4 METAMOEPHOSES OF MAN 



birds with, the materials necessary for the nutrition of 

 their tissues, minus the inorganic substances, which, 

 arranged in a living woof, give solidity to the bones. 

 At the end of a certain period, fowls and pigeons 

 became languid and died. Then the skeleton was 

 found altered, and the bones attenuated or even 

 perforated. The rest of the organism had been 

 nourished ; the bony tissue alone had not repaired its 

 losses, and these were betrayed by serious injuries.* 

 Thus the bones themselves, organs perhaps the least 

 vital of all, and which the physiologists whose opinions 

 we oppose have almost compared with brute matter, 

 are, like the most delicate structures in the body, 

 although to a less extent, under the control of the 

 vital vortex. f 



* The development of the bones and the molecular movements 

 which take place in them, have been the subject of several works 

 and very animated discussions. In a treatise like the present, I 

 can only refer to a small number of these essays. Those of 

 M. Flourens were first published in the "Archives du Museum" 

 for 1842, afterwards with numerous additions, in his work called 

 " Theorie experimentale de la Formation des Os," Paris, 1847. The 

 experiment of M. Chossat which I described, was communicated to 

 the Academy from his great work "Kecherehes experimentales sur 

 l'lnanition," which obtained the physiological prize in 1841. 



f The results arrived at by the physiologists just cited, com- 

 pared with those made known by MM. Serres and Doyere, Brulle 

 and Hugueny, and with those deducible from a very remarkable 

 analytical memoir read before the Academy by M. Fremy, lead us 

 to the conclusion already clearly expressed by M. Flourens, that in 

 the bones the vital force is occasionally subject to an arrest which 

 is sometimes very prolonged. It is probable that the other tissues 

 exhibit more or less analogous phenomena. But as regards the 

 fact of the renewal of matter, it is sufficient to remove all doubt on 

 this point, to read a few lines devoted to this question by Miiller 

 in his " Manuel de Physiologie," translated by Jourdan, 2nd edition, 

 Paris, 1851, vol. i. p. 325. 



