I. The Croonian Lecture. On the functions of the heart and arteries

Abstract

The mechanical motions, which take place in an animal body, are regulated by the same general laws as the motions of inanimate bodies. Thus the force of gravitation acts precisely in the same manner, and in the same degree, on living as on dead matter; the laws of optics are most accurately observed by all the refractive substances belonging to the eye; and there is no case in which it can be proved, that animated bodies are exempted from any of the affections to which inanimate bodies are liable, except when the powers of life are capable of instituting a process, calculated to overcome those affections, by others, which are commensurate to them, and which are of a contrary tendency.