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fcew products / ' If this be bo , what is there unreasonable in the supposition that trituration may develope new forces in the medicines ? Our stupendous ignorance of chemical action—especially of organic chemistry—renders it imperative on us to be cautious ere we front a fact with any denial derived from our philosophy . The homoeopathist proclaims his fact ; examine if it be true , if the fact be bo ; but do not reject it because monstrous in academic eyes . Our readers know that we have ( riven no pledge to homoeopathy : we only desire
tihat it may be treated with the same respect as other tentatives to get at a solution of the mystery . Our purpose in commenting on Liebig ' s assault was , however , ulterior in its aim . "We wished to exemplify how , from the want of real philosophy , a man could sneer at an opinion which his scientific experience tended to support . In Chemistry he was familiar enough with the importance attributable to mere change of position ; but in Medicine he stuck to the old routine , and laughed at the idea of trituration and dilution producing any
new effects ! But enough of controversy ! Liebig ' s work is not controversial , and we but ill convey an idea of it by touching on these points . It is substantially what the title imports—a Familiar Exposition of Chemistry , setting forth with very great clearness all the leading principles accepted by men of science , and illustrating them with abundance of detail , much of it very curious , and drawn from the most recent discoveries . The book is too compact to admit of analysis in any space that we could afford it ; but to the passages already quoted we shall add two , as samples of his exposition : —
KOSMOS . " Until very recently it was supposed that the physical qualities of bodies , —i . e ., hardness , colour , density , transparency , &c , must depend upon the nature of their elements or upon their composition . No one could imagine to himself one and the same body in two different states , and it was tacitly received as a princip le that two bodies containing the same elements in the same proportion must of necessity possess the same properties . How could it be possible , otherwise , for the most ingenious
philosophers to regard chemical combination as an interpenetration of the panicles of different kinds of matter , and matter aB susceptible of infinite division ? There never was a greater error . If matter were infinitely divisible in this sense , its particles must be imponderable , and billions of such molecules could not weigh more than an infinitely email one . But even the particles of that imponderable matter , which , striking upon the retina , produce that sensation which , when it has reached the inner consciousness , is recognized as light , are not , in a mathematical cense , infinitely small .
" Inter-penetration of elements in the production of a chemical compound supposes two distinct bodies , A and B , to occupy one and the same upace at the same time . If this were so , different properties could not consist with identity of composition . ' That hypothesis , however , has shared the fate of all the -views of natural phenomena entertained by the philosophers of past times . It him fallen , like them , without any one taking the trouble to maintain it . The force of truth , dependent upon observation , is irresistible . A great many substances have been discovered amongst organic bodies , composed of thu
same elements in the same relative proportions , and yet exhibiting physical and chemical properties perfectly distinct one from another . To such substances the term Isomeric ( from lcr& 4 equal , and pepo ; part ) is applied . A great class of bodies , known as the volatile oils—oil of turpentine , essence of lemonp , oil of bulsum of copaiba , oil of rosemary , oil of juniper , und many others , differing widely from each other in their odour , in their medicinal effects , in their boiling point , in their specific gravity , &c , contain the Hume elements , carbon and hydrogen , in the same proportions . No one of them contains more of either element tluin the otlierH do .
