32 Operation of JVitrogen on Plants and Animals. [Jan., 



theorist adduced a single test, instance, palpable, unequivocal and 

 pertinent? " Do men gather grapes of thorns?" Does the oak 

 produce other than an acorn, does the acorn ever evolve itself into 

 aught else but an oak? Individual forms may attain to greater 

 vigor and symmetry, the coloring and shading may appear more 

 picturesque, the physiognomical lineaments may approximate to 

 their beau ideal, but the number, the configuration, and the con- 

 formation of parts is constant under all specific mutations. The 

 argument, elaborate and specious, and imposing though it be, is 

 besides opposed in its very front by the crucial physiological fact, 

 that the hybrid products resulting from contubernation between 

 allied species, have no perpetuity exceeding their individual ex- 

 istence. A more plausible supposition because more conformable 

 to observation is the suggestion, that the germs of all forms pre- 

 existed by coetaneous creation, each awaiting a conjunction of 

 conditions propitious to its proper excitation. 



OPERATION OF NITROGEN ON PLANTS AND ANIMALS. 



BY JOSEPH E. MUSE. 



This subject is one of deep interest to science and agriculture. 

 The suggestions of Dr. Mitchell, published in your last volume, 

 founded in unequivocal truths, have been falsely ascribed to spu- 

 rious claimants, and I had not, heretofore, been positive of the 

 rightful owner. 



The expansive, philosophic views taken by the Doctor, in the 

 letter alluded to, really excite surprise, when we consider the pe- 

 riod — fifty years ago — at which they were communicated; his 

 physiological speculations and deductions, in relation to animal 

 and vegetable life and death, under the influence of his septic 

 (azotic) principle, justify the elevated position which he main- 

 tained through life. 



Universities and their learned professors may teach the exclu- 

 sive vegetable origin of malaria, pestilential disease, or atmo- 

 spheric infection, by whatsoever names they may be called; yet 

 I feel fortified by the Doctor's able and scientific communication, 

 in the sentiments I have always held, " that decaying animal 

 bodies contain, in a more exalted degree, than vegetables, the 

 elements of that fatal virus — atmospheric poison — and conse- 

 quently, that they are more productive of it. 



Ordinary reflection and observation would seem to establish the 

 truth of the proposition; the instinctive faculty revolts peculiarly 

 from the penetrating fetidness of the putrid animal effluvium — so 



