Inaugural Address. 59 
experiment on his own person, has (at least in seruple doses,) 
no sensible narcotic powers; and the effects of morphia bear 
no proportion to the effects producible by the quantity of 
opium consumed in its formation. Again, asparagine does 
not communicate to urine the peculiar odour which asparagus 
is invariably found to do; and, furthermore, piperine, the so- 
called proximate principle of pepper, is entirely destitute of 
pungency and heat. These, then, and many others, will 
probably be hereafter shown to be products of the chemist’s 
operations; just as beer and wine are not, as they are often 
called, the juice of barley and the grape, but are produced, 
not educed therefrom, by fermentation; and alcohol, in- 
eluding brandy and spirit of every kind, is not educed, but 
réduced from wine and sweetwort by distillation, or formed 
y condensing the vapours which rise from bread while 
baking. 
It may be, then, (and I repeat it for the sake of the im- 
ion which a repeated proposition is designed to make,) 
it may be found hereafter more profitable to form many of 
these substances now known as the proximate principles of 
vegetables, directly from their elements, or indirectly from 
the mutation of common and abundant matters in the 
laboratory of the chemist, than to procure them intermedi- 
rect from plants, the living elaboratories of nature; just as 
oxalic acid can be made from hair, gristle, and such like 
refuse matters; or produced by the distillation of sugar 
with nitric acid, instead of being educed from the Oxalis ace- 
tosella, corniculata, &c., where it naturally exists; or as 
a acid is now obtained from prussian blue, which can 
made from almost any offal, at an amazing diminution of 
expense to what it could be educed from bitter almonds, 
-laurel leaves, plum and peach kernels, &c. where the 
acid naturally exists, and which were once esteemed its only 
sources. Indeed, one great object of the vegetable world 
would seem to be, to anticipate the arts, and to provide nu- 
merous comforts and conveniences, such as clothes and 
shelter, nutritious food, and efficient medicines, for man, 
long before he was able to provide any for himself; and not 
for man only, but for the whole animal creation. Of this 
vegetable physiology affords numerous interesting illustra- 
tions: and although at present we contemplate the processes 
of nature but as through a glass, darkly; although we see 
but in part, and know but in part, still thus far we can 
perceive that, whether we sleep or whether we wake, 
we rest, or whether we toil, these indefatigable 
servants are labouring for our advantage; that they are 
‘ 
