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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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Untitled Article
blood be poured out in the cavities of the body , or on the surfaces of organs , it solidifies , and if examined will soon be found to abound with blood vessels . It is this property that enables a wound to heal . The blood that is poured out of the cut vessels becomes solid ; the red
particles not being wanted are soon carried off by the absorbents ; the fibrin remains , glues together the edges and staunches the bleeding ; the vessels surrounding it quickly begin to be elongated and to shoot into it ; it soon acquires vessels of its own , and as soon as a circulation is established within it , it is quickly changed into proper flesh or whatever is wanted .
3 . A remarkable proof of the vitality of the blood is its power of remaining fluid while in its vessels , without which power it could not circulate , and the whole machinery of the body would be clogged up and stopped ; while without its power of becoming solid all its other properties would be useless , and while its tendency to become solid is so great , that it does actually become so in a few minutes when removed from the body . Slowness of motion makes it thicker , and
absolute rest promotes its solidification ; and some of the most important actions of the economy depend on this property , for the arrangement of the secreting vessels is such as to ensure a slow motion of the blood through them . Dr . Smith justly remarked upon the necessity and the beauty of this arrangement . * It was necessary in constructing the blood to preserve the balance between its fluidity and its solidity so nicely , that while all the varied purposes of the economy
should be secured , its actions should not be impeded by the very instrument that was essential to them . A fluid must be formed capable of becoming solid with ease and certainty ; this same fluid must be so constructed as to be capable of maintaining ijs fluidity with like ease and certainty . Now a substance endowed with properties so opposite , and all the opposing properties of which are so simultaneously and constantly called into play , and the continued play of which is so essential to the ultimate purpose of their action , is found in nothing
purely mechanical ; human ingenuity can construct no machinery analogous to it ; it is found only in the mechanism of life ; this mechanism we cannot see ; it is beyond the power of our sense to appreciate ; but surely we ought not to be insensible to the beauty and wisdom of adjustments which are so admirable , because we do not perceive the mechanism by which they are effected , and this very mechanism probably escaping our perception because its delicacy and its perfection so much surpass any with which our gross senses have made us acquainted /
These are the chief facts connected with the composition and properties of the blood . We now come to the machinery which propels it through the body , beginning with the lower animals . 4 Recent discoveries relative to the organization of the lower animals have not only taught us new truths , hut have given us a new
lesson . They have not only increased the stock of our information , but they have corrected our judgment ; they have added to the number of facts which prove that nature is always consistent , and that whenever any part of her operations appears to us to be inharmonious , that very circumstance should beget the suspicion that our view of her work is incorrect or incomplete . Nature never ^ recedes . If ever
Untitled Article
124 . Dr . Soulhtvood Smith on the Animal Economy .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Feb. 2, 1833, page 124, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2608/page/56/
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