148 CONNECTION OF LUNGS WITH ORGANS. termed the "abdominal lung." It is constantly also sending through the medium of the heart a large quantity of blood to the lungs. Now, if this blood have not the proper quantity of carbon extracted from it by the liver, or if even the blood be excessive in quantity, why the lungs must have more to do; and many diseased lungs have been produced in this manner in cases where the chest has been well formed. There are, however, many intimate relations between organs which do not depend on mere community of function. It is very important that the public should have clear views on this subject; and if they would only give a little of that attention, which they so often bestow on things infinitely more difficult, there is no doubt many lives would be saved, that are irremediably damaged, as Abernethy says, sometimes even before any symptoms have suggested that there is anything the matter. But if there be a shadow of truth in Mr. Abernethy's views, and still more in those extensions of them to which they naturally lead, we may learn how necessary is that discrimina HIS REMARKS ON CONSUMPTION. 149 tion which traces disease to primarily affected organs, and how little success we may expect by treating the lungs as the integral seat of disease, by specifics or such remedies, as tar, naphtha, cod-liver-oil, various gases, &c., which come in and go out of fashion, in a manner sufficiently significant of the claims they can have in a scientific point of view. Mr. Abernethy also remarks on the comparatively restricted influence of scrofula in constituting consumption. "At one time," he observes, "I examined the bodies of many people who died of consumption. After describing other appearances which he found, he says, "the greater number were bestudded "with larger or smaller tubercles, or made uni"formly dense (consolidated)." He says, this disease (consolidation) is very insidious, that it is often established beyond the possibility of removal before it is suspected; but, he says, he thinks it might be known, for the capacity of the lungs is diminished; and suggests that this should be tested by allowing a suspected case to breathe into a glass vessel over water, by 150 HIS REMARKS ON TREATMENT. which the quantity of air they can receive is rendered perceptible. His remarks too, on the treatment are highly interesting and discriminative, and will not only well repay attentive perusal, but that study which is necessary to the perception of their full force and beauty. When we have to sum up the various influences of the views of Abernethy, we may probably find space for a few facts on that which they exert on the treatment of the lungs and skin; and this not merely as affecting the health in general, but also complexion, and other conditions of these curious and important organs. We are unwilling to dismiss this paper without directing attention to the illustration it affords of the erroneous views of those who imagine that Abernethy's investigations were confined to the digestive organs, and still less of course to one of them (the stomach). It would, on the contrary, be difficult to find any paper on physiology so comprehensive in its views, so simple and clear as to its object, so cautious and logical in its reasonings, so WHAT KIND OF INVESTIGATION REQUIRED. 151 free from any bias, or with so little reference, either directly or indirectly, to what are usually understood by the digestive organs. On the other hand, it is an investigation which (as regards the relation which exists between two organs having a common function) is an exact type of what physiological investigation should be. For we have only to extend the idea of a relation which exists between two organs, to those which exist between all organs; to regard as their combined functions, the sustentation of the life and health of the individual, just as we have been regarding respiration the common function of the skin and lungs; and we thus arrive at what must be the basis of any sound or comprehensive inquiry into the true relations of the various parts of the economy; by which alone we can interpret the phenomena of health or disease. Moreover, however presumptuous the assertion may appear on the one hand, or however humiliating the view it implies of the present state of medicine as a science on the other; we must regard this investigation in every |