EDITORIAL. 
289 
In the application of chemistry to physiology our author demands the 
most imperative adherence to truth in analytical results* he lays down the 
sole conditions upon which the formula for an organic substance should 
be accredited, and then points to the innumerable results which are turned 
out of the laboratories, under circumstances depriving them of all respect, 
and which are seized upon by physiologists to be woven into theories as 
truthful as the basis on which they are erected. 
In describing a substance our author first gives its properties, then its 
composition, next its combinations, then its preparations, next its tests, and 
lastly, its physiological relations. 
We would gladly give further illustrations of the work, but our space 
will not admit ; whatever difference of views there may be in reference to 
vital phenomena in the abstract, Professor Lehmann's logical adherence to 
the strictly demonstrable in physiological chemistry will render his book 
a faithful record of the real progress of that branch of science. 
The Life of fhe Hon. Henry Cavendish, including abstracts from his more 
important scientific papers, and a critical inquiry into the claims of all the 
alleged discoverers of the Composition of Water. By George Wilson, M. D. 
F. R. S. E. London, Printed for the Cavendish Society, 1851, pp. 478. 
This account of Cavendish and his works very appropriately emanates 
from a Society which has adopted his name. Perhaps no instance is on 
record of an individual, so celebrated for his scientific researches, so elevated 
in his family connections, so long a resident of the metropolis of Great 
Britain, for fifty years a member of the Philosophical Society, and 
one of the wealthiest men in England, about whom so little is 
known, and whose personal history was obscured by so impenetrable a veil 
of reserve. Mr. Cavendish was one of the most eccentric, and withal one 
of the most modest men that ever lived, and perhaps would hardly credit 
that, forty years after his death, a large volume would be written, a large 
portion of which is occupied with a tiresome discussion as to his claims to 
the discovery of the Composition of Water. Dr. Wilson, the biographer, 
has had a scarcity of materials to build up so extensive a volume, and while 
most will admit that he has made out a good case for his subject, it is at 
the expense of a vast deal of repetition. The celebrate^ characters who, in 
person or through their friends, have laid claim to that discovery, have given 
a historical importance to the matter far greater than it deserves, as all will 
now admit that the great fact was gradually evolved during the pursuit of 
experiments on air by at least two individuals, and was not the result of a 
priori reasoning followed by direct experiment, as in Davy's discovery of 
Potassium. 