? ' llow admirably aim pie does the chemkrtry ol organic nuturo present itself to uh from this point of view ! An extraordinary variety of the ino . st remarkable compound bodies is produced with equal weights of two elements—and how wide their din-Bimliarity ! The crystallized part of the oil of rosi'H , tin * delicious fragrance of which i « ho well known , a solid at ordinary temperatures , although readily volatile , is a compound body , containing exactly the
Aitme elements and in the same proportion * an the » h we employ for lighting our streets ; and , in short , the unto elements , in the unmo relutive quantities , are found 4 H * defon Other compounds , all differing chm : ii-Ts . lbLiB ^ in tn . OijrTphy Hical uud (; ht ; micul properties - " ThC * e ^ emarkal * le truths , no highly important in ' tlioir app lication * , wfcre not received and admitted an / sufficiently eatuVlwhM , without hufhcient proofs . I M » pt s ample ' s havd long been known where the \; 6 * iatyB } B of two Aiffbtlant bodies gave the « ame com' position ; but suck okneB were isolated observations ,
homeless in the realms of science ; until , at length , examples were discovered of two or more bodies whose absolute identity of composition , with totally distinct properties , could be demonstrated in a more obvious and conclusive manner than by mere analysis ; that is , they can be converted and reconverted into each other without addition and without
sub-. " In cyanuric acid , hydrated cyanic acid , and cyameHde , we have three such isomeric compounds . " Cyanm-ic acid is crystalline , soluble in water , and capable of forming « alts with metallic oxides . " Hydrated cyanic acid is a volatile and highly corrosive fluid , which cannot be brought into contact with water without being instantaneously decomposed . " Cyamelide is a white substance very like porcelain , absolutely insoluble in water . acidin
" Now , if we place the first , cyanuric , a vessel hermetically sealed , and apply a high degree of heat , it is converted by that influence into hydrated cyanic acid ; and then , if this is kept for some time at the common temperature , it passes into cyamelide , no constituent being separated , nor any body taken up from without . And again , inversely , cyamelide can fee converted into cyanuric acid and hy drated cyanic acid . *« We have three other bodies which pass through similar changes , in aldehyde , metaldehyde , and elaldehyde ; and again two , in urea and cyanate of ammonia . Further , 100 parts of aldehyde , hydrated butyric acid , and acetic ether , contain the same elements in the same proportion . Thus one substance may be converted into another without the separation of anv of its elements , and without the introduction
of any foreign body . " The doctrine that matter is not infinitely divisible , but , on the contrary , consists of atoms incapable of further division , alone furnishes us with a satisfactory explanation of these phenomena . In chemical combinations , the ultimate atoms of bodies do not penetrate each other , they are only arranged side by side in a certain order , and the properties of the compound depend entirely upon this order . If they are made to change their place—their mode of arrangement—by an impulse from without , they
combine again in a different manner , and another compound is formed with totally different properties . We may suppose that one atom combines with one atom of another element to form a compound Etom , while in other bodies two and two , four and four , eight and eight arc united ; so that in all such compounds the amount per cent , of the elements is absolutely equal ; and yet their physical and chemical properties must be totally different , the constitution of each atom being peculiar , in one body consisting of two , in another of four , in a third of eight , and in a fourth of sixteen ample atoms . "
l'HYSIOLOGY AND CHHM 1 STKY . " Through Nature herself , who is a whole , the natural sciences stand in a necessary mutual connection , so that no one of them can entirely dispense with all the others for its development . The extension of the individual branches of science by researches , has the inevitable result , that in a certain stage , or at a certain period , two of them , for example , come into contact at their boundaries . As a general rule , anew science arises on the debateable land between them , which combines in itself the objects and the modes of viewing the phenomena of both . In order to this interpenotoation , both must have reached a certain
advanced Btage ; the independence ot the original territories must be secured , for till this be done , the energies of the philosopher will not be applied to the border province . In these days we look forward to such a fusion of physiology with chemistry , as to one of the most striking results of Hcientific investigation . Physiology hay attained a point at which it can no longer dispense with chemistry in striving after its object , namely , the study of the vital phenomena in their natural succession . Chemistry , the duty of which is to show in what degree the vital properties depend' on chemical forces , has been prepared , and in now ready , to take up new departments of science , to be independently Btudied . »
" The phenomena presented by animals during their life are among the most complicated natural appearances ; and the detection of their different causes , and the aWertnining the precise share of each in the result , in u tusk of peculiar difli < ulty . "It is a rule in natural science to divide every difficulty which is to be examined , into an many parts an possible , and to study each ol these separately . According to thin rule , all physiological phenomena may be divided into two classes , of which each , up to a certain point , may be studied quite independentl y of the other . Such a . scpiiration , it in obvious , is not found in Nature , where both classes of phenomena are mutually dependent , so thut , indeed , they mutually determine each other .
