An essay on suspended animation / by Samuel Jackson, honorary member of the Philadelphia Medical, and member of the Philadelphia Linnean societies.

  • Jackson, Samuel, 1787-1872.
Date:
1808
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: An essay on suspended animation / by Samuel Jackson, honorary member of the Philadelphia Medical, and member of the Philadelphia Linnean societies. 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.)

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    date this quality to the few and weak stimuli which could diminish it, the small portion the foetus thus obtains by the funis could by no means produce excitability suffici- ent to answer the great demand now made upon it, and of course, the infant dies from the total expenditure of its excitability. 10, From the account whieh the Sacred Volumes of Truth, give of man's formation, and his first spring of life. Man, by the hand of the Deity, was made perfect and complete in all his parts and organs; the machine was fitted to act; but until the breath of life was breath- ed into his nostrils, the motions of life were absent. We here behold life beginning its career in the lungs. Was this by the air stimulating them, or entering into and acting on the blood. It could not have been by a mere stimulant action, for a thousand stimuli were operating upon its frame at the time, yet without the aid of breath- ing, could produce no action. But what effect, then, did the air produce on the blood ? Did it endow this fluid with vitality ? Did it render the blood capable of communicating a principle of existence to the system? or in other words, Did it produce the excitability? for no other vital principle can be admitted. It is evident, no excitability was in the system, until air was received into the lungs. We cannot for a moment suppose, that the air was a specinck stimulus, alone calculated to ex- cite the excitability, and to produce action. If this sup- position be rejected, as it must be with contempt, we