40 Synthetical Chemistry. [Jan., 
human palate, or even the supplying of some of man’s more in- 
dispensable domestic requirements; the health, the very life of 
man, is affected by these new discoveries in science. 
The practice of hygiene may in one sense be compared to that 
of agriculture. The old fashioned farmer used formerly to apply 
special composts and manures to the soil for promoting the growth 
of particular plants, though there was a period when he applied the 
same manure in every case. ven after his experience had taught 
him that the growth of particular plants is fostered by special 
manures, he was still ignorant of the why and the wherefore. All 
he knew was that it was so. Presently the researches of the 
agricultural chemist revealed the constituents of the various plants, 
and enabled the farmer intelligently to apply the respective materials 
of which the soil had been exhausted. The analyst performed the 
diagnosis; the farmer, under his advice, effected the cure, and pre- 
cisely so it is in the practice of medicine. 
Inquire of a medical man, even to-day, what means he is 
employing to relieve some particular disease or to sustain a sinking 
frame, and too often the reply is, avowedly or by inference, that he is 
essaying first one and then another medicinal agent to effect a 
desired end ; groping about, as it were, by a dim and uncertain light. 
Now the analyst and synthetist come to his aid, and together they 
stand in the same relation to him as the agricultural chemist to the 
practical farmer. Between them they must ascertain the organic 
constituents of which the system stands in need, and if nature cannot 
be pursuaded to supply the deficit, it will be the jomt duty of the 
synthetical chemist and physician to do her work. 
It is indeed difficult in this early stage of the science to define 
precisely under what circumstances synthetical chemistry will step 
in to the aid of the baffled medical practitioner, but that it has already 
done so in some instances, no one will venture to deny, nor will any 
one, on the other hand, pretend here, as in the case of its application 
to the arts, to mark the boundary within which the operations of the 
laboratory will in future be confined. 
So much for the consideration of two of the leading utilitarian 
aspects of synthetical chemistry, but, as we hinted at the commence- 
ment of this essay, the highest aim of this as of every other effort of 
the human intellect, is to increase his knowledge of the laws of 
nature, to extend his power of controlling and utilizing her operations, 
and to obtain a better insight, so far as his senses will allow him, into 
the works of the Creator. Perhaps, with reverence be it spoken, to 
prepare himself, by the fabrication of organic and it may be even of 
organized matter, to become one day, here or hereafter, a creator 
himself under the divine government. 
The increase of social comforts and enjoyments, then, his bodily 
