248 Teaxsactions of the American Institute. 



reason to believe that Dr. Watters' essay may have suggested to the 

 distinguished English physiologist the germs of his own theory.* A 

 paper on this subject by Professor Joseph Leconte, of Columbia, S. 

 C, published in 1859, attracted much attention abroad, f The 

 remarkable results already given on the relation of heat to mental 

 work, -which thus far are unique in science, we owe to Professor J. 

 S. Lombard, of Harvard College ; X the very combination of metals 

 used in his apparatus being devised by our distinguished electrical 

 engineer, Mr. Moses Gr. Farmer. Finall}', researches, conducted by 

 Dr. T. R. Il^oyes in the physiological laboratory of Yale College, 

 have confirmed the theory that muscular tissue does not wear during 

 action up to the point of fatigue, § and other researches by Dr. L. II. 

 Wood have first established the great truth for brain tissue.*j[ We 

 need not be ashamed, then, of our part in this advance in science. 

 Our workers are, indeed, but few ; but both they and their results 

 will live in the records of the world's progress. More would there 

 be now of them were such studies more fostered and encouraged. 

 Self-denying, earnest men are ready to give themselves up to the 

 solution of these problems if only the means of a bare subsistence be 

 allowed them. When wealth shall foster science, science will 

 increase wealth — wealth pecuniar^-, it is true ; but also wealth of 

 knowledge, which is far better. 



In looking back over the whole of this discussion, I trust that it is 

 possible to see that the objects which we had in view at its com- 

 mencement have been more or less fully attained. I would fain 

 belive that we now see more clearly the beautiful harmonies of 

 bounteous nature ; that on her many-stringed instrument force 

 answers to force, like the notes of a great symphony ; disappearing 

 now in potential energy, and anon reappearing as actual energy ; 

 in a multitude of forms. I would hope that this wonderful unity 

 and mutual interaction of force in the dead forms of inorgj^nie 

 nature, appears to you identical in the living forms of animal and 

 vegetable life, which make of our earth an Eden. That even that 

 mysterious, and in many aspects awful, power of thought, by which 



* Watters, J. H., An Essay on Organic, or Life-force. Written for the degree of Doctor of Medi- 

 cine in the University of Pennsylvania, Philadolpliia, 1851. Sec also St. Louis Medical and Surgical 

 Journal, U, v, Nos. 3 and 4, 1S68; December, 18GS, and November 10, 18G9. 



t Leconte, Joseph, The Correlation of Physical, Chemical and Vital Force, and the Conser^-ation 

 of Force in Vital Phenomena. Amcrical Journal of Science, II, xsviii, 305, November, 1859. 



X Lombard, J. S., he. ci(. 



§ Noyes, T. R., loc. dt. 



^Wood, L. n., loc. dt. 



