450 NUTRITION. 



phosis of matter after we had considered the same process in its 

 normal character. Although we had occasion in almost every 

 section on the juices and tissues to deplore our defective knowledge 

 of their pathological relations, we yet endeavoured to collect all 

 the scattered materials in our possession, and to combine them as 

 far as possibe into one comprehensive whole, in order to obtain a 

 basis for at least some few of the more tenable hypotheses and 

 views ; but it soon became obvious that it would have been neces- 

 sary to deviate from the general plan of this work, if we had 

 attempted to compensate for the absence of real facts by ideal com- 

 binations from amidst the confused mass of scanty, unconnected, 

 and often careless observations. If we were not satisfied with 

 mere speculations, we were driven to the necessity of ruminating 

 once more over the observations and facts which had already been 

 casually noticed in the course of this work ; for we are deficient in 

 the points of departure necessary to a scientific mode of treatment, 

 while our explanations are wanting in certainty. Phsenomenolo- 

 gical data are indispensable to an ideal interpretation, although 

 they can scarcely justify us in undertaking anything beyond 

 a causal investigation. But can we be said to possess anything 

 approaching a phenomenology of pathologico-chemical processes in 

 the science known as pathological chemistry ? Are we even in pos- 

 session of investigations capable of exhibiting the causal connec- 

 tions of these pathologico-chemical phenomena ? or are those which 

 we do possess conducted with sufficient exactness to justify us in 

 drawing from them anymore general conclusions? What has been, 

 or can as yet be done in pathological chemistry ? Some few factors 

 or resultants of the metamorphosis of animal matter have been 

 investigated in a number of diseases, and in the most favourable 

 cases the results have been compared together, although they very 

 frequently did not admit of comparison. And even if the observa- 

 tions made on one and the same object in different conditions, did 

 actually admit of comparison, we might indeed derive from them 

 proofs or counter-proofs in reference to some popular view in 

 humoral pathology, but they could never afford us any insight into 

 the pathological process in the disease in question. It has only 

 seldom been considered that it is indispensably necessary to the 

 comprehension of a pathological process, that we should simulta- 

 neously investigate, if not all, at least many of the factors and 

 resultants of one and the same object, and that we should endea- 

 vour to ascertain the mutual relations of the different parts of the 

 group of phenomena. Instead of instituting accurate analyses of 



