Of what nature, then, are the causes which interrupt the circulation in the heart and arteries when they are supplied with venous blood? for when this has been flowing for some time, the jet of it is gradually weakened, and ceases at last entirely; yet if the cock of the pipe be opened, it will be restored with vigour.
I am persuaded that the black blood acts upon the heart as it does on all the other parts, as we shall see that it affects the brain--that it affects the voluntary muscles, the membranes, and the system in general; the tissue of which it penetrates and operates within it as a debilitant upon each individual fibre. I am fully of opinion, that the circulation would be almost as quickly interrupted as in the preceding cases, were it even possible to supply the coronary arteries of the heart with red blood, while the black blood is transmitted to the various parts of the body by the aortic auricle and ventricle.
The black blood operates by its contact with the fleshy fibres, at the extremity of the arterial system and not by its contact with the internal surface of the heart. Thus it is only by little and little, and when each fibre has been as it were injected, that the powers of such fibres diminish and cease. On the contrary supposition, their cessation and diminution should be almost sudden.
It may be demanded in what manner the black blood acts at the extremities of the arteries, upon the fibres of the different organs. Is it upon the fibres themselves, or upon the nerves which are distributed to them? I am rather inclined to suppose the latter to be the fact, and to consider asphyxia as an effect produced in general by the black blood upon the nerves, which every where accompany the arteries of a certain diameter: for as we shall presently see, the debility which in such case the heart experiences, is only a particular symptom of a disease in which the organs in general are the seat of a like debility.
It might be demanded also in what way, that is to say, by what manner of influence, the black blood acts upon the nerves or fibres. Is it from the principles which it actually contains, or from the absence of those which are proper to the red blood? Is oxygen the principle of irritability--are hydrogen and carbon the reverse?