The organic vision of Hélan Jaworski

or aim. In man all is differentiated for the benefit of the nervous system, that is, for thought. Descartes’ maxim ‘I think, therefore Iam’ should, according to Dr Jaworski, be: ‘I think, therefore we are.’ Every being contains in itself those which preceded it and man contains them all to such an extent that we can consider physiology as zoology in action in the interior of the organism.

‘If all living forms happened to disappear, man, dis-associated into each of his different parts and organs could recreate them again.

oThis is so fundamental a thought, let me repeat it: Zoology interiorised becomes physiology—Physiology _ exteriorised becomes zoology!

In order to verify that physiology is a zoological study, an idea of the Biological Tree is necessary. At the foot of the animal branch lie the animal plants—polyps, sponges and echinoderms, fundamental animals who contribute to all forms and who contain everything potentially.

The polyp is basically a thin tube, closed at one end. Between the walls is a jelly containing undifferentiated muscle fibres. The opening, at one end, is at the same time mouth and anus. It is a gastrula or embryonic sac. These little tubes bud and new branches are constantly formed, giving rise to a colony of polyps. Sea water enters the tubes and is circulated by the contraction of the muscle fibres. These primitive little animal plants correspond to our blood vessels, and branch and regenerate like the capillaries. On special branches of the polyp colony, like a flower, the medusa is born. This little animal plant is shaped like a bell with four compartments and a clapper—some of them you may have already met as jellyfish. When fully grown it leaves the polyp colony and swims away free in the sea to form more colonies. It moves by rhythmic contractions of the muscle fibres of the inner wall of the bell. These contractions expel the sea water in the bell and the recoil propels the animal along. If the medusa were fixed, its contractions would expel the liquid. Jaworski considered the heart the blossom of the vascular system, like a medusa, interiorised and fixed, whose contractions regularise the blood circulation. In capillaries and vessels in general we find the note—polyp. In the heart and its pulsations we find that the

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