390 SCIENTIFIC THOUGHT. 



nutrition, and the generation of animal heat. 1 Already in 

 1783 Lavoisier and Laplace had presented a memoir to 

 the Paris Academy of Sciences, in which they attributed 

 the generation of animal heat mainly to a process of 

 combustion which took place by the conversion of oxy- 

 gen into fixed air during the process of respiration. 

 Lavoisier continued his researches on these and other 

 similar physiological processes, such as perspiration, 

 along with Seguin. They presented a joint memoir 

 on the subject in 1790. It is also known, through 

 the posthumous publication of Lavoisier's scientific 

 papers in 1862, long after Liebig had brought out his 

 series of researches on this matter, that the former had 

 entertained very correct views on the economy of organic 

 life as it exists in the balance of the animal and vege- 

 table creations. After Lavoisier, the application of the 

 new science of chemistry to questions of the individual 

 and collective life of organisms was extended in a series 



1 The two great discoveries of de 1'horatue' (1798), by J. P. T. 



oxygen and of the electric cur- Baumes of Montpellier, against 



rent at the close of the eighteenth which Fourcroy aimed his criticisms 



century were not long in being in a letter to Humboldt. On these 



applied to the reform of medical extravagances see Haeser, ' Ge- 



doctrine. In both instances exag- schichte der Medicin,' vol. ii. p. 

 gerated theories were not wanting. , 737, &c. ; also Dr A. Hirsch, 



Fourcroy, himself a medical student ' Gesch. d. tnedicin. Wissenschaf ten 

 by profession and one of the most ' in Deutschland' (Miinchen, 1893, 



ardent followers and promoters of p. 567). There is no doubt that 



the new chemistry, who, moreover, opposition to this one-sided ap- 



edited a journal with the title ' La plication of some chemical or 



medecine e"clairee par les sciences physical theory, or of some special 



physiques '(1790-92), foundit never- therapeutic method, which might 



theless necessary to give warning be valuable to a limited and re- 



against the premature introduction stricted degree, partly accounted 



into medical teaching of the new for the fact that the more thinking 



ideas of chemistry. Of this many members of the profession clung 



instances existed, both in France to the notion of a vital force or 



and Germany, such as the ' Essai principle, as yet undefined but 



d'un systeme chimique de la science nevertheless existent. 



