Part 42

I. General Remarks upon the Physiological and Physical Sciences.

The differences between these sciences are derived from the properties which preside over the phenomena.—The necessity of always connecting the second with the first.—Periods at which this progress commenced in the physical sciences. False applications made to the physiological sciences.—The necessity of following in these the same course as in the others. 9

II. Of the Vital Properties, and their influence upon the phenomena of the Physiological and Physical Sciences.

Vital properties considered in the series of living beings.—Of those which animate plants.—Consequences in regard to their diseases.—Of those which belong to animals.—Consequences in regard to their diseases.—Examination of each vital property under the relation of the diseases over which it presides.—Necessity of referring to these properties the action of medicines.—Uncertainty of the Materia Medica.—Each vital property has a particular class of medicines which act upon it.—Proofs.—Inconveniences of describing morbid phenomena and those of medicines in too general a manner.—Consequences of the preceding remarks. 13

III. Characters of the Vital Properties, compared with the characters of the Physical Properties.

Extreme variableness of the first, invariableness of the second.—Consequences of this principle as it regards the phenomena.—There can only be diseases where there are vital properties.—Why.—The progress of the physiological and physical sciences wholly different in this respect.—Differences between animate and inanimate solids and fluids.—The vital properties become exhausted, the physical do not.—Consequences.—The latter are inherent in matter, the others are not.—General remarks upon the enumeration of the differences of animate and inanimate bodies.—Particular remark relative to sympathies.—Their general phenomena. 23

IV. Of the Vital Properties and their Phenomena considered in relation to the Solids and the Fluids.

Division of the fluids into those of composition and those of decomposition.—The vital properties are seated essentially in the solids.—These are the seat of almost all the morbid symptoms.—The fluids however may be affected.—Different attributes of the fluids of composition and of those of decomposition in diseases.—How the alterations of the first may take place.—Of those of the second.—Of the cases in which the solids and the fluids are primarily affected.—Division of diseases in this view.—The question must necessarily be considered in many points of view.—What is true on one side is not so on another.—Of the vitality of the fluids.—What it is.—Their alterations affect their vitality.—New proofs of these alterations.—How the fluids are assimilated and altered. 29

V. Of the Properties Independent of Life.

Properties of texture.—Of contractility by the horny hardening.—Of the agents which put it into action.—It is of two kinds.—Characters of each.—Their differences.—Almost all the solids undergo the horny hardening.—Condition which it requires.—Of the horny hardening during life and after death.—Difference of this contractility from the others.—General remarks. 38

VI. General Observations upon the Organization of Animals.

Of the simple systems.—Necessity of considering them abstractedly.—Their difference of forms.—Their variety of organization, 1st, in the peculiar texture; 2d, in the common parts.—Manner of knowing these differences.—Differences of the vital properties and of texture.—Of the peculiar life.—It cannot be understood of the compound organs, but of the simple systems.—Examples which prove this assertion in the different organs. 44

VII. Consequences of the preceding Principles relative to Diseases.

Each texture can be separately affected in an organ.—This even almost always happens.—Various proofs of this assertion.—Observations upon different diseases.—Sympathies do not take place in an organ as a whole, but in some one texture of this organ.—Why.—Of sympathetic fevers.—The different inflammations vary in each texture.—Phenomena of the different kinds of virus variable from the same cause.—Yet the different textures of the same organ have a certain dependance upon each other.—Proofs.—Diseases chronic and acute.—Differences of diseases in each simple system.—Two classes of symptoms in the local affections.—Their difference.—Varieties of the pain, heat, &c. according to the systems.—What should be understood by acute and chronic affections in the simple systems.—Influence of these considerations upon morbid anatomy.—Defects of the old divisions.—New manner of considering morbid anatomy. 49

VIII. Remarks upon the Classification of the Functions.

Table of this classification. 60

SYSTEMS COMMON TO ALL THE APPARATUS.

General Observations.

Division of the systems.—Systems common to all the apparatus.—Their characters.—They form the nutritive parenchyma of the organs.—Remarks upon nutrition.—Diversity of the nutritive substances. 77

CELLULAR SYSTEM.

General Remarks.—Division. 87

ARTICLE FIRST.

OF THE CELLULAR SYSTEM CONSIDERED IN RELATION TO THE ORGANS.

I. Of the Cellular System exterior to each Organ.

Division of the organs in relation to the neighbouring texture. 88

Of the Cellular System which adheres only to one side of the organs.

Sub-cutaneous cellular texture.—Arrangement of this texture, 1st, upon the median line; 2d, in the different regions of the body.—Varieties of density and laxity. Uses of the sub-cutaneous texture.—Its fluids. 88

Sub-mucous cellular texture.—Difference of this texture from the preceding.—The density of that.—Consequences.