<5S Chemical PJiilosophy. 



Grutzmacher, La GrangEj and, above all^ 

 ScHEELE, whose experiments on acids were pro- 

 bably more numerous, and more instructive thaii 

 those of any other chemist. 



It was not till the century under review that 

 chemical analysis was apphed to investigate the 

 composition of animal b(xlies^ This^ has been at- 

 tempted by a number ef modern chemists, and 

 with very honourable success. Among these, the 

 inquiries of Scheele, Gren, Fourcroy, and GiR- 

 TANNER^ are entitled to very respectful notice. 

 But the elaborate researches of Mr^ Hatchet^ 

 in this interesting field of inquiry y, are particularly 

 well known, and do equal honour to Lis industry 

 and acuteuess.^ The same department of che- 

 mistry has also been pursued, with great success, 

 by M. Merat Guillot' and others. These in- 

 vestigations have led to important discoveries,, have 

 thrown much light on the animal oeconomy, and 

 furnished many indications for the improvement of 

 medicine and surgery. 



Though vegetable pk;ifsiotogx; had been studied 

 with some degree of success, by several persons^ 

 in the seventeenth century; yet, pursuing this 

 species of inquiry through the medium of chemis- 

 try was scarcely thought of, and far less realized, 

 till the eighteenth. Within a few years past che- 

 mists have directed much attention to the struc- 

 ture, composition, and food of plants; have greatly 

 extended, by this means, the limits of the science; 

 and have contributed much to the improvement of 

 botany, agriculture, the materia medica, and va- 

 rious arts of life. Among those who have dis- 

 played the greatest acuteness, zeal, and success in 

 this department of chemical inquiry, we may 



h Philosophical Transactions for 1 799 and l80(?. 

 £ AnnaUs de Chemie^ torn, xxxiv, p. 68. 



