IN MEDICAL SCIENCE. 9 



Chemistry includes the art of separating and com- 

 bining the elements of matter, and the study of the 

 changes produced by these operations. We can hardly 

 say too much of what it has contributed to our knowl- 

 edge of the universe and our power of dealing with its 

 materials. It has given us a catalogue raisonnS of the 

 substances found upon our planet, and shown how 

 everything living and dead is put together from them. 

 It is accomplishing wonders before us every day, such 

 as Arabian story-tellers used to string together in their 

 fables. It spreads the sensitive film on the artificial 

 retina which looks upon us through the optician's lens 

 for a few seconds, and fixes an image that will outlive 

 its original. It questions the light of the sun, and de- 

 tects the vaporized metals floating around the great 

 luminary, — iron, sodium, lithium, and the rest, — as 

 if the chemist of our remote planet could fill his bell- 

 glasses from its fiery atmosphere.* It lends the power 

 which flashes our messages in thrills that leave the lazy 

 chariot of day behind them. It seals up a few dark 

 grains in iron vases, and lo ! at the touch of a single 

 spark, rises in smoke and flame a mighty Afrit with a 

 voice like thunder and an arm that shatters like an 

 earthquake. The dreams of Oriental fancy have bo- 

 come the sober facts of our e very-day life, and the 

 chemist is the magician to whom we owe them. 



To retm-n to the colder scientific aspect of chemis- 



* Scientific Annual for 1861. — Fairbaikn's Address before the British 

 Association, 1861. 



1* 



