346 POISONS, CONTAGIONS, MIASMS. 



produced when yeast is added to liquids containing 

 gluten. This must be more certainly effected when 

 the liquid acted upon contains the body by the 

 metamorphosis of which the exciter has been 

 originally formed. 



It is also obvious, that if the exciter be able to 

 impart its own state of transformation to one only 

 of the component parts of the mixed liquid acted 

 upon, its own reproduction may be the consequence 

 of the decomposition of this one body. 



This law may be applied to organic substances 

 forming part of the animal organism. We know 

 that all the constituents of these substances are 

 formed from the blood, and that the blood by its 

 nature and constitution is one of the most complex 

 of all existing matters. 



Nature has adapted the blood for the reproduc- 

 tion of every individual part of the organism ; its 

 principal character consists in its component parts 

 being subordinate to every attraction. These are 

 in a perpetual state of change or transformation, 

 which is effected in the most various ways through 

 the influence of the different organs. 



The individual organs, such as the stomach, 

 cause all the organic substances conveyed to them 

 which are capable of transformation to assume new 

 forms. The stomach compels the elements of these 

 substances to unite into a compound fitted for the 

 formation of the blood. But the blood possesses 

 no power of causing transformations ; on the con- 



