CONCERNING VITAL FORCE. 



who from his chemical standpoint has been severe and un- 

 sparing in his criticism of the views entertained by " certain 

 physiologists." Odling has particularly attacked those who 

 support the "fiction" of vital force. I am desirous of re- 

 plying to some of his strictures as well as to those of some 

 other chemists and physicists from my physiological side. 

 I shall endeavour to bring out clearly the points in which 

 the observer who regards the question from a physiological 

 and medical point of view, will agree with or differ from him 

 who looks upon it from a purely physico-chemical stand- 

 point. 



Chemists and physicists are and have long been far 

 too much in the habit of writing as if physiologists and 

 medical practitioners obstinately refused to accept the 

 truths concerning the correlation and indestructibility of 

 force. My friend falls into the same mistake when he states 

 his regret that "certain principles believed by physicists to be 

 fundamental as the laws of gravitation, are not heartily and 

 unreservedly admitted by physicians." I am sure that it is 

 needless to tell us that force is not created, and that, like 

 matter, it is not destructible. These truisms have been so 

 diligently and so impressively forced upon us, that it is only 

 right to ask pointedly for references to any physiological 

 or medical work published during the last quarter of a 

 century, in which any author teaches that matter or any 

 form of external force is created in living beings. In 

 order to impress the public with the high importance and 

 great and rapid advance of physics, they credit their oppo- 

 nents with a degree of ignorance and perversity that is most 

 unfair. The real question is, whether there is in addition 

 to ordinary forces, a force or power at work in living things 



