IlV REPORT — 1856. 



the able chemist above alluded to, whose promised Report on this subject, 

 had it been ready for this Meeting, would have superseded the necessity of 

 the above Remarks. They have also engaged the attention of ray distin- 

 guisiied successor in the chair of Chemistry at Oxford, who has published 

 some elaborate researches bearing upon the questions here mooted, whilst on 

 the Continent they have been taken up by several of the most eminent 

 chemists of tlie day, sucii as Gerhardt, VVurtz, and Cahours. 



Should they ultimately win their way to general reception, they must tend 

 to bring about an entire remodeling of our views, both with respect to 

 organic and inorganic compounds, and render that reform in our nomen- 

 clature which I pressed upon the attention of the Chemical Section at our 

 meeting in Ipswich, more than ever a matter of urgent necessity. 



Many, however, perhaps of my present audience may not have advanced be- 

 yond that initial stage of all speculation, which contemplates external objects 

 solely as they affect themselves, and not abstractedly in their relations to 

 each other ; and to such it may be more interesting to consider those 

 practical results bearing upon the arts of life, which have either been actually 

 deduced, or may be anticipated as likely to accrue, from the discoveries in 

 question. 



Of these perhaps the most important is the possibility of forming by art 

 those compounds, which had been formerly supposed to be only producible 

 by natural processes, under the influence of the vital principle. The last 

 two years have added materially to the catalogue of such bodies artificially 

 produced, as in the formation of several species of alcohol from coal gas by 

 Berthelot, that of oil of mustard by the same chemist, and the generation of 

 taurine, a principle elaborated in the liver, by Strecker. 



And if the above discoveries should strike you at first sight rather as 

 curious than practically useful, I would remark, that they afford reasonable 

 ground for hope, that the production of some of those principles of high 

 medicinal or ceconomical value, which nature has sparingly provided, or at 

 least limited to certain districts or climates, may lie within the compass of 

 the chemist's skill. 



If Quinine, for instance, to which the Peruvian bark owes its efficacy, be, 

 as would appear from recent researches, a modified condition of ammonia, 

 why may not a Hofmann be able to produce it for- us from its elements, as 

 he has already done so many other alkaloids of similar constitution ? 



And thus, whilst the progress of civilization, and the development of the 

 chemical arts, are accelerating the consumption of those articles, which 

 kind Nature has either been storing up for the uses of man during a vast 

 succession of antecedent ages, or else is at present elaborating for us in that 

 limited area, within which alone the conditions would seem to be such as to 

 admit of their production, we are encouraged to hope that Science may 

 make good the loss she has contributed to create, by herself inventing arti- 

 ficial modes of obtaining these necessary materials. 



In this case we need not so much regard the exhaustion of our collieries, 

 although Nature appears to have provided no means for replenishing them ; 

 nor even be concerned at the rapid destruction of the trees which yield the 

 Peruvian bark, limited though they be to a very narrow zone, and to a 

 certain definite elevation on either side of the equator. 



Already, indeed, chemistry has given token of her powers, by threatening 

 to alter the coui'seof commerce, and to reverse the tide of human industry. 



Thus she has discovered, it is said, a substitute for the cochineal insect, 

 in a beautiful dye producible from guano. 



