SS'il.U;STR,'A'" m BSI\ '-y LIBHARY OF CONGRESS. ©^ap.' ^ Inpijrigi^tTliJ . tihelf, CM^A^3 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. din^"^' (^{^4j MAN, THE MICROCOSM, BY ABRAHAM COLES, M.D., Ph.D., LL.D., With Portrait of the Author and full-page Illustrations of "Ambrose Pare," " Edward Jenner," "Andreas Vesalius," "William Harvey," "Prof. Tulp and his Pupils" BY Rembrandt, the "Apollo Belvedere," the " Venus de Medici," " Theodor Billroth and his Clinical Assistants," etc. edited by his son / Jonathan Ackerman Coles, A.M., M.D. Fifth (Physician's) Edition. ( SEP 3 New York: ^"-^K Of v D. appleton and company ^"ifkS^ 1892 COPYRIGHT, 1892, BY Jonathan Ackerman Coles. NEWARK, N. J. ADVEKTISER PRINTING HOUSE, 1892 CONTENTS. List of Illustrations, - . . _ Page vii Preface, Page i Centennial Address, - . _ . Page 5 The Microcosm, Pages 13-79 Analysis, --.--._ Page 15 Geologic Prophecy of Man's Coming, - - Page 17 Scriptural Anticipation of the Doctrine, Page 18 General View — Man Supreme, - - - Page 20 Christian Science, Page 21 Infidel Science, P^ge 22 Common Sense, Page 23 Invocation, ----_.. Page 24 Flesh Garment— Skin, its Moral Character, Page 24 Pathognomy, Page 25 Interior View— Skin Dissected, - - Page 27 Blending of Contraries— Structural Details, Page 28 Voluntary Muscles — Their Office and Work, Page 30 Muscular Dynamics — Directing Power Where? - - Page 32 Cranium — Soul's Firmament — Brain, - - Page 34 Mind's Organ — City of the Dead, - - Page 35 The Eye, and its Correlative, - - - Page 41 iv CONTENTS. Light has no Manifesting Power without THE Eye, ------- Page 41 Light lost in the Eye reappears in the Consciousness, Page 43 Tears — Sleep, its Resuscitating Power- Organic Life, - Page 44 Spiritual Analogies, - - . - - Page 47 Congenital Blindness — Awards of the Last Day, - - Page 48 Asylums for the Blind, . . - _ Page 49 Asylums for the Deaf and Dumb, - - Page 50 Hearing— Power of Sound— Music of Nature, Page 51 Music of Art — Instrumental and Vocal, - Page 52 Voice — Air of Expiration, its Transmuta- tions, - Page 53 Speech, Accountable Self-Recording — Math- ematical Problem, ----- Page 55 Its Social Uses — The Word Made Flesh, Page 56 Articulation— Nose— Mouth— Smell— Taste, Page 57 Smell— Odors, Their Subtlety and Impon- derability, Page 58 Breath of Life, Natural and Spiritual, Page 59 Theopneusty, -..--. Page 59 Taste — Elimination and Waste — Nothing Lost, Page 60 Human Want and Divine Supply, - - Page 62 CONTENTS. V Lord's Prayer — Hodiernal Bread— Hygienic Wisdom, Page 64 Ingestion — Digestion — Assimilation, - Page 65 Heart— Circulation — Nutrition — Blood Ex- hilarations, Page 67 Heart — Seat of the Affections — Visceral Modifications, Page 69 Woman— Sex — Unity in Difference, - - Page 70 Love of the Sexes — Ends Answered, - Page 71 True Love — Spurious Love, - - - - Page 73 Charity — Physician — Opiferque per Orbem DicoR, Page 75 Nosology — Auscultation of Heart and Lungs, Page 76 Physician's Character and Aims — Science Progressive, Page 77 Spiritual Maladies — Christ the Great Phy- sician, - - - - _ _ . Page 78 Death— Immortality, Page 79 Works of Abraham Coles, - - - Page 81 Critics and Criticisms, . . _ . Page 87 Richard Grant White; Rev. Samuel Irenseus Prime, D. D.; Wm. Cullen Bryant; James Russell Lowell; "Christian Quarterly Re- view;" "The Boston Transcript;" Lady Jane Franklin; William C. Prime; Rev. Philip Schaff, D. D.; "The Republican," Spring- field; George Ripley, the New York "Tribune;" Rev. James McCosh, D. D.; Hon. Richard Stockton Field; Newark "Adver- tiser;" Edmund C. Stedman; Rev. Robert Turnbull, D. D.; John vi CONTENTS. G. Whittier; Rev. S. I. Prime, D. D.; George Ripley, New York "Tribune;" Rev. James McCosh, D. D. Gov. Daniel Haines; Rev. George Dana Boardman, D. D. ; Rev. Charles Hodge, D. D.; Hon. Frederick Theodore Frelinghuysen; Prof. Robert Lowell, D. D.; Prof. Stephen Alexander; Oliver Wendell Holmes; William Cullen Bryant; Chancellor Henry Wood- hull Green; Charles H. Spurgeon. Hon. William Earl Dodge; Thomas Gordon Hake, M. D. ; New York "Observer;" the New York "Times;" "The Critic;" John Y. Foster; Hon. Justin McCarthy; the "Examiner and Chronicle;" Hon. Horace N. Congar; Rev. William Hague, D. D.; Newark "Advertiser;" Rev. George Dana Boardman; Rev. A. S. Patton, D. D.; Hon. Joseph P. Bradley; John G. Whittier. The Rt. Hon. John Bright, M. P.; Rev. H. G. Weston, D. D.; Rev. Horatius Bonar, D. D.; Rev, Alexander McLaren, D. D.; Adele M. Fielde; Elizabeth C. Kinney; "The Book Buyer," Charles Scribner's Sons; Rev. Theodore L. Cuyler, D. D. ; the New York "Tribune;" Rev. Frederic W. Farrar, D. D., F. R. S. ; Rev. A. H. Tuttle, D. D.; Rev. Charles S. Robinson, D. D. ; Hon. George Hay Stuart; Rev. D. R. Frazer, D. D.; Charles M. Davis; Rev. A. H. Lewis, D. D.; S. W. Kershaw, F. S. A.; J. K. Hoyt; Rev. George Dana Boardman, D. D. ; Rev. Lewis R. Dunn, D. D.; Rev. Asahel C. Kendrick, D. D.; George MacDonald; Rev. Philip Schaff, D. D.; the " New York Tribune;" the "Newark Daily Advertiser ;" the Rev. Robert S. Mac Arthur, D. D.; the Rev. Ed- ward Judson, D.D.; Bishop John H. Vincent, D.D., LL.D.; the Rt. Rev. Phillips Brooks, D.D.,LL.D.; the Rt. Rev. John Williams, D.D., LL.D. ILLUSTRATIONS. ^ Steel Engraving of Dr. Abraham Coles, by Alexander Hay Ritchie, - - Frontispiece u The Apollo Belvedere. Artotype copy of the origi- nal. ------ Opp. page 20. This celebrated marble statue was found in the Fifteenth Century, at Antium (Capo d' Anzo), Italy, the birthplace of the emperor Nero, who is believed to have brought it to Antium from the Sacred Shrine at Delphi. Delphi, situated on the southern side of Mount Parnassus, was, to a certain extent, protected by the sanctity of its oracle and the presence of its god. According to Herodotus, the vast riches accumulated in the temple at Delphi (City of the Sun) led Xerxes, after having forced the pass of Ther- mopylae, to attempt its capture. The effort, however, is said to have failed, by reason of the intervention of Apollo. The sculptor of this wonderful statue is unknown. It was placed through Michael Angelo in the Belvedere of the Vatican. It was taken by the French to Paris in 1797, but was restored to Rome in 1815. ^ Andreas Vesalius, - - - - Opp. page 24 He was born in Brussels in 1514; began his studies in Louvain and prosecuted them in Italy. He made himself master of Hebrew, Greek and Arabic at the age of twenty. When only twenty-eight years old, he published his great work on Anatomy, De Corporis Humani Fabrica. Senac calls it the discovery of a new world; and Haller speaks of it as "an immortal work by which all that had been written before was almost superseded." In it he exposed the errors of the Galenian school, and broke the spell which for so many ages had held the medical world in thraldom. The work met with viii LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. the fiercest opposition, but the author's reputation steadily increased. In 1544 he was made chief physician to the Emperor Charles V, and afterwards to Philip II. In 1563 or 1564 he suddenly left Madrid to make a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, for reasons not certainly known. The common story is that while he was examining the body of a Spanish nobleman who had died under his charge, as he laid open the chest, the bystanders imagined they saw a tremulous motion of the heart, whereupon he was denounced to the Inquisition as guilty of murder and impiety. Where superiority of knowledge was esteemed a crime, however innocent, he was sure to be condemned, but through the influence of Philip, his punishment was commuted to a pilgrimage. On his voyage back to accept the Paduan profes- sorship of Anatomy, tendered him by the Venetian senate, he was wrecked on the Island of Zante, where, it is said, he died of starva- tion, October 15, 1564. The original painting is the work of the French artist, F. Ham- man. Its design, as we construe it, is to illustrate the pious spirit in which the great anatomist was accustomed to begin his investiga- tions. With eyes turned reverently upward to a crucifix on the wall, he prefaces the work of dissection with devout prayer to the Divine Redeemer, the Incarnate Word, Maker of all things, Lord of life. Lord also of the Sciences, and "that True Light which lighteth every man that cometh into the world." This view of the design of the picture makes its accommodation to the purposes of the entire poem obvious and easy. Possibly, by a stretch of courtesy, the invocation found on the twenty-fourth page may be allowed to stand for the prayer supposed to be offered. " Dear God! this body, which, with wondrous art," &c.— P. 24. Rembrandt's " Lesson in Anatomy." Prof. Tulp and his Pupils. All Portraits. 1632. - Opp. page 31. The original of this picture is found at the Hague. It formerly stood in the Anatomy School of Amsterdam, but was purchased by the King of Holland for 32,000 guilders (;i^2,70o). It is described as a "most wonderful painting and one of the artist's finest works," Sir Joshua Reynolds remarks: "To avoid making it an object dis- LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. ix agreeable to look at, the figure is but just cut at the wrist; showing the Jlexor muscles ol the fingers. There are seven other portraits, colored like nature itself, fresh and highly finished; one of the figures behind has a paper in his hand on which are written the names of the rest, with Rembrandt's own, and the date 1632. The dead body is perfectly well drawn (a little foreshortened) and seems to have been just w^ashed. Nothing can be more truly the color of dead flesh. The legs and feet, which are nearest the eye, are in shadow; the principal light which is on the body is by that means preserved of a compact form." " The subject Muscles, girded to fulfill The lightning mandates of the sovereign will, — Th' abounding means of motion, wherein lurk Man's infinite capacity for work." Harvey Demonstrating to Charles I his Theory of THE Circulation of the Blood, - Opp. page 67. William Harvey was born in Folkstone, England, April i, 1578; died in London, June 6, 1657. In 1628, he published his great dis- covery, made, it is said, but not matured, nine years before, in a work entitled Exercitatio Anatomica de Alotu Cordis et Sanguinis in Animalibus , and dedicated it to Charles I. He lived to be considered as the first anatomist and physician of his time, and to see his dis- covery universally acknowledged. The original of the above picture is by an English painter (Robert Hannah). " Make room, my Heart, that pour'st thyself abroad. Deep, central, awful mystery of God! ***** Where Auricle and Ventricle with power Repeat their grasp five thousand times an hour." \/The Venus de Medici. By Cleomenes, the Athenian. B. C. 200. Opp. page 70. This famous antique marble statue was exhumed in the villa of Hadrian, near TivoH, in the Seventeenth Century, in eleven pieces. After remaining for some time in the Medici palace at Rome, it was X LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. taken to Florence and is now in the " Tribune." It was in the Louvre at Paris from 1796 to 1815. " From its exquisite proportions and perfection of contour, the Venus de Medici has become the most celebrated standard of female form extant." The following rules obtained by measurements of Greek statues are adopted by sculptors: "First — As to height, tastes differ, but the Venus de Medici is about five feet five inches in height. This is held by many sculptors and artists to be the most admirable stature for a woman. For a woman of this height, one hundred and thirty-eight pounds is the proper weight, and if she be well formed she can stand another ten pounds without greatly showing it. When her arms are extended she should measure from tip of middle finger to tip of middle finger just five feet five inches, exactly her own height. The length of her hand should be just a tenth of that, and her foot just a seventh, and the diameter of her chest a fifth. From her thighs to the ground she should measure just what she measures from the thighs to the top of the head. The knee should come exactly midway between the thigh and the heel. The distance from the elbow to the middle finger should be the same as the distance from the elbow to the middle of the chest. From the top of the head to the chin should be just the length of the foot, and there should be the same dis- tance between the chin and the armpits. The waist measure twenty- four inches, and the bust thirty-four inches, if measured from under the arms, and forty-three if over them. The upper arm should measure thirteen inches and the wrist six. The calf of the leg should measure fourteen and one-half inches; the thigh, twenty- five, and the ankle, eight. There is another system of measure- ments which says that the distance twice around the thumb should go once around the