390 



SCIENTIFIC THOUGHT. 



nutrition, and the generation of animal heat. 1 Already in 

 1783 Lavoisier and Laplace had presented a memoir to 

 the Paris Academy of Sciences, in which they attributed 

 the generation of animal heat mainly to a process of 

 combustion which took place by the conversion of oxy- 

 gen into fixed air during the process of respiration. 

 Lavoisier continued his researches on these and other 

 similar physiological processes, such as perspiration, 

 along with Seguin. They presented a joint memoir 

 on the subject in 1790. It is also known, through 

 the posthumous publication of Lavoisier's scientific 

 papers in 1862, long after Liebig had brought out his 

 series of researches on this matter, that the former had 

 entertained very correct views on the economy of organic 

 life as it exists in the balance of the animal and vege- 

 table creations. After Lavoisier, the application of the 

 new science of chemistry to questions of the individual 

 and collective life of organisms was extended in a series 



1 The two great discoveries of 

 oxygen and of the electric cur- 

 rent at the close of the eighteenth 

 century were not long in being 

 applied to the reform of medical 

 doctrine. In both instances exag- 

 gerated theories were not wanting. 

 Fourcroy, himself a medical student 

 by profession and one of the most 

 ardent followers and promoters of 

 the new chemistry, who, moreover, 

 edited a journal with the title ' La 

 m^decine ^clairee par les sciences 

 physiques' (1790-92), found it never- 

 theless necessary to give warning 

 against the premature introduction 

 into medical teaching of the new 

 ideas of chemistry. Of this many 

 instances existed, both in France 

 and Germany, such as the ' Essai 

 d'un systeme chiinique de la science 



de rhomme' (1798), by J. P. T. 

 Baumes of Montpellier, against 

 which Fourcroy aimed his criticisms 

 in a letter to Humboldt. On these 

 extravagances see Haeser, ' Ge- 

 schichte der Medicin,' vol. ii. p. 

 737, &c. ; also Dr A. Hirsch, 

 ' Gesch. d. medicin. Wissenschaften 

 in Deutschland ' (Miinchen, 1893, 

 p. 567). There is no doubt that 

 opposition to this one-sided ap- 

 plication of some chemical or 

 physical theory, or of some special 

 therapeutic method, which might 

 be valuable to a limited and re- 

 stricted degree, partly accounted 

 for the fact that the more thinking 

 members of the profession clung 

 to the notion of a vital force or 

 principle, as yet undefined but 

 nevertheless existent. 



