Publisher's Synopsis
Excerpt from A Manual of Human Physiology, Prepared With Special Reference to Students of Medicine
Inasmuch as minerals, on the one hand, possess no organs, they perform no work - that is, they have no functions; therefore we do not speak of the physiology of a mineral. Plants and animals, on the other hand, possess organs, each of which performs its special func tion; and it is with them, as has been said, that physi ology has to do. As we find organs in the animal, so do we find them in the plant; not the same organs, it is true, but as truly organs, for they respond to the same test. The roots of a plant absorb moisture and nourish ment from the soil, this being their function the green leaves take up from the air carbonic acid, with which and with water they form starch that is utilized by the plant, while oxygen is set free, this being the function Of the leaves the anthers and the ovaries of ?owers are concerned in reproducing plants by forming new ones, this being their function. Thus we might continue to Show that as in animals, so in plants, the different organs have their respective functions.
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