420 Observations on Organic Chemistry 



When the chemist places a calculation before the physiologist the 

 latter asks him for his proofs ; he is not satisfied with these, but he re- 

 quires him to prove these proofs, and then to prove the proofs of the 

 proofs! The chemist says, "I know the weight of a certain amount 

 of tobacco, and the weight of the ashes remaining upon its incineration ; 

 I know also, therefore, the amount of what has gone off in the smoke." 

 " Prove it !" exclaims the physiologist. If the chemist had weighed the 

 smoke, disregarding altogether the weight of the tobacco and of the 

 ashes, the physiologist would have considered the result far more correct, 

 so strangely perverted are some people's intellects. 



The Grand Duke of Hesse provides his soldiers with two pounds of 

 bread per diem ; the King of Prussia and the Emperor of Austria pro- 

 vide their soldiers with the same amount. Now, soldiers do not live upon 

 bread alone, they partake of other aliments besides, and of all these 

 aliments there remains nothing in the economy, nothing is permanent 

 in the organism, except the bones. With military scrupulousness the 

 sergeant major weighs all their other aliments down to pepper, salt, and 

 vinegar ; all these aliments, bread included, are examined as to their 

 amount of carbon; the quantity of the faeces evacuated is determined, 

 and so is the amount of carbon they contain. Thus we know the 

 amount of carbon supplied by the aliments as well as of that elimi- 

 nated by the faeces. Now, it has been positively ascertained that the 

 carbon which enters the organism through the mouth has, besides the 

 fasces, no other channel or exit except in the urine, and through the 

 skin and the lungs ; and, moreover, that the carbon is eliminated, in 

 the form of carbonic acid, by the skin and the lungs ; and that urea and 

 water mean nothing else than carbonic acid and ammonia. We may, 

 therefore, by a very simple calculation, deduce the unknown quantity 

 from the two known quantities, and assert that an adult healthy indi- 

 vidual, who is drilled during four hours every day, and has, at the 

 same time, to carry a heavy burthen, burns in his organism about thir- 

 teen ounces and a half of carbon per diem. 



This conclusion is as true as the assertion of the mechanician who, 

 by the experiments made on a body of 100,000 soldiers, has ascertained 

 that, on an average, a healthy full-grown man cannot carry above thirty 

 pounds for eight hours consecutively without injury to his health. 

 The statistician does not proceed upon the principle of the physiolo- 

 gist, who considers this conclusion erroneous because, forsooth, some 

 feeble individual is not able to carry more than ten pounds, or because 

 some strong person, whom he knows, can carry fifty or a hundred 

 pounds. 



