104 Transactions, &c. — Annual Address. 



secondly, that experience does not favour the reference of actions 

 in Kving structures to a sort of force which no science can investi- 

 gate, as each year adds to the number of operations performed by 

 chemists, hke Berthelot, with the ordinary apparatus of the labora- 

 tory, and resulting in the formation of substances which the vital- 

 forcists had previously declared their special entity, only, could 

 produce. Granting at once that there are mysteries in life, even of 

 the humblest description, which defy all effort at scientific explana- 

 tion, and frankly confessing where knowledge stops and absolute 

 ignorance begins, we may still yield assent to the exclamations of 

 ]\r. Berthelot, in his •' Lef ons sur les Methodes Generales de Syn- 

 tliese en Chimie Organique.' * After stating that the progress of 

 science is manifested in two lines, one that of philosophical ideas, 

 and the other of practical apphcation, he exclaims, " Shall I speak 

 in the language of philosophy of those profound notions which 

 chemistry affords concerning the constitution of matter, eternally 

 durable, in the midst of perpetually changing appearances ? What 

 can be more striking than the conception of hving beings, as 

 formed by the assemblage of certain definite substances, comparable 

 in then- fundamental properties with mineral bodies formed of the 

 same elements, obeying the same affinities, the same laws, chemical, 

 physical, and mechanical : what more important than the reproduc- 

 tion of these substances, or fii'st materials on which living organisms 

 operate, by the sole play of mineral forces, and by the simple reaction 

 of carbon on the elements of air and water ? . . . . The general 

 problems of the nutrition of living beings are chemical problems. It 

 is the same with those of respu-ation. The study of these problems 

 rests upon data supphed by organic chemistry. In the tissues of 

 animals, as soon as the solids, the hquids, and the gases have been 

 placed in reciprocal contact, under the influence of certain move- 

 ments, resulting from the nervous system, and a special structure, 

 which we know not how to imitate, affinities develop between these 

 solids, liquids, and gases, which are pm'ely chemical, and the com- 

 binations to which they give rise result exclusively from the laws of 

 organic chemistry." 



Eeverting to the action of ferments, it may be remarked that 

 fermentation was the subject of some lectures dehvered by Dr. 

 Williamson before the Society of Artsf last year. In reference to 

 the microscopy of the organisms concerned in processes of fermen- 

 tation, they can scarcely be considered as up to date, but it may be 

 well to glance for a moment at the " conclusive " reasons alleged by 

 the Professor for ranging the ferments amongst animals rather than 

 plants. Dr. Williamson says : " These organisms assimilate, or, to 

 use a homely phrase, they feed upon very complex substances ; they 

 give off during their vital functions less complex substances." 

 * Pp. 8 and 9. t ' Soc. Arts Journ.' ' Pharm. Joitrn.' 



