla.s.s of motion is the subject of the following pages; which, though conscious of their many imperfections, I hope may give some pleasure to the patient reader, and contribute something to the knowledge and to the cure of diseases.

SECT. II.

EXPLANATIONS AND DEFINITIONS.

I. _Outline of the animal economy._--II. 1. _Of the sensorium._ 2. _Of the brain and nervous medulla._ 3. _A nerve._ 4. _A muscular fibre._ 5.

_The immediate organs of sense._ 6. _The external organs of sense._ 7.

_An idea or sensual motion._ 8. _Perception._ 9. _Sensation._ 10.

_Recollection and suggestion._ 11. _Habit, causation, a.s.sociation, catenation._ 12. _Reflex ideas._ 13. _Stimulus defined._

As some explanations and definitions will be necessary in the prosecution of the work, the reader is troubled with them in this place, and is intreated to keep them in his mind as he proceeds, and to take them for granted, till an apt opportunity occurs to evince their truth; to which I shall premise a very short outline of the animal economy.

I.--1. The nervous system has its origin from the brain, and is distributed to every part of the body. Those nerves, which serve the senses, princ.i.p.ally arise from that part of the brain, which is lodged in the head; and those, which serve the purposes of muscular motion, princ.i.p.ally arise from that part of the brain, which is lodged in the neck and back, and which is erroneously called the spinal marrow. The ultimate fibrils of these nerves terminate in the immediate organs of sense and muscular fibres, and if a ligature be put on any part of their pa.s.sage from the head or spine, all motion and perception cease in the parts beneath the ligature.

2. The longitudinal muscular fibres compose the locomotive muscles, whose contractions move the bones of the limbs and trunk, to which their extremities are attached. The annular or spiral muscular fibres compose the vascular muscles, which const.i.tute the intestinal ca.n.a.l, the arteries, veins, glands, and absorbent vessels.

3. The immediate organs of sense, as the retina of the eye, probably consist of moving fibrils, with a power of contraction similar to that of the larger muscles above described.

4. The cellular membrane consists of cells, which resemble those of a sponge, communicating with each other, and connecting together all the other parts of the body.

5. The arterial system consists of the aortal and the pulmonary artery, which are attended through their whole course with their correspondent veins. The pulmonary artery receives the blood from the right chamber of the heart, and carries it to the minute extensive ramifications of the lungs, where it is exposed to the action of the air on a surface equal to that of the whole external skin, through the thin moist coats of those vessels, which are spread on the air-cells, which const.i.tute the minute terminal ramifications of the wind-pipe. Here the blood changes its colour from a dark red to a bright scarlet. It is then collected by the branches of the pulmonary vein, and conveyed to the left chamber of the heart.

6. The aorta is another large artery, which receives the blood from the left chamber of the heart, after it has been thus aerated in the lungs, and conveys it by ascending and descending branches to every other part of the system; the extremities of this artery terminate either in glands, as the salivary glands, lacrymal glands, &c. or in capillary vessels, which are probably less involuted glands; in these some fluid, as saliva, tears, perspiration, are separated from the blood; and the remainder of the blood is absorbed or drank up by branches of veins correspondent to the branches of the artery; which are furnished with valves to prevent its return; and is thus carried back, after having again changed its colour to a dark red, to the right chamber of the heart. The circulation of the blood in the liver differs from this general system; for the veins which drink up the refluent blood from those arteries, which are spread on the bowels and mesentery, unite into a trunk in the liver, and form a kind of artery, which is branched into the whole substance of the liver, and is called the vena portarum; and from which the bile is separated by the numerous hepatic glands, which const.i.tute that viscus.

7. The glands may be divided into three systems, the convoluted glands, such as those above described, which separate bile, tears, saliva, &c.

Secondly, the glands without convolution, as the capillary vessels, which unite the terminations of the arteries and veins; and separate both the mucus, which lubricates the cellular membrane, and the perspirable matter, which preserves the skin moist and flexible. And thirdly, the whole absorbent system, consisting of the lacteals, which open their mouths into the stomach and intestines, and of the lymphatics, which open their mouths on the external surface of the body, and on the internal linings of all the cells of the cellular membrane, and other cavities of the body.

