DR. PROUT ON CHEMISTRY. 
447 
jcct, they seem to me to open up a new and important field of 
inquiry, and to promise to lead hereafter to the most unexpected 
results. 
For the particulars of Mr. H.’s experiments I must refer to his 
paper, and shall only observe, that he has shewn that an enor¬ 
mous power, not less than 50,000 times that of gravity, may be 
instantly generated by the simple agencies of common matters 
submitted to galvanic influence; as, for example, mercury alloyed 
with a millionth part of its weight of sodium, &c. That the 
powers thus capable of being developed are, in some way or other, 
connected with many of the phenomena and changes presented 
by organized beings, to an extent far beyond that contemplated 
by Mr. Herschel, I have no doubt. We before attempted to 
shew that, in adopting and employing material bodies, the 
organic principle adopts and employs also those energies which 
are naturally associated with them—as the galvanic energy, 8cc. 
Now it must follow, I think inevitably, that if the galvanic ener¬ 
gy be made to operate upon bodies constituted, as all organized 
bodies are, of certain principles alloyed or mixed with minute 
quantities of foreign matters, that powerful actions of some sort 
or other must take place ; for no one, I presume, will for a mo¬ 
ment contend that these effects are confined to mercury. It de¬ 
serves to be mentioned also, as a curious fact corroborating this 
supposition, that many of those minute foreign substances which 
Mr. H. found to exert most energy in his experiments, are pre¬ 
cisely those most usually occurring in organized bodies, such as 
sulphur, phosphorus, magnesium, calcium, iron, See.; and that 
the serum of the blood itself is a weak alkaline solution of soda, 
the very same as that most usually employed by Mr. H. in his 
experiments. The analogy might be even carried further; but I 
shall dismiss the subject for the present with a brief enumeration 
of some of the more important phenomena which seem to derive 
much elucidation from the views here brought forward. Among 
these may be mentioned, in the first place, the subtle matters of 
contagion and miasmata: these, whatever they may consist of, 
apparently exist in very minute quantity, and evidently operate 
by deranging or subverting organic action. To these may be 
added many medicinal substances capable of producing the most 
extraordinary effects in the smallest doses; the still more refined 
and recondite matters of light and heat, and a variety of others ; 
all of which produce their effects by the agency of infinitely mi¬ 
nute quantities, and that probably by attaching themselves to the 
principles composing organic bodies, and thus, by suspending 
natural actions or introducing new ones, influence or destroy life. 
After this brief sketch of the nature of organized bodies, as 
