340 MEMORIAL, OF JOSEPH HENRY. 



lungs, and carbon is constantly evolved. - - - The animal is 

 a curiously contrived arrangement for burning carbon and hydro- 

 gen, and for the evolution and application of power. A machine 

 is an instrument for the application of power, and not for its crea- 

 tion. The animal body is a structure of this character. - - - 

 A comparison has been made between the work which can be done 

 by burning a given amount of carbon in the machine man, and 

 an equal amount in the machine steam-engine. The result 

 derived from an analysis of the food in one case, and the weight of 

 the fuel in the other, and these compared with the quantity of 

 water raised by each to a known elevation, gives the relative work- 

 ing value of the two machines. From this comparison, made from 

 experiments on soldiers in Germany and France, it is found that 

 the human machine in consuming the same amount of carbon, does 

 four and a half times the amount of work of the best Cornish 

 engine. - - - 



"There is however one striking difference between the animal 

 body and the locomotive machine, which deserves our special atten- 

 tion; namely the power in the body is constantly evolved by burn- 

 ing (as it were,) parts of the materials of the machine itself; as if 

 the frame and other portions of the wood- work of the locomotive 

 were burnt to produce the power, and then immediately renewed. 

 The voluntary motion of our organs of speech, of our hands, of 

 our feet, and of every muscle in the body, is produced not at the 

 expense of the soul but at that of the material of the body itself. 

 Every motion manifesting life in the individual, is the result of 

 power derived from the death as it were of a part of his body. 

 "We are thus constantly renewed and constantly consumed; and in 

 this consumption and renewal consists animal life." * 



Seven years after the publication of this highly original and sug- 

 gestive exposition, (whose topics and line of discussion had been 



* Agricultural Report for 1857, pp. 445-449. This important essay it will be 

 observed, antedates Prof. JOSEPH LE CONTE'S paper "On the Correlation of Physi- 

 cal, Chemical, and Vital Force," read before the American Association at Spring- 

 field, Aug. 1859, (Proceed. Am. Assoc. pp. 187-203: and Sill. Am. Jour. Sci. Nov. 

 1859, vol. xxviii. pp. 305-319,) as well as Dr. CARPENTER'S second and more mature 

 paper "On the application of the Principle of Conservation of Force to Physi- 

 ology," published in Crookes' Quarterly Journal of Science, for Jan. and April, 

 1864, (vol. i. pp. 76-87 ; and pp. 259-267.) 