wrist; twice around the wrist, once around the throat; twice around the throat, once around the waist, and so on. As for coloring and shape, here is the code laid down by the Arabs, who say that a woman should have these things: Black — Hair, eyebrows, lashes and pupils. White — Skin, teeth and globe of the eye. Red — Tongue, lips and cheeks. Round — Head, neck, arms, ankles and waist. Long — Back, fingers, arms and limbs. Large — Forehead, eyes and lips. Narrow^ — Eyebrows, nose and feet. Small— Ears, bust and hands." y LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. xi r/ Ambrose Pare (1509-1590). "The Father of French Surgery," Opp. page 75. Brantoine relates that Henry III took good care to shield his surgeon (Pare), who was suspected of being a Huguenot, from the dangers of St. Bartholomew's night, keeping him in his own room and motioning him not to move therefrom. Theodor Billroth says Fare's treatises on the treatment of gun-shot wounds are classical, and he has rendered himself immortal by the introduction of the ligature for bleeding vessels after amputation. Edward Jenner (1749-1823), - - Opp. page 77. Edward Jenner had his attention directed to the discovery of vaccination as a preventive of smallpox by hearing a young milk- maid say she could not take the disease because she had already had the cowpox. Upon investigation, he "satisfied himself of the efficacy of inoculation with the virus of the cowpox to prevent smallpox, and next ascertained, with equal certainty, that the former disease could be communicated from one human being to another, without having recourse to the original vaccine matter." In 1858 a statue of Jenner was placed in Trafalgar Square, London. ^J Prof. Theodor Billroth, M. D., and his Clinical Assistants, Vienna. - - - Opp. page 78. '*Each year adds something — many things ye know Your sires knew not a hundred years age." — Page 78. PREFACE. rr^HE following Address and Poem were delivered before the Medical Society of New Jersey at its Centennial Meeting, held in Rutgers College, New Brunswick, N. J., January 24, 1866, and published with its Transactions. Prepared amid the hurry and distrac- tions of other duties, and with special reference to the demands and limitations of the occasion, the Poem, as originally delivered, fell short of the author's design, which was to produce, if possible, a tolerably complete compendium of that noblest, most necessary, and yet, strange to say, that most neglected of all the sciences — Anthropology — relieved of some of the dryness belong- ing to the ordinary modes of presentation. The hope of supplying in some measure existing deficiencies, led the author, after the manuscript had passed into the hands of the printer, to avail himself of the short intervals which transpired between the receiv- ing and returning of the proofs, to castigate some parts ii PREFACE. and expand others not sufficiently developed, so that besides alterations there have been additions to the amount of two hundred lines and more since that first reading. He regrets that the hurry of the press joined to the hurry arising from other causes, afforded so little opportunity for putting in practice the sound inculca- tion of Horace, concerning the duty of delay and care- ful finish: limcB labor et mora. With more time at his disposal, he thinks he could have done better justice to the fine capabilities of a subject, vi^hich the writers of verse, ransacking heaven and earth for a theme, have hitherto for the most part strangely overlooked. This remarkable omission is the more to be wondered at, because many of our best poets have been physicians; and for some reason or other *' the wise of ancient days adored One power of Physic, Melody and Song." Dr. Armstrong's well-known Poem in four books, written in blank verse, and first published in 1744, entitled, " The Art of Preserving Health," does, indeed, treat partially and incidentally of physiological PREFACE. iii matters, and may therefore be regarded as forming in some sort an exception to the general rule of neglect affirmed above. It has for its topics — Air, Diet, Exercise and the Passions — discussed of course, in conformity with the design of the Poem, according to their sanitary bearings, each forming the subject of a separate book. The work was everywhere read and admired; and remains to this day, according to the poet Campbell, " the most successful attempt in our language to incorporate material science with poetry." While the critic admits that "the practical maxims of science, which the Muse has stamped with imagery and attuned to harmony, have so far an advantage over those delivered in prose, that they become more agree- able and permanent acquisitions of the memory," he, in common with others, seems to think, that there inhere in such subjects, nevertheless, difficulties of a most formidable kind, a perversity and stubbornness of nature, which are never overcome except by some rare felicity of fortune or surprising exertion of genius. Hence he says: "the author's Muse might be said to show a professional intrepidity in choosing her subject; iv PREFA CE. and, like the physician, to prolong the simile, she escaped on the whole with little injury. * * * What is explained of the animal economy is obscured by no pedantic jargon, but made distinct and to a certain degree picturesque to the conception." So too in his final summing up of the merits of the Poet, he does not fail to emphasize that special one, due " to the hand which has reared poetical flowers on the dry and dif- ficult ground of philosophy." But there is another and much older example of this morganatic marriage, as some might call it, between poetry and natural science — one antedating the Chris- tian era and the time of Virgil. Lucretius, born in the year before Christ 95, composed a Latin poem in heroic hexameters, entitled £>e Reriim Natura. It is divided into six books; and is based on the doctrines of Epi- curus, who taught that the world was formed from a fortuitous concourse of atoms. The first two books expound the nature and proper- ties of these ultimate atoms or seeds of things, varying in shape and infinite in number, moving in void space infinite in extent, with great swiftness, some in right PREFACE. V lines, others declining therefrom, until united to each other after innumerable tentative contacts, all the ob- jects in the universe are generated — which objects form the subject matter of the remaining four books. The third book is taken up with a description of the mind (animus) and soul (anima) maintaining that both are corporeal, acting on the body by material impact ; that the substance of the mind and soul is not simple, but composed of four subtle elements — heat, vapor, air, and a nameless fourth substance on which sensibility depends, and is, so to speak, the soul of the soul; that the soul cannot be separated from the body without destruction to both, and that death is the end of man. The fourth book treats of the senses, averring that images* of exquisite subtlety are constantly emitted (shed, peeled off as it were) from the surface of objects, * Democritus first, Epicurus afterwards called these eUcjla Kal TV770VC, i. e. eidola and types; Cicero, images; Quintilian, figures; Catius, spectres; Lucretius, eflSgies, images, simulacra, species, figures, exuviae, spoils, quasi membranes, cortices, etc. Epicurus and Lucretius supposed spectres of the dead to be pellicles thrown off from corpses which were so thin as to pass through coffins and all other obstructions. Vl PREFACE. which flying everywhere and impinging on the organs of sight produce* vision; that voice and sound are cor- poreal images, (as proved by their abrading the throat after long or loud speaking,) which strike the ear and produce hearing. Taste and odors are accounted for; and imagination and thought traced to images which penetrate the body through the senses. Sleep is next spoken of, and the various causes of dreams — the book closing with a discourse on love and matters pertaining thereto. The fifth book treats of the origin of the world — land, sea, sky, sun, stars, the movements of the heavens^ the changes of the seasons and the progress of man, society, institutions and sciences — while the sixth book, being the last, attempts an explanation of the most striking natural appearances, such as lightning, thunder, clouds, rainbow, snow, wind, hail, earthquakes and volcanoes, concluding with a discourse on diseases, and a learned and elegant description of a pest which in the time of the Peloponnesian war desolated Athens. The philosophy of this celebrated Poem is of course false and absurd, but in regard to its poetical merit PREFACE, vii there can be but one opinion. The poet's mastery over his .materials is complete. Under his magic touch, speculations the most abstruse and technicalities the most refractory, lose their intractableness, and are con- verted into forms of exquisite beauty and grace. Great, undoubtedly, are the attractions of a virgin theme. It added to the rapture of Milton, " soaring in the high reason of his fancy with his garland and singing robes about him," the knowledge that he pursued " Things unattempted yet in prose or rhyme." So Lucretius, in the opening lines of the fourth book, does not conceal his satisfaction that he is first in the field: "Avia Pieridum peragro loca, nullius ante Trita solo: juvat integros adcedere funteis Atque haurire; juvatque novos decerpere flores, Insignemque meo capiti petere inde coronam, Unde prius nulli velarint tempora Musae."* * The Muses' pathless places I explore, Worn by the sole of no one's foot before : 'Tis sweet to untouched fountains to repair And drink; 'tis sweet to pluck new flowers; and there To seek a famous chaplet for my brow Whence have the Muses veiled no head till now. The literalness of this translation must atone for its lack of elegance. Viii PREFACE. The author of the Microcosm, enjoying, in common with these great masters of song, the felicity of a sub- ject unprofaned by previous handling, regrets that he does not possess their power to do it justice. He thinks it strange — that while amid the ignorances and the vani- ties of a false philosophy two thousand years ago, the poet's heart, instinctively discerning the excellent beauty there is in God's works, ver as pulchriiudines reru7n, was stirred to sing, and in such a manner as to charm the ear of the world " Principio ccelum ac terras, camposque liquentes, Lucentemque globum lunae, titaniaque astra Spiritus intus alit; totamque infusa per artus Mens agitat molem et magno se corpore miscet " — no one has been found in these last days, after so long waiting, sufficiently kindled and inspired by the excit- ing discoveries and revelations of modern science, to undertake the task of lifting them into the sphere of poetry, and glorifying them with its light. If there is nothing so mean but it has a divine side — if materials for poetry be not wanting in the most common things, a floating cloud, a spear of grass, or a handful of dust PREFACE. ix even — how much more may this be said of so lofty a subject as Man, " the mirror of the power of God " reflecting His Maker's image in every part, in the minutest blood-disk and elementary cell, no less than in the complex whole of his most wonderful organism! In short, if it be the proper business of Poetry to deal with subjects of human interest, what can be more human than humanity itself? Or if its high aim be to discover throughout creation the dazzling tokens of the Beautiful, the ro uaXov which is only another name for the Divine, where else in all the universe do the shin- ing footprints of the First Good and the First Fair appear so radiant or so recent as in His last and crown- ing work, the Human Form ? The failure of the present attempt to show it, would prove nothing against the grand poetic possibilities of such a theme. Still it would be true *' How charming is divine philosophy ? Not harsh, and crabbed, as dull fools suppose. But musical as is Apollo's lute, And a perpetual feast of nectared sweets Where no crude surfeit reigns." THE MICROCOSM. "KNOW THYSELF." "It is most true that of all things in the universe man is the most composite, so that he was not without reason called by the ancients Microcosm, or the little world (Mundus Minor)" — Bacon. "What a piece of work is Man! How noble in reason! how infinite in faculties ! in form and moving, how express and admir- able ! in action, how like an angel! in apprehension, how like a God !" — Shakespeare. "I esteem myself as composing a solemn hymn to the Author of our bodily frame, and in this I think there is more true piety than in sacrificing to Him hecatombs of oxen, or burnt offerings of the most costly perfumes, for I first endeavor to know Him myself, and afterwards to show Him to others, to inform them how great is His wisdom, His virtue. His goodness." — Galen. "I will praise Thee; for I am fearfully and wonderfully made." — David. ADDRESS DELIVERED BEFORE THE Medical Society of New Jersey AT ITS CENTENARY ANNIVERSARY, January 24TH, 1866, BY ABRAHAM COLES, M. D. ADDRESS. npHE Medical Society of New Jersey, hoary with the frosts of a hundred winters, and mindful of its just honors as the oldest organization of the kind on the Continent, has here met, in a place not far from the spot where it was first cradled, to celebrate by special and festal observances, this its first Centenary Anniversary. It certainly affords remarkable proof of original vigor, and reflects infinite credit upon its earlier and later membership, that, except for a brief space during the Revolutionary War, the Society has never failed to hold regular meetings. In the midst of a thousand changes, the throes of revolution, and the fall of empires, it has stood unmoved. Nations have been born since it came into being. It is older than the Republic. x\t the time of its formation, its founders were living under British rule, not dreaming of revolt. 