Me 
Electro-Magnets and Magnetic Adhesion. 413 
vitalism has declared that chemical laws explain nothing when used in 
relation to man, and that medicinal agents act by unknown and very dif- 
ferent means from those which chemists suppose. Space does not allow 
us to notice the reply made at the same sitting by another physician, Pog- 
giale, who is also somewhat of a chemist. But we shall be asked what is 
the precise meaning of vitalism? Vitalism is a force in the cate ory 
ranks under the laws of mechanics, physics or chemistry. Vital force is 
insufficient to explain how it happens that a large number of substances, 
such as sugar, tartaric and malic acids, sulphur, sulphurets, salicine, &c., 
&c., undergo in the animal economy the same changes as when subjected 
to chemical action. 
hen we remember that slight compression of a muscle suffices to 
develop heat, and that its contraction evolves electricity, that in order to 
establish chemical action it suffices to place two heterogeneous bodies 
in contact—one is surprised that medical men should seek to explain 
the phenomena of life by “ vital force”; as if the material of our bodies 
was exempted from the laws that regulate matter, as if what they call 
vital laws could interfere with the play of physical, mechanical, or chem- 
ical laws. 
1, Branched Electro- 
magnets. 
2, Disk-shaped Electro-magnets. 
* Les Electro-aimants et Vadhérence magnétique. 
