556 ERROR OF DR. PROUT. 



during its circulation through the systemic ca- 

 pillaries, the caloric obtained from the atmos- 

 phere is transferred to the solids, by which their 

 temperature and vitality are maintained, when 

 the blood returns to the right side of the heart 

 of a dark modena hue, having lost its power of 

 stimulating the organs, until it acquires an addi- 

 tional quantity of caloric from the lungs. 



Dr. Prout observes, in his late Bridgewater 

 Treatise, that "the phenomena of life are wholly 

 removed from the logic of quantity." But if respi- 

 ration be the source of animal life, the phenomena 

 are resolvable into additions and subtractions of 

 measurable elements ; and it is only because they 

 have not been ascertained with numerical ac- 

 curacy, that physiology has never yet been re- 

 duced to the character of an exact science. For 

 if it be true that the conversion of food into 

 chyme and chyle is effected by its union with 

 gastric juice, bile, and pancreatic liquor; that 

 chyle is transformed into more highly organized 

 particles of blood, by giving off water, carbon, 

 and hydrogen, while passing through the lungs, 

 in exchange for which it receives caloric from 

 the atmosphere, with variable proportions of ni- 

 trogen, there is no good reason why the propor- 

 tions of each should not be reduced to " the logic 

 of quantity." 



According to some recent experiments of Dr. 

 Ure, caloric enough is evolved during the com- 

 bustion of 1 Ib. of charcoal to melt 75 Ibs. of ice, 



