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362 RECENT TIMES.
the stomach exercises a subdividing, triturating effect upon
the food, the latter thought that in consequence of the
chemical powers of the saliva, the gastric juice, the pancreatic
juice, and the bile the food is converted into a pap.
The ingenious experiments upon digestion, which SPALLAN-
ZANI and CARMINATI afterwards instituted, showed how far
both agencies enter into the question* Similar diversity
of views prevailed in reference to such subjects as the
secretion and nutrition of organs and tissues ; but there
was no doubt that the explanations of the Iatrophysicists ,/*•
in reference to blood-pressure, to the form, ramification, ;
and tortuosity of vessels, and to the porosity of the
capillaries, started from a firmer basis of facts than did*
those of the Iatrochemists.
The discovery of the circulation of the blood turned the
attention of inquirers to the subject of animal motion in
p-eneral. NICHOLAS STENO made the first attempt to %
explain muscular action by the laws of mechanics, which J
are of such general validity.f He took this opportunity of
publishing his observations on the changes, of form and
consistence which the muscles undergo in contraction and J
relaxation.
Some years after, in 1680, A. BORELLfS celebrated work, j
De Motu Animalium, appeared, in which the complicated^
movements executed by particular muscles were analyzed.^
In it the author compared the bones and the muscles
attached to them to physical apparatus for demonstrating
levers. To determine the strength of a muscle he sus- j
pended weights to it until its fibres were torn. STENO|
even made the observation that muscular tissue has the
power of being stimulated to movement independently of
the influence of vessels and nerves, though DE MARCHETTIS
* SPALLANZANI : Versuche iiber das Verdauungsgeschaft des Menschen und.
Verschiedener Thierarten, Deutsche Ubers., Leipzig 1785.
t Nic. STENONIS elementorum myologies specimen seu musculi descriptio-
geometrica, Flor. 1667.
X op. cit. i, p. 19 etseq.