and the Cause of Epidemic Disorders. 113 



terials which go to the formation of animals, such as the blood, 

 bile, milk, &c. and also the flesh, nervous matter, &c. ; and, 

 2d, Concerning the nature of the materials of the exter- 

 nal world which exert an influence upon the organised beings 

 which are afflicted with the scourge. Such are the waters, 

 which may be drunk ; and, still more, the atmosphere, and such 

 agents as it may hold suspended. 



Article I — Question concerning the nature of organic matter. 



The knowledge of the disorders which are introduced into 

 the animal economy, by the invasion of a disease, requires, to 

 be at all scientific, that the physician should define the symp- 

 toms of the complaint ; that the pathologist and physiolo- 

 gist should describe the lesions which have taken place in 

 the organs of the individuals who have become its victims ; and, 

 finally, the chemist examines the solids, fluids, and excre- 

 tory products, that he may point out the modifications they 

 have undergone from the disease. Hence, it is necessary to 

 have direct analyses of all these matters in their healthy state, 

 that they may serve as terms of comparison to the correspond 

 dent materials taken from those afflicted with sickness, and 

 which ought to he submitted to analogous analyses. These ana- 

 lyses, however, which must supply the very terms of compari- 

 son, and which imply an acquaintance with proceedings so 

 precise, as to enable us not only to give an exact enumeration 

 of the immediate constituent principles of the solids, liquids, 

 and the various excretions, but also the relative propor- 

 tions in which they are found — for it is clear, the difficulties 

 will be great when the essential principles of life appear in 

 different proportions from those which are required in the 

 healthy state of the being they form — these analyses, we say, 

 we have not. In fact, we have not yet reduced to precise for- 

 mulae the processes which are necessary for the exact deter- 

 mination of the immediate principles of the blood, bile, &c. 

 so that a chemist perfectly master of the most recent scientific 

 methods, can find no one prepared to his hand whereby at once 

 to analyze a specimen of any substance which may have been 

 precipitated ; and, moreover, there is still much uncertainty 

 concerning the properties which characterize certain proxi- 



VOL. XXVII. NO. LIII. JULY 1839. H 



