370 
PHARMACEUTICAL 
SOCIETY, EDINBURGH. 
thought, which is the work of the brain, alike necessitate the destruction of tissue and 
the evolution of force. 
The strict connection between the destruction of fatty and muscular tissue, and the 
amount of work done—which is the vital activity displayed by the animal—has received 
ample confirmation by the researches of Dr. Edward Smith. When the human body is in 
a quiescent state, but not sleeping, the amount of carbon and hydrogen burned during 
one hour evolves heat sufficient to raise the body or a similar weight of water 2b° Fahr., 
and one-half of this quantity is only produced when the body is asleep. During hard 
work, as in ascending a hill at the rate of 1712 feet per hour, or in working a treadmill, 
there are five times as much carbonic acid evolved, indicating that a five-fold destruction 
of matter has been occurring in the animal economy. Of this increased amount, it is 
known that one-fifth is alone required to be expended in the mechanical work of raising 
the body to the height of 1712 feet in the hour, so that four-fifths of the whole heat 
evolved during the hour have escaped as heat, and hence the cause of the perspira¬ 
tion which generally accompanies mountain rambles. There is apparently, therefore, in 
the animal economy a loss of power in the form of heat, but in reality the available mo¬ 
tive power is greater than what can be obtained from the best constructed thermo-dynamic 
engine, where only one-eighth of the force produced from the combustion of the car¬ 
bon and the hydrogen, is obtained as motive pow r er, and the remaining seven-eighths 
are lost in the form of heat. The animal body is therefore a more complete motor 
machine than the steam engine, and it illustrates to us even more forcibly than an ordi¬ 
nary machine can do, that whilst there is a circulation in force, there is also a conserva¬ 
tion of force, and that there is no annihilation of power. The forces of heat and light 
which the sun supplied to the plant during its growth, and which the plant stored up 
in the chemical compounds it elaborated, have been handed over to the animal when 
the plant was partaken of as food, and the animal in its turn has disposed of them as 
heat and motor force, so that what the plant abstracted from nature has been restored 
by the animal to nature; and this statement applies equally to force and to matter. 
The doctrine of perpetual motion is one which is justly scoffed at, so far as the pos¬ 
sibility of its being attained by human ingenuity or invention, but perpetual motion is 
fully carried on in all the relations of the mineral, vegetable, and animal kingdoms, and 
in the workings of this great universe. 
In the numberless changes to which matter is subjected in the animal economy, let 
one atom lose its place or be tardy in its movements, and the system becomes deranged, 
and the Pharmaceutical compound is called upon to aid vitality in ridding the body of 
the troublesome atom, and in establishing order again. Let the forces which are evolved 
from the disintegration of the food compounds, whilst sojourning in the animal struc¬ 
ture, be slow in their evolution, and the system become debilitated, then the function of 
the Pharmaceutical preparation is to nerve the sinking frame ; and if the forces arc 
unduly exerted and the animal economy is running a heedless course, then the Pharma¬ 
ceutical preparation assists normal vitality in reducing the body to a quiescent state. 
In all these processes, no doubt, there is much of a mysterious nature, and much which 
we caqnot comprehend, and may never be able to do so. What vitality is in essence is 
beyond our view. We can observe its mode of action—to some extent we can control its 
mode of action by the administration of food and medicine, and by external forces, but 
we can never originate it. We can create nothing, and when once life forsakes the plant 
or the animal, all the cunning devices of man fail to influence its movements and are 
powerless to restore it. 
Certain it is that in the hands of the great Creator of the universe, the world rolls on 
its course, and each plant and each animal ministers to our daily wants ; and possessing 
apparently the same living powers, the wheat and the potato, the corn and the apple 
yield us food; and the poppy, cinchona, and nux vomica, yield us medicine ; whilst all, 
in their relations of feeders of matter and of force to the animal structure, demon¬ 
strate, not only that we are fearfully and wonderfully made, but read us the lesson, how 
marvellously well each part of nature performs its allotted task, and how nicely balanced 
are all created things. 
A vote of thanks, proposed by Mr. Blanchard, was cordially given to Dr. Macadam, for 
his interesting paper. 
A specimen of scannnony root, imported from Killis, in 'Asia Minor, by Mr. Ransom, 
of Hitchin, was presented to the Society for the museum. Thanks voted. 
