728 PRELIMINARY OBSERVATIONS. 



more soft and greasy in those parts which have undergone 

 putrefaction, and they are found to contain free lactic acid or 

 lactate of ammonia; products which are universally formed 

 during the putrefaction of animal and vegetable matters. 



The death which is the consequence of poisoning by putrefied 

 sausages succeeds very lingering and remarkable symptoms. 

 There is a gradual wasting of muscular fibre, and of all the con- 

 stituents of the body similarly composed. 



Sausages, in the state here described, exercise an action upon 

 the organism, in consequence of the stomach and other parts 

 with which they come in contact not having the power to arrest 

 their decomposition ; and entering the blood in some way or 

 other, while still possessing their whole power, they impart 

 their peculiar action to the constituents of that fluid. 



MOLECULAR THEORY OF ORGANIC COMPOUNDS. 



It is observed by Liebig that in all organic compounds it is 

 necessary to consider two kinds of attraction, that of the con- 

 tained radicals, and that of the ultimate elements themselves 

 for each other ; which last attraction is not superseded by the 

 former. To these elemental attractions we are to look for an 

 explanation of the phenomena of substitution. 



Any theory of combination would be incomplete which did 

 not provide in the constitution assigned to both elementary 

 and compound bodies, for that propagation of chemical action 

 to a distance which is witnessed in the voltaic circle. The con- 

 sideration of that action has already forced upon us the conclu- 

 sion that even a free element such as a metal, in the state in 

 which we operate with it, has a complex molecular structure, its 

 atoms being grouped, so as to represent binary compounds. 

 Hence in combining two different elements, we have really to 

 undo a previous but weaker combination in both cases, before 

 the dissimilar elements unite; and consequently, even where 

 combination appeared most direct, we have the compound really 

 formed by a mutual double decomposition, or by the substitu- 

 tion of one element for another in pre-existing frames of com- 

 pounds. The universal susceptibility of compounds of all kinds 

 to decomposition under electrical action of high intensity, 



