616 
REMARKS ON “A LECTURE 
four widely spread elements, oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen, and carbon, two, 
at least, will be found in every organic compound ; hence, as Dr. Prout has 
suggested, these four may be conveniently distinguished as the essential 
elements of organic matter. The other simple substances are found in 
smaller quantities, and are less extensively diffused; these may be termed 
its incidental elements. They are sulphur, phosphorus, chlorine, sodium, 
potassium, calcium, magnesium, silicon, aluminum, iron, manganese, iodine, 
and bromine ; the last two are obtained almost exclusively from marine 
plants and animals. Between these elementary substances and the or- 
ganized animal or vegetable texture there intervenes a class of compounds 
called proximate principles,” &c —Todd Sf Bowman , page 6. 
“ Such are gluten, starch, lignine, from the vegetable textures; or al- 
bumen, fibrine, caseine, from the animal ones. From these again a great 
variety of compounds has been obtained by various processes owing to the 
tendency which their elements have to form new combinations .” — Todd 
Bowman , page 7. 
The Lecture next treats upon the “origin” of “ organized bodies.” 
I quote from page 207. 
“ With respect to origin, some believe in spontaneous generation, and have 
supposed that out of decaying vegetable or animal matter may arise animals 
or plants of a species different from the originals. This idea I conceive to 
be most fallacious. Every plant, every animal, is the offspring of a parent, 
to which it bears a resemblance in all essential particulars. In fact, the 
maxim ‘ omne vivum ex ovo,’ propounded by the illustrious Harvey, is 
the rule in the production of all organic beings. And it seems probable that, 
in those cases where a spontaneous generation was suspected, the seeds or 
the eggs, or perhaps the parents themselves, had been in a state called 
dormant vitality , concealed in the decaying matter, or floated to it by the 
surrounding atmosphere, and, finding themselves in conditions favourable to 
their development, manifested active life. 
“ Through the interesting researches of Schwann and Schleiden, it has been 
discovered that the simplest and most elementary form of matter in a state of 
organization is a cell,” &c. 
The concluding lines of the above quotation are taken from the 
concluding four lines of page 9, and the first two lines of page 10, 
of Todd § Bowman ; while the first portion is from the last por- 
tion of page 10 of the same book. I shall, therefore, give the 
passages as they occur in Todd 8$ Bowman s work. 
“ The simplest and most elementary organic form with which we are ac- 
quainted is that of a cell, containing another within it, which again contains 
a granular body. This appears, from the interesting researches of Schleiden 
and Schwann, to be the primary form,” &c. ***** * 
******* ******* 
“ In their origin, organized bodies are generally, if not always, derived 
from similar ones. Some have supposed that out of decaying vegetable or 
animal matter minute animals or plants of other kinds may be formed : but 
it seems most probable that in those cases in which they had been supposed 
to be formed, the seeds or eggs, or even the parents themselves, had been 
concealed in the decaying matter, or floated in the surrounding atmosphere. 
Recent experiments throw considerable doubt upon this doctrine of the 
spontaneous generation of organized bodies, by shewing that neither ve- 
getation nor the development of animalculae will go on in fluids which have 
