PATHOLOGICAL PROCESSES. 451 



the urine, the blood, the solid excrements, and the expired air in 

 one and the same disease in one and the same individual, and 

 making careful determinations of the quantities of the egesta when 

 compared with the ingesta or the weight of the body, infinite pains 

 have been taken to compare the composition of the blood in dif- 

 ferent diseases without a suspicion of the insufficiency of our 

 analytical methods, and their inability to afford us any insight into 

 the internal metamorphosis of matter. We believe that we have 

 already sufficiently characterised the deplorable nature of most of 

 the analyses of morbid urine. Diabetic urine has frequently been 

 examined, the other juices have also been analysed in diabetes, and 

 sugar has everywhere been found. Yet this much discussed disease 

 has never been investigated with reference to the general metamor- 

 phosis of matter ; on no occasion has any attempt been made to 

 determine the ingesta and egesta of the body during its continuance ; 

 and even those experiments which have been made to determine 

 the relation of nutrition to the formation of sugar, have either been 

 left incomplete, or have utterly failed in their object, while the 

 relations of respiration, which are so important in this disease, are 

 still shrouded in complete obscurity. A comprehensive examina- 

 tion of the kind to which we refer is essentially needed in the case 

 of inflammatory fever, or the inflammatory process accompanied 

 by fever, which constitutes one of the main processes of most 

 diseases. It would have served as the first point of attachment for 

 a systematic inquiry, as the key-stone to a true system of patho- 

 logical chemistry ; a more favourable opportunity could scarcely be 

 found for establishing and examining from a physical point of view 

 these complicated relations in the deviations from the normal 

 course of the metamorphosis of matter. But the ground before us 

 is still unbroken, and the fruitful soil has as yet yielded little more 

 than weeds. 



In reverting once more to the points of view which afford a 

 prospect of a successful elaboration of pathological chemistry, and 

 in thus endeavouring to justify our silence in reference to patho- 

 logico-chemical processes, we in no way intend to animadvert 

 upon those true inquirers who have exercised their powers on this 

 uncultivated department ; for the deficiencies in their labours were 

 owing less to those who prosecuted them, than to the extra- 

 ordinary difficulties of the pursuit, which will still require many 

 years of labour to overcome: indeed, we have already endeavoured, 

 throughout the whole course of this work, to place these difficulties 

 in their true light, and to caution our readers against attaching too 



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