ON MATTEK AND FORCE. 59 



he says : " The stomach must have the power 

 of organising and vitalising the different ali- 

 mentary substances. It is impossible to 

 imagine that this agency of the stomach can 

 be chemical. This agency is vital, and its 

 nature is completely unknown." 



In his work on Stomach and Eenal Disease 

 (5th ed., p. 490), he says: "The third or 

 vitalising function may in some instances be 

 suspended or otherwise deranged. Thus, when 

 more food is taken by healthy individuals than 

 is required for the purposes of the animal 

 economy, there is reason to believe that, how- 

 ever perfectly the superfluous portion of the 

 aliments may, for the sake of enabling them 

 to pass through the system without producing 

 great disorder, be dissolved and converted, the 

 vitalising function is withheld ; and that such 

 superfluous matters are finally eliminated either 

 with the bile or in the form of lithate of 

 ammonia in the urine." In short, excess of 

 urates in the urine after a large meal may 

 depend on a want of vital action. 



Some late researches of Kiihne on the action 

 of the pancreas (Yirchow's Archiv, vol. xxxix., 

 p. 130) appear to me to promise the solution 