"The processes of impregnation , development , and growth in animals , the mtitunl relntions of their organs , und the agencies peculiar to these ,- —the laws of their motion , and of that of the fluids of tin , body —the anatomical and other peculiarities of nervous and of musculnr fibres ; all them ? striking and
interesting phenomena may be ascertained without regard to the nature of the substances which form the parts in which these properties reside . But physiology lias to do with other phenomena , not less important . Digestion , sanguification , nutrition , respiration , and secretion depend on a change of form and quality of the substances introduced from without into the system , or on certain solid or liquid constituents of the organism ; and it is in the study of these processes .
as far as they can be regarded apart from structure , that chemistry must come to the aid of physiology . It is evident that physiology has two foundations , and that by the fusion of physiological physics , the foundation of which is anatomy , with physiological chemistry , which rests on animal chemistry , a new science must arise , a true physiology , which will stand in the same relation to the physiology of the present day , as modern chemistry does to that of the eighteenth
century . " In order to form a just idea of the interpenetration of physiology and chemistry , we must call to mind similar occurrences in the history of science . Thus the character of modern chemistry has been essentially determined by the circumstance that it has absorbed into itself entire branches of physics , which now no longer belong to that science . The density of bodies in the gaseous state , forty years ago , was regarded as a purely physical character ; but since we have learned that this property depends on
the composition in a fixed relation , the study of this property belongs to chemistry . Similar relations have been discovered between the specific heat , the boiling point , and the crystalline form of bodies , on the one hand , and their composition on the other ; and it is now chemistry which especially occupies itself with the exact determination of these properties . The doctrine of electricity , so far as it is the result of a change in form and quality , of a chemical change , has now almost entirely passed into the domain of chemistry .
" Exactly in the same way , the more accurate knowledge of vital phenomena will establish the conviction that a number of physiological properties depend on chemical composition ; and physiology , when it shall have takeu up animal chemistry , as a part of itself , will possess the means of investigating this relation of dependence ; it will then be enabled to find a juster expression for physiological
phenomena . Men have often tried to explain vital phenomena exclusively on chemical principles , and to make physiology a part of chemistry . This was done centuries ago , at a time when the chemical changes in the body were better known than the organism itself . But when men had learned to know the admirable structure , the form and quality of the organs , and their combined action by a more exact study of anatomy , they imagined that they had found the key in certain principles of mechanics . All such attempts have entirely failed ; and their failure gave rise to physiology as an independent science .
Mineralogy was in a similar relation to chemistry ; forty years ago , many considered it a part of chemistry , and compound minerals were classed with the salts . Mineralogy conquered her independence , not by rejecting the doctrines of chemistry , but by taking into her own domain the determination of the composisition of minerals . Since mineral analysis has become a part of mineralogy , it is from mineralogists that we have obtained , and daily obtain , the most valuable results in regard to the relation which exists between the chemical composition of minerals and their crystalline form and other physical properties . "
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BOOKS ON OUR TABLE ,. Tin ; Great Exhibition Prize Katmy . JJy the llevorend J . C . Whiuh , M . A . liOiig-inan and Co . The Reverend W . Emerton , of Hanwell , having offered a prize of £ 10 / 5 for the best essay on " The Respect in which the Exhibition wns calculated to further the Moral and Religious Welfare of Mankind and the Glory of God , " it was ultimately awarded to the lteverend Mr . Whish . The performance is a sort of sermon , marked by much feeble good nuture . The author ' s point of view being the pulpit , he delineates chiefly the spiritual aspect of the question ; but had he also taken the workshop and the cottage , as his points of view , the object of the Reverend donor might have been more efficientl y answered . Key to tluj ( Jruat Exhibition , 1 HTjI . Ity 10 . Heine . Ackcrinnnn und ('<> . The plan is clever and interesting , the sheet representing in its lines and colours the various divinionfi of the Crystal J ' nlaee . The avenuos are . represented by a white ground , the compartments by a green , ana the galleries by a pink shading . A list of the chid objects of interest is also printed in each compartment , so that at a glance the visitor may discover hiw way through the building , and to its chief points ol attraction . It will soon appear in several languages-Mjmh Muriiiiuau and her Muutcr . Ity J . 8 tov < -n « on UuBhimi ' . M . I ) . John Churchill-The tone of thin work is so extremel y objectionable—ho unbecoming the gravity of p hilosophic diucusHion and the courtesies of literature—that vvo cannot suffer it to putss without calling Dr . Bushm *
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70 S VL % t ILeaitt * [ Saturday ,
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), July 26, 1851, page 708, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1893/page/16/
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