AMERICAN EDITION. 



aialady without being mifled as too often happens at prefent, by fpe- 

 cious words, and idle or deceitful names 



But, notwithftanding the many and beautiful applications of chem- 

 ical principles to the explanation of the animal functions, we are not to 

 imagine any thing in life fufceptible of chemical interpretation. 

 What it is that enables the atoms compofing a mufcle to cohere, and 

 the mufcle to contract and perform great exertions of (trength, we 

 know not ; but this we know very well, that we can never form a muf- 

 cle by fynthefis, or the putting together, in any artificial form, thofe 

 fubflances which appear, from analyfis to conftitute a mufcle. There 

 is fomething in animated exiftence which eludes our moft active re* 

 fearches, and which defies fubmiffion to either mechanical or chemical 

 laws. With refpect to, chemical modes of reafoning upon thefe fub- 

 jects, it is obfervable, that they apply, with their greatefl extent and 

 accuracy, to fuch parts of the body as have the lowest degree of ani- 

 mation, as the contents of the inteftines, teeth, bones, fat, fubflan- 

 ces adhering to the {kin, and, generally fpeaking, the circulated and 

 fecreteu fluids ; while the qualities of mufcular fibres, by which they 

 become contractile, and of nervous expanfions, whereby they take on 

 fenfation, with the whole of the functions arifing from irritability and 

 fenfibility, are referable to other and different laws. 



The invefttgation of thefe Laws of Organic Life is attempted by 

 our learned and very ingenious author in the following work. The 

 Zoonomia, therefore, though not exempt from fanciful and viflonary 

 doctrines, piefents coniiderations of the firfl importance, both to the 

 fpecuiative philofopher and the practical phyfkian ; to him who con- 

 templates the operations of mind as a fcience, or to him that attends 

 to the corporeal functions as an artifi The fecond part of this work 

 being engaged in an arrangement of difeafes, with their remedies and 

 modes of treatment, will be very acceptable to the practical as well as 

 the theoretical phyfician. After the different projects for methodiz- 

 ing this department of knowledge, which have fucceffively been offer- 

 ed to the public with fo little advancement of true fcience, the friends 

 of medical improvement and of the healing art will joyfully accept 

 of fomething that promifes to lead them from arbitrary fyflem to nat- 

 ural method. And as the diitinctions are founded upon the increafed^ 

 decreafed or inverted actions of the moving machinery of the body, it 

 will inflantly be perceived how clofely the Brunonian doctrine is inter- 

 woven with the whole fubject. It is however to be always borne in 

 mind that on American difeafes the phyficians of this country have 

 generally written the beft. 



SAMUEL L. MITCHELL. 

 New-Tori, Nov. 3, 1802, 