6 ^ ADDJ^ESS. If they shared in the popular ferment caused by the passage of the odious Stamp Act by Parliament a few- months before, they probably had no expectation of seeing matters pushed to the point of open rupture, and forcible separation from the mother country. The first stone of the Temple erected to Freedom had not yet been laid. The Society was some years old when the first blow for Independence was struck. Lexington and Concord, " Where once the embattled farmers stood, And fired the shot heard round the world," were insignificant villages unknown to fame. The brain that conceived the Declaration of Independence was probably revolving far other ideas. On the dazzled mind of no seer or statesman had dawned the unparal- leled splendors of the Nation that was to be — the constellar glories of that Imperial Commonwealth,, composed of a resplendent Sisterhood of States, mighty and populous and ever increasing, joined indissolubly together so as to form one vital organic whole, E pluri- bus Unum, such as is witnessed to-day. ADDRESS. 7 Those fourteen physicians and surgeons, (let their names be always mentioned with honor,) who, foremost in an enlightened appreciation of the advantages accru- ing to science and humanity from such an organization, on the 23d of July, A. D. 1766, laid the foundations of this Society — have long since passed away. "After they had served their own generation by the will of God they fell on sleep, and were laid unto their fathers." How inspiring the vision, could they have been per- mitted to penetrate the future and foresee all that has since happened; the mighty changes which have taken place; the struggles and triumphs by means of which this divinely favored and foreordained Nation has been gloriously carried forward to the culminating felicity of the present time, when Peace once more smiles through all the land — a glad and righteous Peace — and Slavery, its deadliest foe, the inextinguishable cause of strife and hatred, ever at work to mar " The unity and married calm of States," has, albeit at an immense cost of treasure and blood, by a perpetual and unalterable constitutional enactment, <^ ADDRESS. been banished and driven out of every part of the national domain. How amazing the contrast between now and then! Then there were no railroads, no steamships, no telegraphs, no Hoe's lightning print- ing presses, no photography, no chloroform. In like manner who can tell what new and startling discoveries will be made in the centuries to come. Methinks " It were a pleasant thing To fall asleep with all one's friends. To pass with all our social ties To silence from the paths of men, And every hundred years to rise And learn the world, and sleep again, To sleep through terms of mighty wars, And wake on science grown to more, On secrets of the brain, the stars, As wild as aught of fairy lore, And all that else the years will show. The Poet-forms of stronger hours, The vast Republics that may grow. The Federations and the Powers. ■Sfr * * * * * So sleeping, so aroused from sleep. Through sunny decades new and strange. Or gay quinquenniads, would we reap The flower and quintessence of change." ADDRESS. g Members of the Society! called to address you in the character of President on an occasion so extraordinary, I can say with all sincerity, that howevergrateful it may • be to my feelings to be the recipient of so distinguished an honor, the gratification is largely tempered with the fear that I may not be able to justify the partiality of your selection. My misgivings, I confess, are greater, because of my having ventured upon untrodden paths, and attempted the novelty of a poetical excursion into the arduous fields of human physiology, where few flowers are supposed to bloom. The poetical form, how- ever, may fairly claim this advantage in justification of its adoption, that it allows a more fervid expression of those feelings of devout awe and amazement w^hich the study of the wonders of the human economy is so well fitted to excite. I offer no apology for mixing up my Religion with my Science ; and make no concealment of the fact, but glory in avowing it, that these are Christian, both one and the other. Nor do I regard it as a just matter of reproach that I make my creed so dominant and posi- tive. Believing firmly that the Christ that redeemed lo ADDRESS, me is the God that made me; not knowing nor desiring to know any other God but Him, I am accustomed to make Him an essential part of all knowledge, dis- cover Him in every discovery of Science, and count all truth dead until He vitalizes it. Any Science of Life, which is not based on the recognition of the fact that "in Him we live and move and have our being," I reckon essentially defective. A Physiology which has to do with decomposing corpses, rather than living men and women; that puts these into retorts and distils them; or peeps and peers at the minutest shreds and specks of dead tissue through a microscope, and determines a cell to be the ultimate fact of structure, however true, has no right, I conceive, to be supercilious towards those, who, with- out rejecting what is thus discovered, find room for other things, things that pertain to the spiritual side of humanity, the indubitable facts of consciousness, a soul that soars and delights in freedom, and is not so in love with smallness, as willingly to be cooped up forever into so minute and microscopic a circle, cor- responding to a cypher, the symbol of nothingness, to ADDRESS. 1 1 which indeed it closely approximates. So that if it comes to pishing and poohing, others, for aught we can see, have as good a right to pish and pooh as those who anogate so much; the Sadducees of science, who believe in neither angel nor spirit, and are able to find nowhere anything worthy of worship ; in this respect, showing themselves to be more heathenish than the heathen. The great Galen, albeit an unbaptized pagan, who lived and wrote in the second century, after reviewing the structure of the hand and foot, and their adapta- tion to their respective functions, treats us to the fol- lowing eloquent outburst of pious feeling, breathing a spirit not unworthy of Christianity itself: " I esteem myself as composing a solemn hymn to the Author of our bodily frame, and in this I think there is more true piety than in sacrificing to Him hecatombs of oxen, or burnt offerings of the most costly perfumes, for I first endeavor to know Him myself, and afterwards to show Him to others, to inform them how great is His wisdom, His virtue. His goodness." This noble utterance, so honorable to the head and 12 ADDRESS. heart of one, who, for 1400 years, ruled from his urn in the great schools of medicine throughout the civilized world with an authority so absolute, that it was reckoned a crime to question it in the smallest par- ticular — sets forth so truly the design I had in view in the following Poem, that I have chosen it as a motto, in connection with that other apothegm of Greek wis- dom, ''Know Thyself." I style my Poem, "The Micro- cosm," and in order that I may be more easily followed in the reading of it, I beg to premise an outline of its plan in the following ANALYSIS. The Poem begins with speaking of Man as the Arche- type or ideal exemplar of all animals, whose coming was foretold in a long series of Geologic prophecies from the creation of the paleozoic fishes ; and then passes to notice a remarkable anticipation of this accepted doctrine of modern science in the 139th Psalm — Owen, Agassiz and other great lights of Comparative and Philosophical Anatomy agreeing in this — that while man was the last made he was the first planned ADDRESS. 13 of all animals — it being easy to trace even in the fins of the fish, a marked resemblance in structure to the bones composing the human arms of which they are homo- logues — fins, in other words, being imperfect arms, arms in their most rudimentary condition. In speaking of the supreme dignity of the human form, viewed as a whole, and of man existing m God as well as of God, occasion is taken to animadvert upon the atheistic tendency of certain materialistic teachings. After which the component parts of the Human Body are taken up in detail, beginning with — I. the Skin, as its outermost covering and face, (expressing the pas- sions, &c.,) composed of three layers. Below the Skin lie — II. the Muscles, the Organs of Motion, directed by the Will, acting through nervous channels of communi- cation with — III. the Brain, as the Common Sensory, and seat of this, and the other Faculties of the Mind, such as the Understanding, the Religious Sense, Mem- ory, Imagination and Conscience. A secretory function is attributed to the great Ganglions of the Brain (the Gray Substance) of a hypothetical Nervous Fluid which fills the whole body. 14 ADDRESS. The Mind being dependent for its perceiving power on the Organs of the Senses, leads to a consideration of — IV. the Eye in its relation to Light, also to Tears and Sleep. After glancing at the analagous relations subsisting between the Soul and Truth, mention is made of the Founders of Asylums for the Blind; also of Asylums for the Deaf and Dumb. Next comes — V. the Ear in its relation to Sound and Music; and then by a natural transition — VI. the Human Voice, as being the most perfect of musical instruments. The Mouth and Nose, being concerned in Articulation, brings up — VII. Taste, and — VIII. Smell. The final cause of Taste being the repair of the Waste the body is constantly undergoing, there follows a description of— IX. Inges- tion, Digestion and Assimilation. The Chyle received into the Blood is conveyed to the right side of the Heart, which, besides being the grand Organ of — X. the Circulation and indirectly of Nutrition, is the reputed seat of — XI. the Affections, and stands in general speech as a synonym of Love under its mani- fold manifestations. Having noticed the coloring or modifying power of ADDRESS. ic the Viscera in giving Love its distinctive character, as exemplified in Maternal Love and the Love of the Sexes, occasion is taken to speak of — XIL Woman, as distinguished from Man. Of Charity, which is Love in action, or Love viewed in its practical aspect, an apt illustration is found in the devotion and self- denying labors of — XIII. the Conscientious Physician. Reference is made to — XIV. Christ as the Great Physician of Souls; and to — XV. Death in that as- pect of brightness which it bears to the believer. THE MICROCOSM TvgdOi (jeavrov. Geologic Prophecy of Majis Coming. OWHAT a solemn and divine delight To pierce the darkness of primeval night — Through countless generations upward climb To the first epochs of beginning time ; Back, through the solitude of ages gone, To the dim twilight of Creation's dawn ; To the dread genesis of heaven and earth, When pregnant Deity gave Nature birth ; Borne on swift pinions, till our feet we place Upon the undermost granitic base Of the round world ; and, awe-struck, standing there, Where all is lifeless, desolate and bare, 2 l8 THE MICROCOSM, Behold the forming of earth's upper crust, Built up of atoms of once living dust ; Layer on layer rising, rock on rock, Through lapse of years that numeration mock; Where lie, in stony sepulchres forgot. Gigantic organisms that now are not ; And all the various forms of life prevail, From low to high, in an ascending scale, — Mollusk and fish, then reptile, and then bird, So on to mammal, each o'er each interred — All pointing forward, in the eternal plan. To the ideal, archetypal MAN ! Scriptural Anticipation of the Doctrine. How oft, what's plain and patent in the Word Is by slow Science painfully inferred ! The truth she took long centuries to unfold, Had she but known it, was already told. See, with what ease the Psalmist now unlocks The secret of the paleozoic rocks ; Inspiring insight given him, to see The drift and meaning of the mystery; His, the discoveries of modern boast, By revelation of the Holy Ghost ; THE MICROCOSM, 19 In correspondence, literally exact With geologic inference and fact, O'erwhelmed with fear and wonder, hear him speak :* '' O Omnipresent One ! in vain I seek To bound Thy being, get beyond Thee, go Where Thou, the Infinite, art not, — Oh, no ! If I ascend to heaven, I find Thee ; or in hell I make my bed, I find Thee there as well ; There is no hiding place from Thee ; yea, in the dark Thou seest me, nor need'st the sun — that spark Which the insufferable splendor of Thine eye Did kindle — to reveal me or descry ; Thou hast possessed my reins ; didst give me room, Growth and development in my mother's womb ; My substance was not hid from Thee, when I Was made in secret, and was curiously In the earth's lowest parts and strata wrought ; My perfect whole, was present to Thy thought While yet imperfect, and, in Nature's book My members were prefigured ; each thing took My embryonic likeness ; fish's fin. By virtue of relationship and kin, * Psalm cxxxix. APOLLO BELVEDERE. From the Original Statue. THE MICROCOSM. 