ELEMENTS

OF

PHYSIOLOGY.

BY J. MÜLLER, M.D.

PROFESSOR OF ANATOMY AND PHYSIOLOGY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF

BERLIN, ETC.

TRANSLATED FROM THE GERMAN,

BY WM. BALY, M. D.

GRADUATE IN MEDICINE OF THE UNIVERSITY OF BERLIN.

ARRANGED FROM THE SECOND LONDON EDITION,

BY JOHN BELL, M. D.

LECTURER ON MATERIA MEDICA AND THERAPEUTICS, AND FORMERLY ON THE INSTITUTES OF MEDICINE
AND MEDICAL JURISPRUDENCE, &c.

PHILADELPHIA:

LEA AND BLANCHARD.

in

ed 1058.43.3

HARVARD COLLEGE LIBRARY

TRANSFERRED FROM
CHEMICAL LABORATORY

72036,1933

ENTERED according to the act of Congress, in the year 1842, by

LEA & BLANCHARD,

in the clerk's office of the District Court of the United States, in and for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.

T. K. & P. G. COLLINS, PRINTERS.

་།

PREFACE.

HE who engages in the labour of abridgement ought to feel that it is a self-imposed task, for the successful performance even of which he will not always be requited by the gratitude of those for whose benefit it. was undertaken. It is not enough that he is faithful to his original, and that, while preserving its continuity of narrative and description, he retains all that is relevant in facts and valuable in doctrines; thus giving, in reduced dimensions, the characteristic features which were spread out with fatiguing amplification in the large work. Expectation will still go beyond ability; and, after all his conscientious pains-taking, he must be prepared to hear of omissions charitably imputed to him as negligences, and of compression complained of as obscurity. Many who never read the original, and who would have been repelled by its length and perplexing details, some who knew nothing at all antecedently of its character, will affect a sudden critical illumination, and with an oracular shrug whisper a wish that it had been spread out before them entire.

*

If from timidity, or want of entire conviction of the propriety of undertaking to abridge Müller's great work on Physiology, it were deemed necessary to invoke the sanction of authority, the editor of the present volume might refer to one eminent teacher, who advised the measure, and to anothert who gave it his ready approval. The editor, himself, felt assured, from an experience of many years teaching Physiology, as part of and in connection with the Institutes of Medicine, that the work of Müller in its entireness, however admirably calculated it may be to furnish information to the writer and lecturer, is not adapted to the wants, nor can it come within the requirements of the student of medicine. It is a vast repertory of facts and opinions in physiological science, but it bewilders the inexperienced votary by its very extent; and he who has gone over it without halt or pause, or, indeed, at all, may well speak, as even the indefatigable German student himself is said to do, of his having performed a feat.

* Dr. Horner.

† Dr. Jackson.

A*

In arranging the volume now offered to American readers, from the materials furnished in Müller's Elements of Physiology, the editor has endeavoured to procure reduction in size of this latter, without any abstraction of its vitality and mind. With this view he has omitted, for the most part, mere disquisitions, many details of experiments, matters of physics and natural philosophy, including mechanics under the head of locomotion, acoustics and the theories of music under voice and hearing, and of optics under vision,-much of the minutiae of comparative physiology, and metaphysics or metaphysico-physiology. But, while excluding details on collateral topics, the editor has been particularly careful to preserve physiology proper, which, resting on the basis of histogeny and general anatomy, derives important aid from organic chemistry and microscopical observations, and, in its turn, serves to illustrate hygiene, pathology and therapeutics. Thus aided and thus applied, in the manner exhibited by Müller himself, physiology will invite the attention of the student in these pages.

It will soon be discovered that, although this volume is an abridgement of the large work of Müller, it may rightfully claim to be considered a complete system of physiology, exceeding in copiousness and comprehensive details, any other work on the same subject, which has yet emanated from the London press.

Ample apology for the exclusion of topics merely collateral, which are taught and explained in separate and appropriate works, is furnished by the author himself, as indeed by other physiologists of distinction, in his purposely omitting to describe the details of the structure of each organ. He very properly refers the student for these matters to books of special anatomy. With still greater propriety should a similar reference be made when questions on the theories of light and colours, and of acoustics, &c. are under notice. If a moderate acquaintance with chemistry is supposed to be possessed by the student of Physiology, ought we not à fortiori to presume that he is not ignorant of, or at least can soon acquire, a sufficient knowledge of optics, acoustics and mechanics, to follow his author and to understand the allusions to various points included in these branches of science?

The reduction has not been after a uniform scale or rule of definite proportion. In some parts of the Elements,' comparatively little abbreviation has been attempted;—as in the prolegomena of general physiology, which is a carefully condensed summary of the subjects embraced under the general head, and does not admit, without obscurity, of any material curtailment. So, likewise, in the case of the functions of organic life, those of assimilation, nutrition and decomposition, much of the

copiousness of facts and illustrations which constitutes so distinguishing a merit in the larger work, has been retained in the abridgeIn the latter, as in the former, the student will find those wonderful revelations in histogeny which make an era in the history of physiology, and which, although the last discovered, must, henceforth, be regarded as essential preliminaries to future descriptions of tissues and organic functions. In these pages, the student will become acquainted with the results of the discoveries and observations of Schleiden, Schwann and Valentin on the formation of the most different elementary tissues of plants and animals, by the development of primitive or nucleated cells out of structureless or unformed gummy and mucous substances,-and of Barry and others on embryology, showing a similar development of various tissues and organs from the ovum, quickened into vital activity by the stimulus of spermatozoa, and growing by the evolution from and addition to its own primitive one, of fresh cells. Similar nucleated cells are found to exist in or rather to make up the globules of the blood, and are readily evolved from coagulated fibrin; proving this fluid to be, conformably with long observation, the formative and vitalizing one. From these facts, in perfect harmony with each other, we are able at last to deduce a general theory of vegetation and organisation.

So important are the new views of histogeny, that it has been thought advisable to transfer the chapter containing them from the end of the large work, where it was placed, to the beginning of Special Physiology in the present volume. In natural relation to the subject of the original formation of the tissues, is that of their regeneration or reproduction, with or without inflammation, and, on this account, the description of the latter is removed from the place which it occupied to that immediately following histogeny. Another deviation from the arrangement of the author will be found in bringing in the chapters on Digestion immediately after those on Respiration, in place of letting them remain after Nutrition and Secretion; and in making the chapters on Secretion precede those on Nutrition and Growth, rather than allow them to follow, as they do in the original. The progressive order of the changes to which aliment is subjected, from its introduction into the stomach to its conversion into blood, and the consequent metamorphosis of this fluid into secretions and matters for nutritive deposit and the growth of the tissues, are exhibited better in the modified than in the original arrangement.

A few notes at the foot, and some paragraphs in the body, of the page, have been added by the editor, who did not feel himself free to do much in this way, when his office was to abbreviate and arrange.