A BO TAXIS T OF THE NINTH CENTURY. 523 



of water. Indigo blue is reduced to indigo white, potassium ferri- 

 cyanide is reduced to the ferrocyanide, potassium hromate and iodate 

 are reduced to bromide and iodide ; glycogen is converted into sugar 

 with the assimilation of water, albumen into peptone, and then into 

 amido acids and other products. Hippuric acid is formed, with the 

 elimination of water, from benzoic acid and glycocol. 



But we ask in vain : What is it that effects these reductions ? how 

 does the pepsin act ? how do benzoic acid and glycocol combine ? 

 Here is a field in which chemistry must cultivate independently, not 

 as the servant of physiology, for the fruits of the labor will be of 

 equal value to both sciences. Whatever difficulties this problem may 

 produce, we are certain that its solution is within our reach. It was 

 different when, where now we see groups of atoms acting upon each 

 other in a definite manner, irritability or an incomprehensible life-force 

 was permitted to rule. Then the future was without prospect ; no vul- 

 nerable point seemed exposed for the attack of genius. At present we 

 may say, that which is ponderable can be weighed, and that which 

 proves to be an individual can be isolated. After, however, the anal- 

 ysis is once completed, synthesis will be close at hand. 



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T 1 



A BOTANIST OF THE NINTH CENTURY.* 



By C. HARTWICH. 



^HE contemplation of the progress of science in our days shows 

 JL us a whole host of zealous investigators bringing stone after 

 stone to raise to a prouder height the structure of knowledge whose 

 richly diversified pillars and towers, seemingly disposed without order, 

 all contribute to the common design. From this view we readily turn 

 to the foundations and basement-stones of the edifice, which, gray and 

 weathered as they seem to be, yet form the basis of the heaven-aspiring 

 building. Our greatest interest is enlisted in the story of the men who, 

 amid the general perversion of manners and contempt for all learning 

 of the middle ages, lived for knowledge in their study-rooms or shut up 

 in silent cloisters. Although they did not make any great discoveries, 

 they still endeavored to keep alive the little flame which yet shone 

 weakly from the intellectual fires of antiquity. Still more fascinating 

 are such views in the case of men who came out into the life of the 

 times, and, with their sharp minds schooled in the philosophy of the 

 ancients, entered actively into the often erratic course of the world, and 

 by word and writing presented themselves undismayed before those in 

 power here checking the spirit of boundless avarice and wild excess, 



* Translated for " The Popular Science Monthly " from " Die Xatur." 