21 Proclaim thee ruler, destined to command. A little lower than the angels made, Dominion, glory, worship on thee laid, I praise not thee, but honor and applaud The handiwork and masterpiece of God. Fearful and w^onderful, and all divine, Where two worlds mingle, and two lives combine — A dual body, and a dual soul. Touching eternity at either pole — The tides of being, circling swift or slow, 'Tvveen mystic banks that ever overflow, Exist not severed from the Fountain-head, But whence they rise, eternally are fed : Our springs are all in God; from Him we drink, Live, move, and have our being, feel and think. Christian Science. I value Science — none can prize it more — It gives ten thousand motives to adore. Be it religious, as it ought to be. The heart it humbles, and it bows the knee; What time it lays the breast of Nature bare, Discerns God's fingers working everywhere ; In the vast sweep of all embracing laws. 22 THE MICROCOSM. Finds Him the real and the only Cause ; And, in the light of clearest evidence, Perceives Him acting in the present tense — Not as some claim, once acting but now not, The glorious product of His hands forgot, Having wound up the grand automaton, Leaving it, henceforth, to itself to run. Infidel Science. If I mistake not, 'tis in this consists The common folly of the specialists. Bigots of sense, they, with unwearied pains Searching for soul, find something they call brains; Happy the mystery of life to tell, By help of glasses, they announce a cell ; And thereupon they would the world persuade They know exactly how that man is made ; 'Tween nought and nought, his origin and end, A cell is all, and all on this depend ; They pare his being, make it less and less, Until they reach the goal of nothingness. Their boasted methods failing to find out The soul's high essence, they affect to doubt ; To their own notions obstinately wed, THE MICROCOSM. 23 They vainly seek the living 'mong the dead ; By learning mad, these noodles of the schools Are but a kind of higher class of fools. Who follows matter through its countless shapes, While still it vanishes and still escapes ; O'er eagerly pursues the flying feet Of natural causes farther than is meet, Losing all trace, and drawing thence too near, Into the bottomless obscure falls sheer ; With atheistic cant, then God ignores. And turns the Maker fairly out of doors ; Deems certainties of consciousness weigh less Than the presumptions of a learned guess. Conunon Sense. Presumptuous though it be, I, with a calm Audacity of faith, believe I am ; Nor venture with a Maker to dispense. But trust the sanities of Common Sense ; Hold life, despite of failure to extract, A thing of firm reality and fact ; Accept the truth, engraven on my heart, I have a spiritual and immortal part. If this great universe is a deceit, CO CO (O THE MICROCOSM. 25 Each Tissue woven in the loom of God ! Compared with that magnificence of dress, Wherewith is clothed the Spirit's nakedness, O how contemptible and mean a thing, The purple and fine linen of a king ! The spotless vesture of the silky Skin, Outside of all, and covering all within, With what a marvellous and matchless grace. Is it disposed and moulded to each place ; Bounding and beautifying brow and breast, A crowning loveliness to all the rest ! Endowed with wondrous properties of soul That interpenetrate and fill the whole — A raiment, moral, maidenly and white, Shamed at each breach of decency and right, Where dwells a charm above the charms of sense. Suggestive of the soul's lost innocence. Pathognomy. Who has not seen that Feeling, born of flame,* Crimson the cheek at mention of a name ? The rapturous touch of some divine surprise ♦ Aristotle calls I-ove, " Ti dep/zuv 7rpa}-/v«"— a certain fiery thing. 26 THE MICROCOSM, Flash deep suffusion of celestial dyes ; When hands clasped hands, and lips to lips were pressed. And the heart's secret was at once confessed ? Lo, the young mother, when her infant first Gropes for the fountain whence to quench its thirst ; With outstretched tiny hands, to eager lips Conveys the nipple, and the nectar sips ; — As on her yearning breast, she feels the warm Delicious clasp of its embracing arm, How thrills the bosom, and how streams the wine ! How her frame trembles with a Joy divine ! Not Joy, not Love alone here take their rise, The chosen seat of mighty sympathies ; Electric with all life, Religious Awe Here holds its empire and asserts its law. At dead of night when deep sleep falls on men, Terror and trembling came upon me ; then A spirit passed before my face ; the hair Stood up upon my shuddering flesh — and there Was silence — all my bones did shake — A voice the preternatural stillness brake : "Shall mortal man, whose origin is dust, Arraign his Maker, claim to be more just ?" Contending Passions jostle and displace THE MICROCOSM. 27 And tilt and tourney mostly in the Face ; Phantasmagoric shapes appear and pass, Distinctly pictured in that magic glass ; Their several natures, instantly imbued With the complexion of the changeful mood — Ashes of Grief, and pallor of Affright, Blackness of Rage, and Hatred's wicked white, The immortal radiance of Faith and Hope, Like that which streamed on Stephen's from the cope ; The hidden depths of being, stirred below. Thoughts, passions, feelings, upward mount for show ; Unmatched by Art, upon this wondrous scroll Portrayed are all the secrets of the Soul ; Upon this palimpsest, writ o'er and o'er, Each passing hour is busy penning more ; Events, that make the history within, There published on the surface of the Skin. Interior View — Skin Dissected. What lies below this beautiful outside? What proofs of power and wisdom does it hide ? To eyes instructed and divinely keen. The Shekinah, the Cherubim between. Was not more visible than the Godhead here, 88 THE MICROCOSM. Nor spake more audibly to human ear. For from the centre to this far extreme, And corporal shore of being, Love supreme Its miracles magnificent has wrought, Embodying the Maker's perfect thought. Would you explore the Mysteries of Life ? Dissect in fear, use reverently the knife — All was made sacred to some holy use, Whate'er the profanations of abuse — Cut not with blundering and careless hand. If you the fleshly maze would understand ; For that the task is difficult, it needs The skill and knowledge which experience breeds. Blending of ConU-aries — St?'uctural Details. Now that the Dermal Covering is cut through, And its interior structure brought to view. Pause, if you will, and let your aided sight Peruse the wonders of Creative Might. Admire the skill that can in one combine A Sensibility and a Touch so fine — Making the Skin throughout the purpose serve Of one ubiquitous great surface nerve. That finest needle, would it entrance gain. THE MICROCOSM, 29 Must pierce the sense and stab the soul with pain ; Where camping armies of papillae wait, Manning each fortress, guarding every gate. Armed at all points, and vigilant as fear. To sound th' alarm when danger hovers near — And yet, despite this nicety of sense. Formed for coarse uses, and for rough defense ; — An imbricated Armor, scale on scale * Twelve thousand millions form a coat of mail, Flexile and fine, or horny else and hard. The trembling nakedness of sense to guard ; A colored Rete delicately spun, Quenching the fiery arrows of the sun. Spreads soft above, and undulating dips *The Skin as here described includes: i. The CwifzV/^ with its innumerable microscopic tiles specially designed for defence. 2. The Rete Mucosum^ the seat of color. 3. The Corium or True Skin, consisting of two non-separable layers — the upper, papillary and sensitive ; the lower, firm and fibrous. 4. Perspiratory tubes ^ convoluted beneath the true skin, their spiral ducts opening obliquely under the scales of the Cuticle, their office being to purify and cool the body. 5. Sebaceous Follicles^ or Oil Glands^ seated in the substance of the skin, serving to soften and lubricate the surface, furnishing likewise, perhaps, 6, that Distinctive Odor pecu- liar to each individual whereby he sows himself on all the winds, and perfumes with every footstep the ground over which he passes. 7. The Hair^ implanted by a bulbous root in the fibrous layer of the Corium, which being contractile shrinks under the influence of great fear or horror, and as the poet says : " Makes each particular hair to stand on end Like quills upon the fretful porcupine" — quills in the porcupine, feathers in the bird, wool and hair in the quadruped, all belonging to the same category. Hair in man, not being needed for warmth or covering as in the lower lives, is gathered to the head and appropriately crowns it. 30 THE MICROCOSM. Between the sentient papillary tips, Part of the duplex Corium beneath Forming a continent elastic sheath, Felted and firm and suitable to bind, Muscle andviscus to the place assigned ; Where, nine full leagues of Tubing buried lie — All convoluted opening to the sky, Transmitting formed impurities within, Through doors and windows of the porous skin, Th' exuding moisture tempering inward flame, Cooling the fever of the heated frame — Fountlets and Rivulets of Oil below. Preserving softness, ever spring and flow ; Musk emanations — to the dog defined, Snuffing his master on the scented wind — Hair, not for warmth or dress, here sparsely spread, Reserved to ornament the regal head. Around the brow of Eva thickly curled And crowning Adam monarch of the world. Voluntary Muscles — Their Office and Work. Lifting this threefold Veil, we find — beneath A dense, enclosing, universal sheath — * * The enveloping aponeurosis or fascia binding down the muscles. J TO CO rri P5 f^ THE MICROCOSM. 31 The subject Muscles — * girded to fulfil The lightning mandates of the sovereign Will — Th' abounding means of motion, wherein lurk Man's infinite capacity for work ; By which, as taste or restless nature bids, He rears the Parthenon or Pyramids ; In high achievements of the plastic art, Fulfils th' ambitious purpose of his heart ; Creates a grace outrivaling his own, Charming all eyes — the poetry of stone ; Symbols his faith, as in Cathedrals — vast Religious petrifactions of the Past : Covers the land with cities ; makes all seas White with the sails of countless argosies ; Pushes the ocean back with all her waves. And from her haughty sway a kingdom saves ; Tunnels high mountains, Erebus unbars, And through it rolls the thunder of his cars ; With stalwart arm, defends down-trodden right. * Some authors reckon the number of Muscles in the Human Body as high as 527. They have been divided into Voluntary (forming the red fiesh, or the main bulk of the body); Invo/uniary, such as the heart, fleshy fibres of the stomach, etc. ; and Mixed^ such as the muscles of respiration, etc. Each Muscle is made up of an indefinite number of fibres, which may be considered as so many muscles in miniature, along which stream the currents of the Will. Yet with all this complex apparatus everything is in harmony. 32 THE MICROCOSM. And, like a whirlwind, sweeps the field of fight ; And when, at last, the war is made to cease. On firm foundations stablishes a peace ; Then barren wastes with nodding harvests sows, And makes the desert blossom as the rose. Muscular Dynamics — Directing Power Where ? Bundles of fleshy fibres without end. Along the bony Skeleton extend In thousand-fold directions from fixed points To act their several parts upon the Joints ; Adjustments nice of means to ends we trace. With each dynamic filament in place ; But Where's the Hand that grasps the million reins Directs and guides them, quickens or restrains ? See the musician, at his fingers' call, All sweet sounds scatter, fast as rain-drops fall ; With fiying touch, he weaves the web of song. Rhythmic as rapid, intricate as long. Whence this precision, delicacy and ease ? And where's the Master that defines the keys ? The many-jointed Spine, with link and lock To make it flexile while secure from shock, Is pierced throughout, in order to contain THE MICROCOSM. 