An inquiry into the origin of epidemics, and a physical and chemical analysis of their specific cause : on a new theory of matter and form / by J. Wishart.

  • Wishart, J., M.D.
Date:
[1848?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: An inquiry into the origin of epidemics, and a physical and chemical analysis of their specific cause : on a new theory of matter and form / by J. Wishart. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

    10/20
    blood of a young, healthy animal, of any kind, info the veins of man. The blood was the seat of all diseases, at that lime, and by drawing it off the disease went with it, and replacing it with the blood of a calf or a sheep, it was believed, all diseases would be cured. After re- peated trials of this remedy, it was abandoned, being fol- lowed by convulsions and death. The analysis of the blood of different animals, shows that, although there is a differ- ence both in the physical and chemical properties of the blood of different animals, yet not sufficient, satisfactorily to account for the violent and fatal effects resulting from it as practised on man. And as no bad effects followed the transfusion of the blood of one animal into another of the same species, we are compelled to resort to some other rea- son to account for the phenomena. The form of the parti- cles of matter accompanied by the appropriate quality, which distinguishes every formation throughout material existence, alone gives us an intelligible and satisfactory rea- son for this fact. For, although chemical analysis may reduce the constituent, elementary principles of every form of organized being into the same materials, yet the skin, the muscle, the fat, the secretions, and exhalations, the hair, the wool and fur, with many other peculiarities of secre- tion and surface, of feather, crust, shell, electric fluid, cut- tlefish, ink, musk, castor, &c., with every peculiar property, the production of which is hmited to different species^ throughout animal and vegetable physiology. The form of the 'particles of matter which give character to the species, is carried out in the aggregate form of the individual which distinguishes it from all others. On no other hypothesis that has met my eye, can these phenomena be, philosophically, accounted for. This explanation is cor- roborated by the impenetrable mystery still surround- ing the theory of animal generation. While some physiol- ogists contend that the spermatozoa are visible, with a good microscope, in the semen of the male, in the form of tad- poles, and thus form a theory which gives the female no other part in the process than to furnish the germ nursing nidus. Others maintain that these thousands of supposed manikins are but sperm capsuls, which burst, and throw out a pollen sperm, wKich vivifies the germ furnished by the female. There are insuparable objections to the former hypothesis, which is the most recent. What becomes of the thousands of homuncules, seen in a single drop of male semen? Why, according to this supposition, they are kil- led off, by the master spermatozoa—thus making Nature perform a great deal of useless labor, to sustain a system ot wholesale murder, in this animalcular war. The moat