i88i.] The Border-land of Chemistry and Biology * 319 
phenomena having both a chemical and a biological aspedt, 
and he has obtained results of great value alike to organic 
and inorganic science. As far back as 1839 he showed, in 
a paper read before the Academy of Sciences in Paris, that 
the physiological adtion of solutions of different salts injected 
into the blood of living animals depended mainly upon the 
eledlro-positive or basic element of each salt, and were little 
modified by the eledtro-negative element or acid. Thus, to 
take a simple instance, the effedts of sodium sulphate differ 
less from those of sodium nitrate than they do from those of 
magnesium sulphate. 
Again, in a memoir communicated to the Royal Society, 
in June, 1841, Dr. Blake proved that the adlion of inorganic 
substances conveyed diredtly into the blood of living animals 
depended on their isomorphous relations, — those bodies 
which can replace each other in a crystalline compound 
without disturbing its form having similar physiological 
adtion. 
A third step was taken in a discourse delivered before the 
California Academy of Sciences in 1873, the author showing 
that among metallic bodies the physiological activity of those 
belonging to one and the same isomorphous group is propor- 
tionate to the atomic weights ; the higher the atomic weight 
the more intense is the physiological adtion. 
Finally, in a paper communicated to the German Chemical 
Society, on February 7th of the present year, Dr. Blake 
sums up the whole of his results. The first point to be 
noticed is that the effedts obtained were the same in all the 
species operated upon — horses, dogs, cats, rabbits, geese, 
and hens. It might, indeed, have been wished that some 
ruminant animal and some species of monkey had been 
inserted in the list. The hedgehog, also, in virtue of his 
alleged immunity from the adlion of poisons, would have 
been a desirable subjedt. Some cold-blooded animal, such 
as that “ martyr of science ” the frog, should have been 
included. These omissions are the more to be regretted 
since any extension or verification of Dr. Blake’s researches 
is now rendered pradlically impossible. So far, however, as 
experiment has gone, we may conclude that the indifference 
of certain animals to the adlion of various poisons when 
introduced into the stomach is due mainly to non-ab- 
sorption.* 
The substances employed were salts of forty-one of the 
* This view can scarcely be admitted in case of the remarkable toleration 
of the salts of morphine in certain apes. That it really enters the circulation 
is proved by its subsequent appearance in their urine. — E d, J. S. 
