THE 
VETERINARIA 
YOL. XXXII, 
No. 373. 
JANUARY, 1859. 
Fourth Series, 
No. 49. 
Communications and Cases. 
ON THE ARTIFICIAL PRODUCTION OF ORGANIC 
COMPOUNDS. 
It is universally acknowledged that this is an age of 
progress. Great and marvellous are the truths that from 
time to time burst upon the mind in its investigations of the 
wonders that surround us in nature; and the principles 
therein involved being made obvious, and then transferred 
to art, render this also a practical age. Nor do we content 
ourselves with present discoveries, but the past are likewise 
called into requisition by us, and, being applied, are also 
rendered useful; by which means mankind is benefited as a 
whole, either by “ lessening the many ills that flesh is heir 
to,” or contributing to the comforts or the necessaries of life. 
Professor Owen, in the fine address which he gave at the 
opening of the late meeting of the British Association for 
the Advancement of Science, extracts from which appeared 
in a recent number of our Journal, referring to the progress 
of chemistry, says : “ The present tendency of the higher 
generalization of chemistry seems to be towards a reduction 
of the number of those bodies which are called elementary. 
It begins to be suspected that certain groups of these so- 
called chemical elements are but modified forms one of 
another—allotropic forms of some one element.” Dumas 
first broached this subject, and some persons thought, by his 
statement, that he favored the idea of the transmutation of 
bodies ; he, however, referred only to those substances which, 
possessing a relationship to each other, rendered such a 
change probable, and even possible. In these triad groups, 
—so designated by this philosopher—it has been observed, 
that the intermediate body has most of its properties the 
intermediate of those of the two extremes. Take, as illns- 
xxxit. 1 
