ANIMAL JUICES. 7 



solid constituents after violent inflammations, as still thinner and 

 more watery in typhus, and sometimes, deficient and at other times 

 abundant in solid constituents in tuberculosis, we must, neverthe- 

 less, consider this designation of the conditions in which the bile 

 is found to be more concentrated or more attenuated, as wholly 

 irrational ; for we ought simply to have said that in those condi- 

 tions in which, to borrow an expression from pathological ana- 

 tomy, the morbid process had localised itself, or, in other words, 

 where the blood had lost some of its solid contents, in conse- 

 quence of extensive exudations or other considerable losses of the 

 juices, this property of the blood was reflected as it were in the 

 secretions and excretions, and a less consistent and poorer bile was 

 secreted ; whilst in those cases in which the blood is found to be 

 denser and to contain more solid constituents, as for instance in 

 cholera, the bile in the body after death is viscid and deficient in 

 water. 



Another point of physiological importance in relation to the 

 animal fluids, is the investigation of the quantities in which they 

 are formed or secreted, and this is far more necessary than we 

 should be disposed at first sight to infer. We have already shown, 

 in our methodological introduction, the importance to be attached 

 to the statistical method of examining the metamorphosis of 

 matter, and recognised it as one of the most valuable aids in 

 physiologico-chemical investigation, for, although it still leaves us 

 in the dark as to the nature and objects of such a process, it 

 defines certain boundaries beyond which we cannot strain our 

 interpretation of animal phenomena, or extend our experiments, 

 without falling into the most obvious errors. Such a limitation of 

 hypotheses is above all most necessary in a science which may still 

 be said to be in its infancy. The benefits derived from this statis- 

 tical method are not, however, merely negative; for it affords the 

 surest basis for the recognition of that branch of physiological 

 chemistry which promises to yield the richest fruits to future 

 inquirers. The most direct and attainable aim of our investiga- 

 tions must be the elucidation of the quantitative relations of the 

 interchange of the different animal substances through the different 

 organs, tissues, closed and open cavities, and finally, the external 

 world. In the present low state of our knowledge of the chemical 

 substrata of the human organism in health as well as in disease, 

 it is to a development of the mechanical metamorphosis of 

 matter based upon physical laws, and referable to simple nume- 

 rical calculations, that we must look for the most brilliant results. 



