CHEMICAL HEALTH AND DISEASE. 35 



them with vital powers, when he shall have made his 

 living matter. He may then scoff at vital power to some 

 purpose, and laugh at those who are now so weak as to 

 resort to a vital hypothesis to explain the facts that puzzle 

 them ; but at present his remarks are premature, his pro- 

 phecies incredible, and his assurances vain and uncon- 

 vincing, and in antagonism with the principles upon which 

 his science is based. 



In these days things have had odd names given to them, 

 and the strangest comparisons have been instituted. Some 

 people persuade themselves that they see some likeness 

 between a little transparent moving stuff which seems to re- 

 arrange itself of itself, and a room devoted to chemical 

 operations ; so they call this soft transparent matter a labora- 

 tory. Some might naturally enquire, what is a laboratory 

 without a chemist, and ask how the chemist is to be dis- 

 covered in the transparent moving stuff? When a labora- 

 tory is discovered in which the proper chemicals transport 

 themselves into fit and proper retorts and crucibles, and these 

 place themselves over the fires, &c., not only without any 

 chemist to direct them, but also without any apparatus what- 

 ever, then may such a laboratory be fairly compared with 

 the living matter in which special chemical changes go on. 

 And if, as the new philosophers say, force is the chemist 

 which works in the cell, why not try whether force will not 

 form an efficient substitute for the chemist in the laboratory? 



Chemical doctrines concerning vital phenomena in health 

 and disease. In an interesting " preface" to some lectures 

 on " Chemical and Mechanical Diseases," published in the 

 Medical Times and Gazette for January 7, 1865, Dr. Bence 

 Jones makes some statements with reference to the changes 



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