French National Injlitute. 327 



GLASS OF THE MATHEMATICAL AND PHYSICAL SCIENCES. 

 PHYSICS. 



This clafs had propofed, in the year IV, as the fubjecl: of 

 a prize to be adjudged in the public fitting of Vendemiaire 

 of the year VII, the ufes of the liver in the different claffes 

 of animals. This fubjecl fo important, which the academy 

 of fciences had propofed in 1792, and which the Inflitute 

 thought it its duty to continue to hold forth to the examina- 

 tion of the learned, was not treated in the manner it expect- 

 ed. It received only one memoir, in which the queftion was 

 not in the fmalleft degree illuftrated •, and of which the 

 author had wandered into the wide field of the ancient hy- 

 pothefes, without availing himfelf of the anatomical and 

 chemical refources pointed out by the Inftitute in its pro- 

 gramme. 



This paucity of memoirs, on a fubjecl which concerns 

 one of the nobleft and mofl ufeful branches of phyfics, indu- 

 ced the Inftitute to fuppofe that the magnitude and extent of 

 the queftion; the feries of the refearches neceffary for treating 

 it in a proper manner ; and above all, the difficulty of finding 

 united in one man the chemical and anatomical knowledge 

 requifite for folving it, were the caufes which had deterred 

 competitors from coming forwards. Without abandoning 

 the idea of prefenting to the zeal of philofophers a queftion 

 of fo much importance, the Inftitute has thought proper to 

 divide it into two branches, and to make it the fubjecl of 

 two prizes, by adding to the medal which was to have been 

 adjudged in the year VII, for the whole queftion, that 

 which it has at its difpofal for the prefent year. It pro- 

 pofes, therefore, as the fubjecl: of two prizes, to determine 

 the functions of the liver, fcparating what relates to the 

 anatomical ftruclure of the hepatic fyftem, from what relates 

 to the chemical examination of the liquids and folids be- 

 longing to that fyftem. 



The object of the firft of thefc prizes will be : the form, 

 fjtuation, fize, comparative weight, and defcription of the 

 Y 4 tiflu 



