COMPOSITION MORE COMPLEX IN ORGANIC THAN INORGANIC BODIES 11 
All these elements are likewise found in 
inorganic bodies. Organic bodies, therefore, 
do not difler from the latter in regard to ele- 
mentary matters. But great differences exist 
relative lb the number of elements which 
enter into organic combinations, and in the 
manner in which they are joined together. 
VII. d'he number of elements which en- 
ter into t' e composition of bodies included 
in the organic kingdom, is much less consider- 
able than that of the elements which exist 
in the other kingdom. Organic bodies, as 
far as we can judge of them from the data hi- 
therto collected by chemistry do not present, 
putting aside the imponderable matters, more 
than the nineteen elements which I have enu- 
merated,* while fifty-two have already been 
found in the other kingdom. All the sub- 
stances which chemistry regards as simple, 
do not therefore enter into the composition 
of organic bodies, which, on the contrary, 
only contain the smallest proportion of them. 
From among- the substances therein discover- 
ed, those which exist in greatest quantity are 
oxygen, hydrogen, carbon, and nitrogen in in- 
finitely varying proportions. The rest are by 
no means abundant in comparison with these. 
VIII. _ Although the number of elements 
in organic bodies in general be small, never- 
theless the composition of a living body, 
a plant, or animal, is much more complicated 
than that of an inorganic body. Besides the 
fact that almost always one and the same vege- 
table or animal presents at the same time, in 
its different parts, very diverse modes of com - 
bination, we observe that all the compound or 
organic matters proceed from three, four, or 
more elements. There are three elements at 
least in them, united together in an immediate 
mannm-, without having a preliminary binary 
combination. Vegetable mucus, sugar and 
starch, are composed of carbon, oxygen, and 
hydrogen. Gluten, albumen, fibrin, animal 
mucus, cafein, &c. contain moreover nitrogen, 
in addition to these three elements. The ter- 
nary or quarternary unions of these four sub- 
stances in proportion varying ad infinitum, 
give rise to the immediate products of or- 
ganized bodies ; a result clearly proved by 
the researches instituted by Thenard, Gay 
T.ussac, Berzelius, Prout,Thomson, Berard, 
l^h. Von, Saussure, lire, and others. 
On the other hand, all the inorganic combina- 
tions, as Berzelius has shown, are to be con- 
sidered as binary compositions, that is, result- 
ing from the union of two elements alone, or as 
combinations of two binary composed bodies, 
or lastly, as combinations of a binary com- 
pound with a simple substance. Thus oxygen 
with hydrogen produces water; with sul- 
phur, phos|)horus, nitrogen, and carbon, it 
forms sulphuric, nhosphoric, nitric, and car- 
bonic acids ; in junction with calcuim, soduim 
and [)otassium it gives lime, soda, and potassa. 
Chlorine with hydrogen, originates hydro- 
chloric acid ; nitrogen and hydrogen produce 
ammonia. These salts, then, are only double 
binary compounds. 
* The opinion of chemists are divided regard- 
ing the existence of some other simple sub- 
stances in organic bodies. Thus, Recher asserts 
that he found gold in the ashes of tamarinds. 
It is evident, therefore, that nature has 
given a more comjdex composition to organic 
than to inorganic bodies, a remark which 
Kielmeyer has already made in his course of 
general zoology. 
IX. Organic combinations can easily be 
reduced to their elements by chemical opera- 
tions, and principally by the action of fire, but 
chemists have not hitherto succeeded in re- 
producing them, as they have done the inorga- 
nic compound bodies.* Sugar, starch, 
gum, gluten, fibrin, albumen ; &c. have been 
brought down to their elementary principles, 
but no chemist has yet arrived at the refor- 
mation of them in all their parts. The same 
is the case of all the liquid and solid parts of 
living bodies On this account, then, w^e are 
authorized in admitting thff, in the present 
state of chemistry, the composition of organic 
bodies is not the effect of affinity alone, but 
that it depends on j.owers peculiar to those 
bodies, by which powers the chemical affinities 
are swayed. 
X. Between organic and inorganic bodie s 
there exists a difference relative to the mode 
of combination of the materials which enter 
into their composition and this consists in the 
greater tendency the former have than the 
latter to undergo changes and decompositions. 
Tlie combinations of bodies not endued with 
life for the most part binary or double binary, 
are more confirmed, more fixed, and their 
elements are held together by more energetic 
affinities than in organic matters, as Che, 
* Some chemists assert, tliat they have ob- 
tained organic combinations by submitting 
inorganic compositions to various modes of treat- 
ment ; but doubts may be entertained on this 
subject. Thus Berard (Annales de Chemie et de 
Physique, vol. v, p. 29r) says, he obtained a lit- 
tle crystallized fat by passing one measure of 
carbonic acid gas, ten of olitiant gas, and twenty 
of hydrogen through a red-hot tube. It is very 
probable, that the substances resembling fat 
which he found was held in solution in the oli- 
fiantgas, which had been procured from alcohol 
Doebereiuer, (Oken’s Isis, 1817, art. 5, p. 576,) by 
passing watery vapour over red-hot charcoal, in an 
iron tube, got a volatile matter, soluble in watei-, 
and having the smell of fat. But it may be object- 
ed, that charcoal should be looked on as anorganic 
combination. Besides, Berard and Trommsdorf 
(Neues Journal fur Pharmacie, vol ii, art. 2, p. 
203,) who repeated the experiment, did not ob- 
tain the same result. We only are acquainted with 
two compound organic bodies, of the simple 
kind namely oxalic acid and urea, which Woehler 
lirst pointed out the mode of procuring from 
tiieir different components (Poggendorf, Annalder 
Physik, vol. iii, p. 177.) If chemists have really 
succeeded in producing, by means of purely 
inorganic substances, some combinations in which 
the elements are associated as in organic combina- 
tions, it is only those that are placed on the outer 
boundary between compound organic and inor- 
ganic bodies. Berzaelius (Chimie, book iii, part 
1, p. 147,) expresses himself in the following- 
manner on this subject : “ Although it may 
happen that, eventually, it may be discovered 
that many of these products of matters purely 
inorganic have a similar composition to that of 
organic products, yet this, in complete imitation, 
is always reduced to a very small foundation for 
hoping that it would ever be in our power to 
manufacture organic matters from their compo- 
nents, and thus to conlirim analysis by synthesis, 
as we almost always are able to do in inorganic 
nature.” 
