REVIEWS — HUMAN PHYSIOLOGY. 249 



of the chemists a smile may he excited — some fears may be entertained 

 that they shall be carried clear off their feet in their rapid progress — 

 but we care little for the first and have no apprehension of the last 

 gentle suggestion. They are not yet beyond their depth, and the rather 

 that they are borne on the full stream — they have no idea of possessing, 

 as their progenitors the alchemists had, " the art of perfection ;" alas, 

 they know too well in this meaning, and pathologically, that theirs is but 

 the art of imperfection ; for, knowing the normal and abnormal states, 

 they may explain but not imitate the former, nor always cure the 

 latter;— to what branch or department of the whole circle of the 

 sciences can we turn to obtain even an insight into the mechanisms of 

 organization — what positive science can avail us in our search ? N one 

 — not one — other than this which lays bare the pregnant and instinct 

 affinities of its forces in the simplest products of its action from the 

 formation of water and carbonic acid gas to the elaboration of tissue— 

 of secretion and excretion. 



At the present day these subjects (chemistiy and physiology) 

 are not only closely allied, but almost identified, and the publi- 

 cation by Professor Draper is but evidence of the fact now 

 pointed out ; a publication opportune, graceful, and, as far as the 

 work goes, meriting commendation. In a spirit then not only of 

 social consideration, but of professional respect, we have perused 

 this book, and select such portions as our time and the interest 

 of the subjects permit and urge us to do — premising that as an 

 original work it cannot, of course, be considered — being nothing more 

 in reality than a compilation, and that a rather curt one, of what is 

 known on the subject of which it treats. 



His arrangement is peculiar, and, unlike recent writers either on 

 physiology or physiological chemistry, he does not open the subject 

 by a history and description of the elements which enter into the 

 composition of the organism — he scarcely indeed alludes to what 

 Robin we believe calls stoichiology — ^himself a chemist and familiar 

 with that which he daily teaches, he seems to forget that others may 

 not be in the same happy state, and, curiously enough, does not dwell 

 on its influence so prominently as the pure physiologists constantly 

 do. While then these last introduce many pages of the chemistry of 

 the stoicheia — for so the elements or principles were called by the 

 Greeks — originally meaning a letter, by easy transition, from being an 

 element in the name, it became an element in the thing named. Dr. 

 Draper at once, per saltum, begins with nutrition. So, too, his 

 division into statical and dynamic is singular — perhaps original — very 



VOL. III. R 



