441 
OBSERVATIONS ON THE 
APPLICATION OF CHEMISTRY TO PHYSIOLOGY, 
PATHOLOGY, AND PRACTICE. 
By Wm. Pkout, M.D., F.R.S. 
As delivered by him, in the Gulstonian Lectures, at the College 
of Physicians. 
[By permission of Dr. Prout and the Editor of the London Medical Gazette.] 
We eagerly avail ourselves of the permission we have ob¬ 
tained to reprint from the Medical Gazette the excellent lectures 
of Dr. Prout on the application of Chemistry to Physiology and 
Pathology. To us poor neglected veterinarians it is new and 
untrodden ground. It will be our pleasing task hereafter to shew 
the peculiar bearing of these lectures on veterinary practice ; and 
in the mean time our readers will draw their own inferences, 
neither few nor unimportant— Edit. 
LECTURE I. 
j ■ ~ • .. . 
The subject on which I have the honour of addressing you is 
one of great interest, and daily becoming of more and more im¬ 
portance to the physiologist and pathologist; namely, the con¬ 
sideration of how far chemistry can be applied to physiology and 
pathology, and of the modes by which the inexhaustible powers 
of this science can be best directed, so as to ensure its utmost 
advantages. 
In the present state of physiology and pathology, if we scruti¬ 
nize closely our notions and reasonings on almost any subject, we 
shall find them, for the most part, to be either purely mechanical 
or metaphysical. The human mind, in its pursuit after truth, 
quits with reluctance the dominions of quantity, and hence is too 
apt to push its laws far beyond their legitimate boundaries. A 
lew of the phenomena presented by living organized bodies are 
obviously of a mechanical nature; but do we reason justly, in 
the great majority of instances, when we attempt to explain the 
most complicated phenomena by the assumption of a little more 
or less blood, or other fluid ; by the presence of enlarged or con¬ 
tracted vessels or apertures; by diminished, excessive, or de¬ 
ranged vascular power or action, and a variety of similar circum¬ 
stances? Or are our notions of the operations of remedies ex¬ 
pressed by such terms as evacuants, deobstruents, tonics, &c. all 
having reference to mere quantity, cither in mass or power, a 
whit more satisfactory ? On the other hand, when we quit ma- 