These lacteal and lymphatic vessels are furnished with numerous valves to prevent the return of the fluids, which they absorb, and terminate in glands, called lymphatic glands, and may hence be considered as long necks or mouths belonging to these glands. To these they convey the chyle and mucus, with a part of the perspirable matter, and atmospheric moisture; all which, after having pa.s.sed through these glands, and having suffered some change in them, are carried forward into the blood, and supply perpetual nourishment to the system, or replace its hourly waste.

8. The stomach and intestinal ca.n.a.l have a constant vermicular motion, which carries forwards their contents, after the lacteals have drank up the chyle from them; and which is excited into action by the stimulus of the aliment we swallow, but which becomes occasionally inverted or retrograde, as in vomiting, and in the iliac pa.s.sion.

II. 1. The word _sensorium_ in the following pages is designed to express not only the medullary part of the brain, spinal marrow, nerves, organs of sense, and of the muscles; but also at the same time that living principle, or spirit of animation, which resides throughout the body, without being cognizable to our senses, except by its effects. The changes which occasionally take place in the sensorium, as during the exertions of volition, or the sensations of pleasure or pain, are termed _sensorial motions_.

2. The similarity of the texture of the brain to that of the pancreas, and some other glands of the body, has induced the inquirers into this subject to believe, that a fluid, perhaps much more subtile than the electric aura, is separated from the blood by that organ for the purposes of motion and sensation. When we recollect, that the electric fluid itself is actually acc.u.mulated and given out voluntarily by the torpedo and the gymnotus electricus, that an electric shock will frequently stimulate into motion a paralytic limb, and lastly that it needs no perceptible tubes to convey it, this opinion seems not without probability; and the singular figure of the brain and nervous system seems well adapted to distribute it over every part of the body.

For the medullary substance of the brain not only occupies the cavities of the head and spine, but pa.s.ses along the innumerable ramifications of the nerves to the various muscles and organs of sense. In these it lays aside its coverings, and is intermixed with the slender fibres, which const.i.tute those muscles and organs of sense. Thus all these distant ramifications of the sensorium are united at one of their extremities, that is, in the head and spine; and thus these central parts of the sensorium const.i.tute a communication between all the organs of sense and muscles.

3. A _nerve_ is a continuation of the medullary substance of the brain from the head or spine towards the other parts of the body, wrapped in its proper membrane.

4. The _muscular fibres_ are moving organs intermixed with that medullary substance, which is continued along the nerves, as mentioned above. They are indued with the power of contraction, and are again elongated either by antagonist muscles, by circulating fluids, or by elastic ligaments. So the muscles on one side of the forearm bend the fingers by means of their tendons, and those on the other side of the fore-arm extend them again. The arteries are distended by the circulating blood; and in the necks of quadrupeds there is a strong elastic ligament, which a.s.sists the muscles, which elevate the head, to keep it in its horizontal position, and to raise it after it has been depressed.

5. The _immediate organs of sense_ consist in like manner of moving fibres enveloped in the medullary substance above mentioned; and are erroneously supposed to be simply an expansion of the nervous medulla, as the retina of the eye, and the rete mucosum of the skin, which are the immediate organs of vision, and of touch. Hence when we speak of the contractions of the fibrous parts of the body, we shall mean both the contractions of the muscles, and those of the immediate organs of sense. These _fibrous motions_ are thus distinguished from the _sensorial motions_ above mentioned.

6. The _external organs_ of sense are the coverings of the immediate organs of sense, and are mechanically adapted for the reception or transmission of peculiar bodies, or of their qualities, as the cornea and humours of the eye, the tympanum of the ear, the cuticle of the finders and tongue.

7. The word _idea_ has various meanings in the writers of metaphysic: it is here used simply for those notions of external things, which our organs of sense bring us acquainted with originally; and is defined a contraction, or motion, or configuration, of the fibres, which const.i.tute the immediate organ of sense; which will be explained at large in another part of the work. Synonymous with the word idea, we shall sometimes use the words _sensual motion_ in contradistinction to _muscular motion_.