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POPULAR SCIENCE REVIEW. 
tubular glands of the stomach become inflamed, and pour the pus, which they 
secrete, into the stomach or into the cellular tissue of this organ. 
Professor Wurtz has been appointed Dean of the Faculty of Medicine at 
Paris. 
Difference between Catalytic and Cell Phenomena . — Although we cannot 
agree with all that Dr. Beale has written upon this subject, we have much 
pleasure in laying his observations before our readers, as worthy of their 
serious attention. Dr. Beale thinks that there are very strong arguments in 
support of the belief in a vital force, and since many of our “ Positive 
philosophers” contend that so-called vital actions may be explained upon the 
principle of catalysis, he has tried to compare vital (?) and catalytic phe- 
nomena. We ourselves do not think it fair to compare catalysis with cell- 
action, for as yet we do not know what catalytic action is, although we give 
it the term catalysis from the effects which we perceive. We think it is 
certainly impossible to explain certain of the processes of life by what we 
yet know of physical laws, but we contend that this does not warrant us in 
concluding that certain phenomena are not referrible to physical laws. Dr. 
Beale’s argument appears to us to be this : — We cannot explain the phenomena 
associated together under the term life, by reference to what we know of 
physics, therefore we must refer them to the operation of a force we do not 
know — the vital. We do not think this is fair reasoning. The only justifiable 
conclusion appears to us to be this. Neither physicists nor vitalists can explain 
life by reference to the recognized laws of force ; but the physicists have 
analogy on their side, and the vitalists have nothing. It is better to confess 
our ignorance of a complex phenomenon than to waste good mental power in 
controversy which can never be decisive, because, like Mr. Gradgrind, what 
we want “ is facts.” The following are some of Dr. Beale’s observations : — 
“ A very little consideration will show that there is little analogy between 
catalysis and the phenomena which occur in connection with living cells. 
The lifeless catalytic matter never multiplies ; the living always does. The 
lifeless passes through no definite stages or states of being ; the living inva- 
riably does so. The lifeless catalytic body does not necessarily alter in 
chemical composition during its action ; the living one is always undergoing 
change in its active state. The first cannot be said to form new material ; 
the last always exhibits this property. Neither the assimilation of food, nor 
the conversion of food into blood, nor the conversion of blood into organ or 
texture, can be correctly spoken of as due to catalysis or contact-action, for in 
these processes not only are certain elements of the pabulum taken into the 
very substance of the matter which is the catalytic agent, but these become a 
part of the agent itself. In no case does the food directly become blood, or 
the blood undergo direct conversion into organ or texture, but both food and 
blood pass through a transition stage, during which neither the compounds 
existing before nor those which are to be produced can be detected.” — Yide 
Medical Times , March 10. 