35 The downward prolongation of the brain ; From which, by double roots, the Nerves* arise — One Feeling gives, one Motive Power supplies ; In opposite directions, side by side, With mighty swiftness there two currents glide — Winged, head and heel, the Mercuries of Sense f Mount to the regions of Intelligence ; Instant as light, the nuncios of the throne Command the Muscles that command the Bone. Each morning after slumber, brave and fresh, The Moving Army of the Crimson Flesh, From fields of former conquests, marching comes To the grand beating of unnumbered drums — \ Each martial Fibre pushing to the van To make *' I will " the equal of " I can"; * For the benefit of the general reader, presumably not familiar with anatomi- cal details, we may state that there are 43 pairs of nerves in all, i.e. 12 Cranial or Encephalic and 31 Spinal. The first have only one root in the brain, whilst the latter arise by two roots from the anterior and posterior halves of the spinal mar- row, but unite immediately afterwards to form one nerve. Division of the ante- rior root causes loss of motion — of the posterior the loss of sensation. The first transmit volitionsyV£>wz the brain, the latter sensitive impressions to the brain. t Helmholtz has instituted experiments to determine the rapidity of transmis- sion of the nervous actions. For sensation the rate of movement assigned is one hundred and eighty to three hundred feet per second. Muscular contraction, or shortening of the muscular fibre takes place, at times, with extreme velocity ; a single thrill, in the letter R., can be pronounced in the i-3o,oooth part of a minute. There are insects whose wings strike the air thousands of times in a minute. The /orce of contraction {Myodynamis) is most remarkable in some of these. In birds, the absolute power in proportion to the weight of the body is as 10,000 to i. % The heart and arteries. 3 34 THE MICROCOSM. Testing the possibilities ot power In deeds of daring suited to the hour ; Doing its utmost to build up the health And glory of the inner Commonwealth. Levers and fulcra everywhere we find, But Where's the great Archimedean Mind, That on some pou sto,* outside and above, Plants its firm foot this living world to move ? Craniiun — Soul 's Firynament — Brai?i. Find it we shall, if anywhere we can, Doubtless, in that high Capitol of man. Whose Spheric Walls, concentric to the cope, Were built to match the nature of his Hope. What seems the low vault of a narrow tomb, Is the Soul's sky, where it has ample room ; As apt through this, its crystalline, to pass, As though it were diaphanous as glass. When Sense is dark, it is not dark, but light, Itself a sun, that banishes the night. Shedding a morning, beauteous to see, On the horizon of Eternity. * Archimedes used to say, '' Give a place where I may stand ((5of ttov (TTu), and I can move the world." THE MICROCOSM. 35 Strange, a frail link and manacle of Brain So long below suffices to detain A principle, so radiant and high. So restless, strong, and fitted for the sky. Mind's Organ — City of the Dead. Here mounted, standing on the topmost towers, Up to the roof of this high dome of ours. With the Mind's Organ in our hands, what new Secrets of structure strike th' astonished view? A weird and wonderful, and fragile mass Of white and gray * — deserted now, alas ! All knowledge quite razed out ; no trace Of things which were ; now mourns each happy place, *The Nervous System everywhere consists of two kinds of tissue — White and Gray. The White forms the 7ierz'es^ the exterior of the spinal cord, and the cetztral parts of the brain and cerebellum (where it is soft, like curdled cream, but is firmer in the nerves), composed everywhere of parallel fibres or threads of extreme fineness, which form the Channels of nervous power and influence to and from the Ganglionic Centres— Sources, both great and small, of this influence. These constitute the Gray substance found in the ce?itra^ pa.rts of the spinal cord, at the l>ase of the brain in isolated masses, and the exterior of the cerebrum and cerebel- lum, where to economize space it lies in folds, dipping down into the interior, and forming the convolutions. It is found also in the ganglia of the Great Sympa- thetic. Condensely stated, the gray ganglia originate nervous power, the white ner\'ous filaments only transmit it. The Hemispherical Ganglia (the plaited or convoluted cortex of the cerebrum forming about nine-tenths of the whole mass of the brain), although entirely destitute of both sensibility and excitability, are believed to be on good grounds the special seat, so far as these can be said to have any, of the intellectual faculties — memory, reason, judgment and the like. Im- pressions, conveyed to the Spinal Cord, /. e. its ganglionic centre, are there organ- 36 THE MICROCOSM. Where frolicked once the Children of the Mind, Of all the number, not one left behind ; No vestige of the battle and the strife ; None, of the conquests that ennobled life. Hid is the maze where Doubt was wont to grope ; Hid the starved fibre of a perished Hope ; Hid the tough sinews of a wrestling Faith, The Christian Athlete matched with Sin and Death ; Hid all the teeth-prints of the wolves of Grief, A savage pack, of which Remorse is chief. How strange, of all the wounds our comforts mar. That o»f the fellest we should find no scar ! None can point out where Understanding dwelt ; None, the high places where Religion knelt — The spot where Reverence, with feet unshod. Came to consult the Oracle of God. The crypts and catacombs, where Memory cast The bones of all the dead of all the Past ; ically, not intellectually perceived, and the movements which follow are such as are dictated by supreme organic wisdom, forming indeed an admirable ininticry of conscious sensation and voluntary action, but mimicry only, for both are really absent. This belongs to what is called "reflex action," and explains automatic function and phenomena, of which life is full. It is not, it is believed, until im- pressions have reached the ganglion of the Tuber Annulare that they are con- verted into conscious sensations and excite volttntary movements. And only when they have mounted to the Hemispheres, the ganglia of thought and feeling, that they become the property of the intellect and are made the grounds of rational conduct. THE MICROCOSM. 37 Shelves, where were stowed all libraries of man, All gray traditions, since the world began ; All literatures, religions, kinds and parts Of knowledge, laws, philosophies and arts ; All actions, all articulated breath — The Book of Life, and, ah ! the Book of Death, — Wherein, whatever fatal leaf it turned. Its former self the guilty soul discerned. Mirrored entire — seen outside and within In every form and attitude of sin ; Th' inevitable reflection, imaged there, True to the life, like pictures of Daguerre ; The very scene, in which each deed was done, Painted in all the colors of the sun ; So faithful, fresh, time, circumstance and act, The past reality seemed present fact — There field, and weapon, and the riven brain Of Abel smitten by the hand of Cain, And blood, with red moist lips, in Pity's ears Crying for vengeance through eternal years, Th' unwashed crimson of the guilty sod As in the eye and memory of God. Imagination's skyey seat, where came For soaring flight the demigods of fame, 38 THE MICROCOSM. Home of the Muses, fair and forked Mount Of high Parnassus, and Castalian Fount, Whence issued streams that watered all the earth, Then most, when blind Moeonides had birth ; And Zion's holier Hill, and Siloe's Brook, Warbling forever, in blind Milton's book ; The topmost peak where Shakespeare took his stand,, And waved his wand of power o'er sea and land. Strange, that so sweet and heavenly a hill, Should breed fierce dragons, ravenous beasts of ill — *' Gorgons and hydras, and chimeras dire,' Monsters of hideous shapes, with tongues of fire — Have rifted rocks whose entrance leads to hell, And the damned wizard of the mighty spell. Making its precincts all enchanted ground. Turning to horror every sight and sound. With grisly terrors, straight from Acheron, Peopling each nook, and darkening all the sun. None can the judgment seat of Conscience show^ That highest Court and Parliament below. Where, sole and sovereign, seated on her throne, She recognized th' Infallible alone. To her, the keys of heaven and earth were given. And what she bound on earth was bound in heaven. THE MICROCOSM. 39 By the clear light, which her decisions shed, Instructed feet in pleasant ways were led. Martyrs were pointed to the neighboring sky, And Patriots taught how sweet it is to die. Where these had their high dwelling, we, in vain, Seek in this packed and folded pulp of brain. Judged, by the ignorant regards of sense. How mean ! by heights of function, how immense ! To reason and the vision of shut eyes Its infinite expandings fill the skies. What regions of sublimity once there ! What mountains soaring in the upper air ! Not thunder scarred Acroceraunian* peak, Alpine or Himalayan loftier than the Greek, So high so hidden — from whose secret tops. Keener than needles, trickled the first drops Of rising rivers, flowing silently Into the cerebral deep drainless sea. From which, as from a mighty fountain-head, Life's crystal waters everywhere were spread, * A range of very high mountains in Greece (from uKpo^, exlrcmo, and Kepavvoc, thunderbolt), so called because their peaks are often struck by light- ning. 40 THE MICROCOSM. Coursing in liquid lapse through Channels White,* Swift as the lightning, stainless as the light, Conveying to each atom of the whole Volitions, animations, power and soul. Once beautiful for situation, gem And joy of the whole earth, Jerusalem, How sits she solitary ! she that was great Among the nations, now left desolate ! Th' adversary hath spread out his hand On all her pleasant things and spoiled the land ; Her gates are sunk into the ground ; the rent And ruined rampart and the wall lament ; Her palaces are swallowed up ; the Lord His altar hath cast off ; He hath abhorred His sanctuary even ; hath o'erthrown And pitied not, nor cared to spare His own. * The Nerves are composed of bundles of minute fibres or filaments, averaging* 1-2,000 of an inch in diameter. Each filament consists of a colorless, transparent, tubular membrane, containing a thick, softish, semi-fluid nervous matter which is ivhite and glistening by reflected light. Running through the central part is a longitudinal grayish band, called " the axis of the cylinder." Branches of a nerve are merely separations and new directions of some of the filaments of the bundle, these being always continuous from their origin to their point of distribution, which prevents any confusion arising from a running together of impressions. The nervous tree, like that of the blood vessels, is so vast, that in its totality, exhibited separately, it would give almost an outline of the human form. The circulation of a nervous fluid, though not demonstrable, has been hypothetically deduced from the tubular structure of the nerves and other considerations. Assuming the fact, the whole body may be said to swim in this vital sea, having its analogy in that higher or divine animation, described as being " filled with the Spirit." THK MICROCOSM. 41 The Eyc\ and its Correlative. The ways of Zion mourn ; funereal gloom Pills every habitation like a tomb ; Closed is each port, and window of the mind ; And there is none to look — the Eye is blind. How different once, when in that little Sphere The glorious universe was pictured clear ! O what an Organ that ! germane to Light, Whose own relations too are such to sight, T'were hard to say, the two so nicely fit. Made was the eye for light, or light for it. Ne'er were two lovers, separate by space. More eager, fond, impatient to embrace. Than that sweet splendor — streaming from afar, Traveling for ages from some distant star, Straight as an arrow speeding from the bow — And that dear Eyeball waiting here below. Light has no Manifesti?ig Power without the Eye. Prime work of God ! upon the bended knee The whole creation homage pays to thee ; From night and chaos countless suns emerge That all their beamings may in thee converge, 42 THE MICROCOSM, Since wholly vain and useless were, they know, Without the Eye to see, their light to show ; They roll in darkness, quenched their every ray^ Till thy lids opening change the night to day. Placed, for commanding and enjoying these, In the dread centre of immensities. The depths thou searchest and the heights supreme^ Ranging at will from this to that extreme. Where space is dark to thy unaided sight. Thither thou turn'st thy telescope of might. And in the heart of the abysmal gloom Behold'st celestial gardens all abloom — Brave starry blossomings and clusters fine Loading the branches of the heavenly vine ; See'st suns, like dust, lie scattered 'long the road That leads to that far Paradise of God. From this to yonder, who the leagues can tell ? One might compute the ocean's drops as well. Turn now ! the nether infinite explore ! Extend thy vision as thou did'st before !