A HISTORY OF METABOLISM 



dying; and from a brilliant light is converted into dark smoke; which death 

 is continuous as the smoke is continuous; and the continuance of the smoke 

 equals the continued nutriment; and at the same moment all the flame is dead 

 and regenerated with the movement of its nutriment. 



Paracelsus (1493-1591) recognized the analogy between the produc- 

 tion of heat without ilamc, both in the body and chemically outside the 

 body, as had Aristotle and Galen 

 before him. He imagined the 

 existence of a spirit, t h c 

 Arcltwus, which lived in the 

 stomach and which there di- 

 vided the foods into the good 

 and the bad, the former being 

 used by the body and the latter 

 being eliminated in the excreta 

 as evil and poisonous. 



Sanctorius (1561-1636), a 

 professor of Padua, published 

 in 1614 his celebrated "De medi- 

 cina statica aphorismi," which 

 was printed in Venice. Sanc- 

 torius kept careful account of 

 his body weight, noted also the 

 weight of food and drink taken 

 and of urine and excrement 

 passed. He was thus able to 

 discover that the major evacua- 

 tion from the body was the 

 "insensible perspiration." He 

 determined the considerable loss 

 in body weight during periods 

 in which no urine or feces were 



passed from the body. Section 



m +\ \ \ at Fig. 1. Frontispiece of "De medians statica 



Of the Aphorisms treats of apho fe ri smi," showing Sanetorius seated on a 

 Meats and Drink" and contains chair suspended from a large steelyard, 

 the following quaint allusions, 



as rendered in a translation by John Quincy, published in London in 

 1712 and printed for William Newton in Little Britain. 



LXXV. "The Physician who has the Care of the Health of Princes and 

 and knows not what they daily perspire, deceives them and will never be able 

 to cure them except by Accident." 



LXXVI. "In the first four Hours after Eating a great many perspire a 

 Pound or near; and after that to the ninth two Pound; and from the ninth to 

 the sixteenth scarce a Pound." 



