THE SOURCE OF MUSCULAR POWER. 729 



the see of Treves vacant, no proper investigation, as directed by the 

 Council of Trent, could take place. Perhaps the legal investigation 

 which is promised by Dr. Friedenthal may prove more efficacious in 

 bringing the real facts to light. Meanwhile, it may be feared that 

 belief in the Marpingen apparition will become a test question of 

 Catholic orthodoxy in Germany, as belief in Lourdes and La Salette 

 has long been a criterion for discriminating the Men penscmts in 

 France, in spite of the manly protests of some high authorities, such 

 as Dupanloup, against this morbid craving for predictions and por- 

 tents. We have never denied that German Catholics have a substan- 

 tial grievance in the matter of the Falk laws, but they certainly will 

 not improve their position with thinking men of any creed by adopt- 

 ing devices which can only escape graver censure if they are regarded 

 as too silly to be dishonest. Saturday Beview. 



-~ 



THE SOUECE OF MTJSCULAE POWEE. 



THE advance of modern research has brought the sciences of 

 physics, chemistry, and physiology, into very close relations, and 

 as the two former have given great help to the latter, many are 

 looking to see all physiological problems finally resolved on physical 

 and chemical principles. Much is to be expected from the future, 

 but sanguine anticipations should not be allowed to misinterpret 

 existing facts. Prof. Austin Flint, Jr., has been much occupied in 

 investigating the living system as a dynamical engine, and has pub- 

 lished the results of his experimental inquiries in a little volume, en- 

 titled "The Source of Muscular Power." He has made an important 

 contribution to the subject of animal mechanics, and his views will 

 be so interesting, alike to the physiologist and the general student, 

 that a summary of his argument will be appreciated by the readers 

 of the Monthly. 



Since it has been ascertained that the force derived from chemical 

 action which will raise the temperature of a pound of water 1 Fahr. 

 will, under another form of manifestation, lift 7*72 pounds one foot high, 

 772 foot-pounds have been regarded as the force-equivalent of 1 of 

 heat. In other words, if the burning or oxidation of a certain definite 

 weight of matter will raise the temperature of one pound of "water 1 

 Fahr., the force-value of this matter is said to be 772 foot-pounds. 



In the animal economy, certain matters are taken in and consumed 

 as food; matters are discharged from the body in the form of excre- 

 tions, such as the constituents of the urine ; a certain amount of heat 

 is produced in the body in order to maintain the animal temperature, to 

 supply the loss of heat dependent upon radiation from the surface; a 