* Pierce downwards, pierce to the concealed minute,^ The ultimates of things, the germ, the root, * For example, with a Microscope that magnifies a million times. THE MICROCOSM. 43 The atom world, — so near and yet so far Not more remote is the remotest star — To forms of hfe to which, O can it be? A drop of water is a shoreless sea ! So vast thy sweep, it surely were not strange If eye angelic had no wider range. Even so ! On earth or in the realms of air Nothing is fair but as thou mak'st it fair — In face or flower or iris braided rain, Beauty exists not or exists in vain ; Without thy power to paint them or perceive There were no gorgeous shows of morn and eve. Light lost ill the Eye reappears in the Consciousness. Ho\v wonderful, that organs made of clay Should drink so long th' abundance of the day ! Receive the constant unreturning tides Of sun and moon and all the stars besides ! Not lost is all this mighty wealth of beams — Rivers of light, innumerable streams, Flow darkling for a space, then spring again To join the Arethusas * of the brain, * The river Alpheus in Elis is fabled to flow under the earth to Sicily and to unite with the fountain Arethusa ; hence Arethusa, a nymph, whose lover was- Alpheus. 44 THE MICROCOSM. In bliss of married consciousness to be Fountains of brightness through eternity. Tears — Sleep, its Resuscitating Power — Organic Life. Since man was born to trouble here below, Tears were provided for predestined woe ; And tears have fallen in perpetual shower From man's apostasy until this hour, But there's the promise of a future day When God's dear hand shall wipe all tears away. On eyes that watch as well as eyes that weep Descends the solemn mystery of Sleep, Toiling and climbing to the very close, The weary Body, longing for repose. On the gained level of the day's ascent, Halts for the night and pitches there its tent ; Then, sinking down, is 'gulfed in an abyss As deep and dark as the abodes of Dis.* Rather, returns into the peaceful gloom And blank unconsciousness of Nature's womb, Where plastic forces work, to be next morn To a new life and mightier vigor born — * Domos Ditis. THE MICROCOSM. 45 Prepared to run again Life's upward way Scaling the misty summits of To-Day ; Lo ! height o'er height, through all the years, they rise, Supplying steps by which to mount the skies, Ladder, like Jacob's, heavenly, complete. Whose radiant rounds were for angelic feet. From night's dark caves spring evermore, in truth, Fountains of freshness and perpetual youth ; This seeming death, with consciousness at strife, Is health and happiness and length of life. There is within, that which preserves and keeps — Organic Providence that never sleeps • — When the slack hand of Reason drops the rein, This drives the chariots of the heart and brain. Were life's full goblet trusted to the Will, Its nerveless hand would soon its contents spill ; The Maker so was careful to provide Another principle and power beside, Archeus,* Instinct — any name may serve — * The Archaeus (from Gr. "pjeww, to rule ; apxVi beginning), according to Van Helmont, is an immaterial principle, existing from the beginning and presiding over the development of the body and over all organic phenomena. Besides this chief one, which he located in the upper orifice of the stomach, he admitted several subordinates, one for each organ, each of them being liable to anger, caprice, ter- ror, and every human feeling. 46 THE MICROCOSM. Organic Life, Great Sympathetic Nerve,* With Cerebellum,! competent to save, And rescue from the clutches of the grave, — When Sleep would else have caused immediate death. Stopped the heart's action, and cut short the breath, Drying each source, that fed and kept alive Th' industrious bees in the organic hive. J * The Great Sympathetic lies in front and along the sides of the spine, and sup- plies the organs over which the will and consciousness have no immediate control, such as the intestines, liver, heart, etc. Its numerous ganglia (centres and origi- nators of nervous influence) are the knots of a nervous reticulation which connects not only the organs of Organic Life one with the other, but these also with the brain and spinal cord. It is due to this- -separately or conjointly with the spinal cord in its reflex or excito-motor capacity, derived from its own ganglionic axis or pith, giving it also independent and automatic powers, powers not sensibly de- pendent upon the consciousness or will for their exercise— that all the vital func- tions do not come to a stand-still in our first slumber. t The opinion, which attributes to Cerebellum the power of associating or co- ordinating the different voluntary movements, is the one now most generally re- ceived. Destroyed, the gubernatorial faculty is lost and the animal staggers and falls like a drunken man. In addition to this, it has been supposed that whatever the cerebrum does rationally and by fits, the cerebellum does unconsciously and permanently— so that in sleep, the motions of thought and will not being organi- cally but only consciously suspended, need to be maintained and kept up to their proper level, and that this is the office of the cerebellum, which like the chain and springs of a watch, not only regulate its movements, but prevent it from running suddenly down. X While an exaggerated importance may have been given to the doctrine of Cell Formation, the truth of it seems to be well established. The statement of Virchow that " Every animal presents itself as a sum of vital unities, every one of which manifests all the characteristics of life," although hypothetical, at least in part, is a convenient formula for explaining many vital phenomena observed both in health and disease. Receiving it, it certainly justifies the figure here used— the bee working with a blind instinct, being compared to that organic intelligence, which resident in each cell presides over the functions of nutrition, secretion and elimination. THE MICROCOSM. 47 ■ Spiritual A nalogics. As light to Eye, so to the Soal, in sooth, The Hght of God, the higher light of Truth. How, when man fell, his dark and hungry eyes Looked for the sunrise in the eastern skies ! Filled with all doubt, and wandering forlorn, Watching for signs of the delaying morn ! Ah ! should it never break, the stumbling feet Go stumbling onward to the Judgment Seat ; And toward the guilty, should there be no ruth In the just bosom of the God of Truth ; Those images of horror and affright. Projected on the canvas of the night, Should aye be present, wheresoe'er he turn. And God's fierce anger never cease to burn ! Ah! when the parting heavens some gleam let through, Some gleam of promise shining through the blue. Ah, more ! when that the Dayspring from on high Told that the Sun of Righteousness was nigh ; — Waving glad wings of many colored flame, Fore-running angels certified He came ; Then most of all, when following full soon, Upon his midnight burst eternal noon ; 48 THE MICROCOSM. How to the heavenly host his pulses beat, Timed to the music of their marching feet ! Congenital Blindness — Awards of the Last Day^ Alas, for those, who, haply blind from birth, Have never seen the loveliness of earth ; To whose rapt gaze, the spectacle ne'er given Of all the dread magnificence of heaven ; One mighty blank, one universal black, The moving wonders of the Zodiac ; The constellations from their fixed abode. Shed no sweet influence on their darkling road : Their rolling eyeballs turn, and find no ray ; An unknown joy, the blessedness of day. Between the man, who, in his neighbor's grief, With swiftest pity, flies to his relief ; And him, whose cruel and unnatural part It is to plague and wring his brother's heart. How deep the gulf ! how different the award At the great final coming of the Lord ! In the Last Judgment, all the world shall hear The silent thunder prisoned in a tear — * * Faraday has shown by the most conclusive experiments that the electricity which decomposes, and that which is evolved by the decomposition of a certain quantity of matter are alike. A single drop of water therefore contains as much electricity as could be accumulated in 800,000 Leyden jars — a quantity equal to that which is developed from a charged thunder-cloud. THE MICROCOSM. 49 The pent up wrath shall strike the tyrant there, Who would not pity, and who would not spare. Asylums for the Bliiid. Thou, who wert styled th' Apostle of the Blind, No bays too green, thine honored brows to bind, Who toiled and sacrificed beyond the sea — 'Tis right to name thee, Valentin Haiiy !* To render happier a cheerless lot ; Enrich with knowledge those who have it not ; To pour nevy light into the darkened mind, And force an entrance where it none can find ; By novel methods, and ingenious tools. Imparting all the learning of the schools ; For loss of one, obtaining recompense In the perfection of another sense ; — Inspiring music, bringing heaven so near They almost think they see it, as they hear — * Louis IX., better known as St. Louis, in 1260 founded the Hospice des Quinze Vingts at Paris — designed, as its name implies, originally for 15 score or 300 per- sons — which still exists. This is believed to have been the first public provision ever made for the Blind. It was solely eleemosynary. No instruction was at- tempted. Although in the 16th century attempts were made to print for the Blind in intaglio and afterwards in relief, nothing material was accomplished, till 1784, when Valentin Haiiy, " the apostle of the blind" as the French named him, commenced his arduous, and self-denying labors, and laid the foundations of the modern system. His pupils became eminent as musicians or mathematicians. 4 50 THE MICROCOSM, Is like that work, in kind if not degree, Done Bartimeus, when Christ made him see. Asylums for the Deaf and Diunb. Not less their praise, nor less their high reward, Th' unequaled heroes of a task more hard. Enthusiasts, who labored to bridge o'er The gulf of silence, never passed before. To reach the solitaire, who lived apart,* Cut off from commerce with the human heart ; To whom had been, all goings on below, A ceremonious and unmeaning show ; Men met in council, on occasions proud. Nought but a mouthing and grimacing crowd ; •The possibility of teaching the Deaf and Dumb was never conceived by the an- cients. Useless to the State, their destruction in infancy was even connived at ; and they were classed legally with idiots and the insane. Plunged in a night of the profoundest ignorance, sitting apart in utter loneliness, their state was the saddest possible. Attempts to instruct them belong mostly to modern times. Three sys- tems have been adopted in different countries. i. That of Wallis, Pereira Heinicke and Braid wood, which falsely assumed that while signs may give vague ideas there can be no precision without words. Consequently the first years under this system were devoted almost wholly to learning articulation and reading on the lip. 2. That of abb^ De I'Epde as improved by Sicard and Bebian, which proceeds on the directly opposite theory that there is no idea which may not be expressed by signs without words. Sign lang^lage has the important advantage, besides many others that might be named, of being universal. 