■28 
MEMOIR OF CAjrPBR. 
which he was now so honourably called upon to dis- 
charge. He accordingly estahlislicd himself and fa- 
mily at Groningen in the autumn of 1763 ; and was 
shortly afterwards appointed the physician of the city. 
At his inauguration as professor in 1764, he deli- 
vered a discourse, On the Extraordinary Analogy 
between Vegetables and Animals ; and this was soon 
tollowed by an essay On Lameness, and its natu- 
ral Causes; and, shortly after, by a memoir On 
the Mode in which broken Bones are healed; which 
being sent to one of the learned societies of Edin- 
hurgh, led to his being elected a member of its Roj’al 
Society, and also of the Royal College of Physi- 
cians. 
The subject of the analogy between vegetables 
Jiud animals is at once most interesting and difficult, 
riie Professor contended that the grand and leading 
difference between these two kingdoms in nature 
consisted in this, that animals Iiave nerves, whicli 
being connected with all the senses, unite them in a 
common centre ; whilst, on the other hand, no dis- 
tinct nervous filaments wt're discoverable in vege- 
tables. But, while the Professor laid down this 
broad distinction, he still argued, tliat, since vege- 
tables are provided with bloodvessels and glands, ami 
divided by the distinction of sexes, and as, moreover, 
it cannot be denied that in animals there are irritable 
parts, in which nervous matter makes a part, though 
it cannot be demonstrated to the senses ; so, he con- 
tended, it might be admitted that a substance ana- 
