AMERICAN EDITION. xxix 



malady, without feeing mifled, as too often happens at prefent, by fpe- 

 cious words, and idle or deceitful names. 



But, notwithstanding the many and beautiful applications of chem- 

 ical principles to the explanation of the animal functions, we are not to 

 imagine every thing in life fufceptible of chemical interpretation. 

 What it is that enables the atoms compofing a mufcle to cohere, and 

 the mufcle to contract and perform great exertions of ftrength, we 

 know not ; but this we know very well, that we can never form a muf- 

 cle by fynthefis, or the putting together, in any artificial form, thofe 

 fubftances which appear, from analylis, to conftitute a mufcle. There 

 is fomething in animated exiftence, which eludes our moft active re- 

 fearches, and which defies fubmiffien to either mechanical or chemical 

 laws. With refpecl to chemical modes of reafoning upon thefe fub- 

 jecls, it is obfervable, that they apply, with their greateft extent and 

 accuracy, to fuch parts of the body as have the loweft degrees of ani- 

 mation, as the contents of the inteflines, the teeth, bones, fat, fubftan- 

 ces adhering to the fkin, and, generally fpeaking, the circulated and 

 fecreted fluids ; while the qualities of mufcular fibres, by which they 

 become contractile, and of nervous expanfions, whereby they take on 

 fenfation, with the whole of the functions arifing from irritability and 

 fenfibility, are referable to other and different laws. 



The inveftigation of thefe Laws of Organic Life is attempted by 

 our learned and very ingenious author in the following work. The 

 Zoonomia, therefore, though not exempt from fanciful and vifionary 

 doctrines, prefents confiderations of the firft importance, "both to the 

 fpeculative philofopher and the practical phyfician ; to him who con- 

 templates the operations of mind as a fcience, or to him that attends 

 to the corporeal functions as an artift. The fecond part of this work 

 being engaged in an arrangement of difeafes, with their remedies and 

 modes of treatment, will be very acceptable to the practical as well as 

 the theoretical phyfician. After the different projects for methodiz- 

 ing this department of knswledge, which have fucceflively been offer- 

 ed to the public with fo little advancement of true fcience, the friends 

 of medical improvement and of the healing art will joyfully accept 

 of fomething that promifes to lead them from arbitrary fyftem to nat- 

 ural method. And as the diftinclions are founded upon the increafedy 

 decreafed or inverted actions of the moving machinery of the body, it 

 will initantly be perceived how clofely the Brunonian doctrine is inter- 

 woven with the whole fubjeft. It is however to be always borne in 

 mind that on American difeafes the phyiicians of this country have 

 generally written the beft. 



SAMUEL L. MITCHILL, 



New York, Nov. 3, 1802. 