3. The American system,which is a further modification of De I'Epee's. The number of deaf-mutes who have distinguished themselves in science and art is already quite consider- able. My friend, Mr. John R. Burnet, farmer and author, living at Livingston, N. J., is one of the best informed men in the State. THE MICROCOSM, 5 1 And all the great transactions of the time, An idle scene or puzzling pantomime. Children of silence ! deaf to every sound That trembles in the atmosphere around, Now far more happy — dancing ripples break Upon the marge of that once stagnant lake, Aye by fresh breezes overswept, and stirred With the vibrations of new thoughts conferred. No more your minds are heathenish and dumb, Now that the word of truth and grace has come ; Your silent praise, that penitential tear, Are quite articulate to your Saviour's ear. Hearing — Powers of Sound — Music of Nature. Within a bony labyrinthean cave. Reached by the pulse of the aerial wave, This sibyl, sweet, and mystic Sense is found. Muse, that presides o'er all the Powers of Sound. Viewless and numberless, these everywhere Wake to the finest tremble of the air ; Now from some mountain height are heard to call ; Now from the bottom of some waterfall; Now faint and far, now louder and more near, With varying cadence musical and clear ; 52 THE MICROCOSM. Heard in the brooklet murmuring o'er the lea ; Heard in the roar of the resounding sea ; Heard in the thunder rolling through the sky ; Heard in the little insect chirping nigh ; The winds of winter wailing through the woods ; The mighty laughter of the vernal floods ; The rain-drops' showery dance and rhythmic beat, With twinkling of innumerable feet ; Pursuing echoes calling 'mong the rocks ; Lowing of herds, and bleating of the flocks ; The tender nightingale's melodious grief ; The sky-lark's warbled rapture of belief — Arrow of praise, direct from Nature's quiver, Sent duly up to the Almighty Giver. Music of Art — I?istrumental aiid Vocal, If once, ye Powers, with reeds, a rustic Pan, Ye tuned idyllic minstrelsies for man. These thin dilutions of the soul of song. Ye have abandoned, and abandoned long. Sweet as the spheral music of the skies. The thunder of your later harmonies. O fill the void capacious atmosphere With your full sum, and pour it in the ear ; THE MICROCOSM, 53 Drown it with melody, nor let it wade Longer in shallows, of the deep afraid. Join to all instruments of wind and cords The poetry and excellence of words. If Country calls, put in the Trumpet's throat A loud and stirring and a warlike note ; And let there follow an inspiring blast, As the long file of heroes hurries past ; Then raise th' exultant clamor to its height, When crowned as victors, they return from fight. Because the service God demands of men Is not an intermittent thing of now and then, Temples of permanence we rightly raise. For the perpetual purposes of praise, And build great Organs, in whose tubes of sound, Sleeping or waking, ye are always found. Awake ! prepare Te Deums ! now awake ! Wave your great wings till all the building shake ! Rend the low roof, and rend the vault of heaven, Bearing the rapture of a soul forgiven ! Voice — Air of Expiration^ Its Transmutations. Wonderful instrument, but not so choice As is the Organ of the Human Voice. 54 THE MICROCOSM, What compact proof of Heavenly Power and Skill, When simplest means sublimest ends fulfill ! That two-stringed Lyre — quick strung to every note. Placed at the windy entrance of the throat. With a divine economy of room, So placed it might the smallest space consume, There where the aerial currents come and go. To feed the vital fires that burn below, And with a quickening purifying force. The blood to freshen in its onward course — Taking the waste, effete and useless breath, Charged with the very element of death. Converts it into music, glorious shapes Of power and beauty, ere that breath escapes. A transformation marvelous and strange, Unequaled, in the Alchemy of change ; Harmonious forces working to condense The blazing jewels of intelligence ; Diamonds more rich than proudest monarchs wear, Formed from the gaseous carbon of the air ; Th' imperial currency of human wit. Image and superscription stamped on it. Coined from the atmosohere — th' exhaustless mine Of golden treasures magical and fine — THE MICROCOSM, 55 Chief circulating medium of thought, And common mintage by which truth is bought, And wisdom in its infinite supply, Stored in th' invisible market of the sky ! Speech, Accountable Self-recording— Mathematical Problem. O Heart and Mouth, in strictest wedlock bound, Whence spring th' immortal births of soul and sound ! Winged for far flight, your moral offspring sweep The airy fields of the cerulean deep. Up to the awful place, where Judgment waits Within Eternity's tremendous gates. Philosophy itself may serve to teach, No power so fearful as the Power of Speech. The idle word, which nothing can recall. Breaks sacred silence thrilling through the All ; Yea, like a pebble dropped into the sea. Ripples the ocean of immensity ; An oath profane, the horror of a lie. The shuddering Ether bears beyond the sky : Sounding through height and depth, its way it takes To distant spheres, and endless echoes wakes ; After long ages, still can be inferred, The sense and nature of each uttered word. 56 THE MICROCOSM. Declared in postured particles, because The dance of atoms is by rhythmic laws : For that another cannot be the same, God calls each atom by a differ*ent name ; Makes these an alphabet, by which to spell Each sentence spoken, and each syllable ; Beyond the power of parchment, or of pen. Expounding all the utterances of men.* Its Social Uses — The Word made Flesh. Most genial of the faculties is this. And most subservient to social bliss ; Fulfills the longing as no other can. When man would manifest himself to man ; * Mr. Charles Babbage — an English Mathematician of the first rank, formerly Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at Cambridge, the Chair of Newton, famous also as the inventor of a Calculating Machine, built at a cost to the English Government of $85,cxx), followed by another, involving a still heaver outlay — in a work styled "The Ninth Bridgewater Treatise," published in 1838, filled with much original and quaint speculation, expresses his faith in the startling doctrine that no word or action can ever be eliminated from the records of Nature, but that the air is a " vast library," in whose pages are forever written all that man has ever said or woman whispered, inasmuch as the aerial pulses which seemed to have died out completely might yet be demonstrated by human reason to exist. So of the ocean. A being possessed of unbounded powers of mathematical analysis might trace the results of any impulse on the fluid, or read back the history of the sea in its own billows. And so too, the solid frame of the earth may serve as a stereotyped record both of the transactions and the proceedings of its inhabitants; for not only the heavings of the greatest earthquakes, but the little local tremors which the stamp of a human foot may produce, may all be said to have left their memorials in the ground. Heaven and earth are therefore prepared to bear wit ness against the transgressor on the Day of Judgment. Terrible thoughts these, but what if thev are true ? THE MICROCOSM. 57 The isolated soul shut up no more Walks freely forth as through an open door. Vainly in inarticulate dumb show, Had Nature strove to teach man here below ; When finding that intended to reveal, Served but the more His presence to conceal, God put aside the Vesture of the Skies, And walked and talked with men in Human Guise : Th' apocalyptic Word made Flesh, made thus Communicated Godhead— God With Us. A rticulation— Nose— Mouth—Smell— Taste. Behold how man, the polyglot, employs Th' uncompounded elemental noise ! Makes endless permutations, mixes breath For nice intonings of each shibboleth ! Up from the Throat, one little step, we reach The cunning moulds and matrices of speech ; Formless and void the vocal chaos flows, Shaped into Language by the Mouth and Nose ; Mellifluous modulations taking place, In scented caverns of the hollow face ; Sweet mobile Lips, Teeth, Palate, flavorous Tongue, Making intelligible the speaking Lung ; 58 THE MICROCOSM. Aiders of Speech, but then the seats as well Of the two senses of the Taste and Smell. Smell— Odors, Their Subtlety and Imponderability. The Nerves of Smell, the first the brain to leave. Combed and divided through a bony sieve,* They, from their tresses of disheveled hair, Shake out the tangled fragrance of the air. Conversant with all sweetness — Nature brings Hither the soul and quintessence of things ; Airy solutions of the finer powers. Imponderable properties of flowers ; Th' aroma of all seasons and all times. Kingdoms of nature, continents and climes — Too subtle and too spiritual, I ween. These for analysis however keen. Daintiest of senses, daintily it feeds On thymy pastures of the sk3^ey meads, Drinks from etherial fountains, whence are quaffed Delicious lungfuUs at one mighty draught. Cheering the breast, and sweetening all the blood, Like some celestial minister of good. * The ethmoid bone (from n^jJ-o^, "a sieve," and etdoq, " form"). THE MICROCOSM. 59 Breath of Life^ Natural and Spiritual. God breathed, O breath with heavenly sweetness rife ! Into man's nostrils first the breath of life. The blissful aura vivified the whole, And straightway man became a living soul. Then odorous Eden yet more odorous grew, As o'er its bowers, th' informing Spirit blew Another inner and diviner air, Moving within the proper atmosphere. That shook the leaves and made the tree-tops nod, A mystic wind immediately from God, — Rushing and mighty like the Holy Ghost Poured out upon the day of Pentecost, Still the same Spirit where it lists it blows, We know not whence it comes nor where it goes, But souls it quickened on Creation's morn, Now dead in sin to a new life are born : One inspiration of immortal breath Creates a life beneath the ribs of death. Theopneusty. O via sacra, O thrice blessed door. Once hallowed with Thy presence, hallow. Lord ! once more. 6o THE MICROCOSM. Inbreathe Thyself, my Maker ! fill each cell Of my deep breast, and deign with me to dwell. Come, my Desire ! Thou theme of heavenly tongues, Fulfill the want and hunger of the lungs. Be Thou my breath, my laughter, my delight, My song by day, my murmured dream by night. When hope dilates, and love my bosom warms. Be these the product of Thy powerful charms. If grief convulses, be it grief for sin, Prompt every sigh and make me pure within ; Perfumed by Thee " make every breath a spice And each religious act a sacrifice." Taste — Elimination and Waste — N'othing Lost. We eat to live : the Gustatory Sense (The same as Smell, but with a difference) At the pleased portal of the hungry throat, From endless sources, neighboring and remote. Assembles relishes, and daily feeds On these to satisfy the body's needs. Each moment, lo ! we die and are reborn ; * The old becomes cadaverous and outworn ; *" Occasio enim prseceps est propter artis materiam, dico autem corpus, quod continue fluit et memento temporis transmutatur." — Galen. THE MICROCOSM, 6l Beyond the boundary of our every breath, Wide yawns the open sepulchre of death ; Parts of our living selves give up the ghost ; Corrupt, corrupting, use and function lost. Benignant Nature with victorious force Effects deliverance from the loathed corse And body of this death ; in ceaseless flow, Fun'ral processions of dead atoms go. Thronging life's ways and outward opening gates, All unattended, where no mourner waits. Because the quick have duties, let the dead Bury their dead, the Lord of life hath said. No fear that needful ministry or rite Shall then be wanting when they pass from sight ; Sown on the winds or swallowed of the waves They shall not fail of hospitable graves. Dear to terrestial and celestial powers. Through every moment of the flying hours. Earth, careful mother, to her bosom draws Each reverent particle subject to her laws ; Dust welcomes dust, and all the happy ground Rejoices that the lost again is found. Again it forms a portion of the mould To tread the circle it fulfilled of old. 62 THE MICROCOSM. Again it ministers to the thirsty root, Mounts to the blossom and matures the fruit ; Eaten again, again it makes a part, Or of the thinking brain or feeling heart. Human Want and Divine Supply. Because we ne'er continue in one stay — Our flowing lives still wash their banks away ; This colliquation of unstable flesh, Invades the old and scarcely spares the fresh ; The new formed solid, even, oozes through, " Thaws and resolves itself into a dew ;" And all is flux, and out ten thousand doors Our manly strength perpetually pours — We Hunger and We Thirst, and all abroad We see spread out the mighty Feast of God. Abounding plenty equal to the waste With luscious adaptations to the taste ; Viands heaped up in such seductive guise, Forestalling pleasure looks with sparkling eyes The golden produce of the garnered fields, Whate'er the valley or the mountain yields. The juicy tops of Nature, not that found In the dark mineral lumpish underground. THE MICROCOSM. 