Читать книгу The Dawn of Modern Medicine онлайн

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These titles represent only a small part of the numerous books and elaborate essays published by this tireless worker. In 1749 he was ennobled by the Emperor, thus gaining the right, so highly esteemed in Germany, of placing a “von” before his name.

In the middle of the eighteenth century there appears to have existed considerable confusion in the minds of scientific men regarding the distinction between the terms “sensibility” and “irritability,” and to von Haller is due the credit of having once and for all defined the correct meaning of these words. As early as in 1747, when he published the first edition of his treatise on physiology, von Haller taught that the contractile force of muscles is supplied by the nerves, and that in this way they acquire irritability, a force which they cannot exercise except through the influence of the nerves. Irritability, therefore, is not a characteristic that originates in muscular tissue but is conferred upon it by the nerves. Von Haller’s experiments reveal the fact that the heart possesses the maximum degree of irritability. Next in order come the intestines and the diaphragm, the ordinary red muscles possessing a lesser degree of irritability.