63 By intermediate vegetative toil, And much elaboration of the soil, Lifted in air and glowing in the sun. We pluck the fruit then when the work is done. In curious quest of every dainty known, We draw from every month and every zone. To pile our boards, the canvas is unfurled Of more than half the navies of the world. Art intervenes, and as the case requires. Concocts the crude with culinary fires ; Goes forth in nature to extend her range, And serve man's love of novelty and change, By findings of manipulative skill, Testings and tastings, mixings at her will Of all the kingdoms, flavorings of the same, And seasonings of vegetable flame. Imperious Wants ! obedient to whose call, Armies capitulate, dynasties fall: Howe'er the rulers of the earth combine, They may not blink the fact that man must dine. It might seem little and beneath God's care — A punctual ordering of man's common fare ; Unwarranted, extravagant, absurd. To think our Pater Nosters could be heard — 64 THE MICROCOSM. Did we not know that round our every meal Suns wait and serve and mighty planets wheel. Lord's Prayer — Hodiernal Bread — Hygienic Wisdom, Father in heaven, hallowed be Thy name — 'Tis on Thy fatherhood we build our claim — Stoop to our needs, we cannot else be fed, Give us this day, as erst, our daily bread. Preserve us from perversion and abuse, Turning Thy bounties from their proper use ; From gluttony and criminal excess, Making enough our rule, nor more nor less. Instruct us how to choose, lest that we sin Against the body's health, the powers within, Awful economies and sacred laws. Of half our miseries the dreadful cause. May we live innocent as at the first. Using safe beverages to quench our thirst, Our common drink be water from the well. Not brewed enchantments of the fires of hell, Not tasting unblest cups, by Thee unblest. But where Satanic benedictions rest. Cursing and killing, maddening tlie brain — Brief joy succeeded by eternal pain. THE MICROCOSM, 65 Ingestion — Digestion — Assimilation, Be in our Mouths to sanctify our Food ; Begin the process changing it to Blood. We dare not call that common and unclean Which Thou hast cleansed — nor count that longer mean So honored by assimilations grand, And exaltations of Thine own right hand, As through the channels of the body rolled, Th' ingested Morsel comes to be ensouled. Wherefore be present, every step attend Of its miraculous progress to the end. During the perilous passage of the strait, O keep fast shut the Laryngeal Gate : Adown the Throat while that it gently glides, And in the Stomach's secret chamber hides. Be there to entertain th' expected guest, And to the welcome give a keener zest. Make the couch ready : and mid veiling gloom, And holy privacy as in a womb, Induct into the mysteries of the place . Rain down celestial influence and grace Upon the nascent neophyte ; prepare The lavers of regeneration ; where 5 66 THE MICROCOSM. By wondrous saturations* for a time, And fresh baptisms of the new-born Chyme A part all purified, from soil purged clear, Made meet and worthy of a higher sphere, Enters the veins and mingles with the blood ; The rest a stained probationary flood, Passing the Gate Pyloric waits awhile. Its transformation into purer Chyle. Prosper and bless and let the work proceed. Each faithful function equal to the need ; Teach the strict Lacteals, duly this to guide Into the narrow way from out the wide. Where freed from feculence all white and clean, And trained, through mazes of the Glands between, For saintly fellowship and spousals sweet With the dear Lymph, as they together meet Within the Duct Thoracic, mount to gain The level of the pierced Subclavian Vein — Tempering the mass, to form a fluid part Of that humanity which fills the Heart. * The Gastric Juice, like the saliva, is not secreted in considerable quantity (Dr. Beaumont says not at all) except under the stimulus of recently ingested food. It is estimated that the average total quantity secreted in a man of medium size in 24 hours is 14 pounds, equal to nearly two gallons. This quantity would be altogether incredible, were it not, that as soon as it has dissolved its quota of food, it is immediately re-absorbed and agains enters into the circulation, together with the alimentary substances which it holds in solution. — Dalto7i. THE MICROCOSM. 67 Heart — Circulation — Nutrition — Blood Exhilarations. Make room, my Heart ! * that pour'st thyself abroad, Deep, central, awful mystery of God ! Lord of my bosom ! wonder of the breast ! "** Welcome the coming, speed the parting guest : " The young white blood, commingled with the old — Purple, impure, effete in part, and cold — Give needful furtherance through the Lungs, to where It meets the fiery spirits of the air — In friendly barter with the growing plants Exchanging what they need for what it wants ; For dingy carbon, refuse of the frame. Receiving back the principle of flame ; While mystic cerebrations downward pour The human flood to humanize yet more. Making it moral, with all passions rife, Instinct with mortal and immortal life ; * In the Fish, the Heart is a single organ, having- one Auricle and one Ventri- cle. In Reptiles, it has two Auricles placed side by side, and one Ventricle. In Quadrupeds and Man it is double, with two Auricles and two Ventricles ; and there are two distinct Circulations— the General or Systemic, and Pulmonary. The Clood on the Right Side of the Heart, whether found in the Veins or Arter- ies, IS dark or venous ; on the Left, it is ruddy and bright or arterial. The first belongs to the nocturnal side or hemisphere ; the latter to the diurnal— the sun having its rising in the capi'llaries of the lungs, and its setting in those of the general system — where the blood loses for the time its auroral bloom and splendor, and becomes dark, half devitalized and charged with deadly poison, until having completed its circuit, its pristine glitter and beauty are once more restored, as it 68 THE MICROCOSM. Transfigured thus, thus raised and glorified, Complete the circle on the other side, Where Auricle and Ventricle with power Repeat their grasp five thousand times an hour ; Closing unresting hands that never tire On the one passionate object of desire ; And through each moment of the night and day A traveling joy to every part convey ; Filling each cell of all the Organs up. As wine is poured into a jeweled cup. With the Falernian of the grapes of Heaven, The living Blood miraculously given — Endued with plenteous power by which it can Rebuild the complex of the perfect man ; To every organ like to like impart, Distribute brain to brain and heart to heart ; reappears on the horizon of the lungs. The rapidity with which the Blood moves is very great. Even in Arteries of the minutest size it is so rapid that the glob ules cannot be distinguished in it on microscopic examination. It is slower in the Veins than in the Arteries, in the proportion of two to three, and still slower in the Capillaries. Volkman estimates the velocity in the arteries at 12 inches per second ; in veins at 8 inches; in capillaries, i-3oth of an inch. Experiments have been made to ascertain the time it takes the blood to pass the entire round of the circulation. Traces of a solution of Ferrocyanide of Potassium introduced into the right jugular vein of a horse appeared at the left in twenty to twenty-five sec- onds, but this is not decisive of the rate of the circulation, only of the diffusion. Results swarm with every heart-beat. Life's innumerable wheels, revolving all at once in every organ, make that beat representative of a life-time— a century of existence being no more than a calculable number of repetitions of that vital second. THE MICROCOSM. 69 Conquer the years, the wastes of time repair ; Add to the body, make the fair more fair: Nor potent less to raise to loftiest heights Of sensuous pleasures and divine delights — Untied to fleshy ministrations — fraught With stimulant to Feeling and to Thought, Our Ganymede, enlivening with full bowl ^' The feast of reason and the flow of soul." Heart — Seat of the Affections — Visceral Modifications. Undoubted Sovereign, worthiest to reign. Sharer of empire with the regal Brain ! (Like omnipresent in the realms of sense, Found at the centre and circumference, As if by multiplication, every part Possessed a sensory and beating heart) By virtue of thy birthright from above Thine all the high prerogatives of Love. One with thyself, Love's ample power display, Assert its right to universal sway ! As thou, so Love is many and yet one, Its royal robes of soul and body spun — Assorted vestments, filling many a room, The beauteous product of the living loom, 70 THE MICROCOSM, By the deft fingers of the feelings wrought Plying the shuttle with the helping thought — The several organs, to their nature true, Giving each tunic its distinctive hue. One of the colors of refracted light, Or the chaste total of religious white — Defining Loves, all Family Loves that bind. The Love of Country, Love of Human Kind, The Love of God all other Loves above, The Love of Truth and Right, the Love of Love^ Within, what gracious sympathies appeal ! What visceral yearnings do not mothers feel ! — * The conscious vitals, full of fond alarms For the sweet infant folded in her arms. And melting tendernesses, that impart Tears to the eyes but laughter to the heart. Woman — Sex — Unity in Difference. O loving Woman, man's fulfillment sweet,. Completing him not otherwise complete ! How void and useless the sad remnant left Were he of her, his nobler part bereft ! Of her who bears the sacred name of Wife, The joy and crown and glory of his life, VENUS DE MEDICI BY Cleomenes, the Athenian. B. C 200—150. THE MICROCOSM. 71 The Mother of his Children, whereby he Shall live in far off epochs yet to be. Conjoined but not confounded, side by side Lying so closely nothing can divide ; A dual self, a plural unit, twain. Except in sex, to be no more again ; Except in Sex — for sex can nought efface, Fixed as the granite mountain on its base — But not for this less one, away to take This sweet distinction were to mar not make. Dearer for difference in this respect. As means of rounding mutual defect. Woman and Man all social needs include ; Earth filled with men were still a solitude. In vain the birds would sing, in vain rejoice, Without the music of her sweeter voice. In vain the stars would shine, 'twere dark the while Without the light of her superior smile. To blot from earth's vocabularies one Of all her names were to blot out the sun. Love of the Sexes — E?ids Answered. O wondrous Hour, supremest hour of fate, When first the Soul discerns its proper Mate, 72 THE MICROCOSM, By inward voices known as its elect — Distanced by love, and infinite respect, Fairer than fairest, shining from afar, Throned in the heights, a bright particular star The glory of the firmament, the evening sky Glad with the lustre of her beaming eye. Young Love, First Love, Love, haply, at First Sight, Smites likes the lightning, dazzles like the light ; Chance meeting eyes shoot forth contagious flame, Sending the hot blood wildly through the frame. By strange enchantment violently strook, The total being rushes with a look ; A beauty never seen before, except some gleams Purpling the atmosphere of blissful dreams, Wakens rare raptures and sensations new. Both soul and body thrilling through and through. Says sage Experience, sighing o'er the past, These dear illusions will not always last ; For beauty fades and disappointment clings To the reality of human things. It may be so — it may be, lover's sight , Surveying all things by love's purple light, Sees not the faults possession shall disclose. THE MICROCOSM. 73 Nor the sharp thorn concealed beneath the rose. But if thus Nature her great ends attain The pomps of fancy dazzle not in vain. The pleasing falsehood of perfection flits, But not the Love, that in contentment sits Among the Dear Ones of its happy home, Blest Vv'ith sweet foretastes of the heaven to come. Deciduous charms of face unmissed depart, While bloom the fadeless beauties of the heart ; Inward conformity, and gradual growth Of moral likeness, tightening bonds of both, Perfect the marriage, which was but begun Upon that day they were pronounced one. True Love — Spurious Love. True Love is humble, thereby is it known, Girded for service, seeking not its own ; Exalts its object, timid homage pays. Vaunts not itself, but speaks in self-dispraise : **Look not on me ," it says, "for I am black, In thee all fullness is, in me all lack; But what I have and am are wholly thine. Vast were the grace would'st thou give thine for mine.' 74 THE MICROCOSM. Let Love but enter, it converts the churl, And makes the miser lavish as an earl ; The strict walls of his prison, giving way, Fall outward and let in the light of day ; Released from base captivity to pelf. He upwards soars into a nobler self ; And hands, that once did nought but clutch and hoard Now emulate the bounty of the Lord ; Hold up a mirror, that reflects the face Of Him whose heart is love and man-ward grace. O how unlike to this, so chaste, refined. Magnanimous, benevolent and kind. Is that base thing, defiling and defiled, Born of unbridled lusts and passions wild. Which soon of all the virtues rings the knell And sends its subjects headlong down to hell ! The hidden canker of a vicious heart Spreads mortal sickness to the farthest part ; Th* infected body rots from day to day Till death contemptuous calls the soul away, To its own place its sentence to fulfill, ''Let him that filthy is be filthy still."