GIFT OF 
 
 PROF. W.B. RISING 
 
 BIOLOGY 
 LIBRARY 
 
^7.7 
 
 - 
 
 > 4^ t ^ 
 
CEOONIAN LECTUEES ON MATTEE 
 AND FOECE. 
 
LONDON: 1'RINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, STA4IFOBD SIBEET 
 AND CHARING COOKS. 
 
CROONIAN LECTURES 
 
 MATTER AND FORCE. 
 
 GIVEN AT THE ROYAL COLLEGE OF PHYSICIANS 
 IN 1868. 
 
 HENRY BENCE JONES, A.M., M.D., F.R.S., 
 
 CONSULTING PHYSICIAN TO ST. GEORGE'S HOSPITAL. 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 JOHN CHURCHILL AND SONS, 
 NEW BURLINGTON STREET. 
 
 M.DCCC.LXVm. 
 
BIOLOGY 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 G 
 
PEEFACE. 
 
 THESE Lectures, since they were published in the 
 British Medical Journal, have been corrected, 
 and three Appendices have been added to show 
 how the progress of Physiology depends now 
 upon Physics and Chemistry. 
 
 The object of this republication will be 
 obtained, if the idea of the inseparability of 
 matter and force is made clearer to any one ; 
 or even if the confusion that exists in the use of 
 the word force, or the indefiniteness in the use 
 of the word matter, is lessened. 
 
 The confusion regarding the word force partly 
 comes from its use in not less than three dif- 
 ferent senses : firstly, as the cause of motion ; 
 
 237578 
 
VI PREFACE. 
 
 secondly, as possible or actual motion; and 
 thirdly, even as the result of motion. Thus the 
 attractions that start the cannon-ball, the 
 motion of the ball, and the blow it gives, have 
 each been designated by the word force. 
 
 The indefiniteness in the use of the word 
 matter has partly originated in the assumption 
 of some stuff as the essence, or vehicle for light, 
 heat, electricity, magnetism, the interstellar 
 aether, and for life ; and these imaginary liquids, 
 or gases, have been realized as if they had been 
 proved to exist by analysis. 
 
 As these and similar confusions pass away, 
 more and more clearness will be obtained re- 
 garding the inseparable union of matter and 
 force. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 LECTURE I. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Oil the Three Stages of our Ideas regarding the Union 
 of Ponderable Matter and Force in the Abiological 
 Sciences . 1 
 
 LECTURE II. 
 
 On the First and Second Stages of our Ideas regarding 
 the Union of Ponderable Matter and Force in the 
 Biological Sciences . . . . . .40 
 
 LECTURE III. 
 
 On the Third Stage of our Ideas regarding the Union 
 of Ponderable Matter and Force in the Biological 
 Sciences . . . 65 
 
 [APPENDICES 
 
Vlll CONTENTS. 
 
 APPENDIX I. 
 
 I'AGB 
 
 On the Time required for the Transmission of Volition 
 and Sensation through the Nerves .... 97 
 
 By EMIL DU BOIS-REYMOND, Professor of Physiology 
 in the University of Berlin. 
 
 APPENDIX II. 
 
 Oil the Source of Muscular Power .... 133 
 
 By EDWARD FRANKLAND, Ph.D., F.R.S., Professor 
 of Chemistry, E.I. 
 
 APPENDIX III. 
 
 On the Rate of Passage of Crystalloids into and out of 
 the Vascular and Non-Vascular Textures of the Body 178 
 
 By HENRY BENCE JONES, A.M., M.D., F.R.S. 
 
CEOONIAN LECTURES 
 
 ON 
 
 MATTER AND FOECE. 
 
 LECTURE I. 
 
 ON THE THREE STAGES OF OUR IDEAS REGARDING THE 
 UNION OF PONDERABLE MATTER AND FORCE IN THE 
 ABIOLOGICAL SCIENCES. 
 
 " But though the natural works of God can never by any 
 possibility come in contradiction with the higher things which 
 belong to our future existence, and must with everything 
 concerning him ever glorify him, still I do not think it at all 
 necessary to tie the study of the natural sciences and religion 
 together." FARADAY, MS. 
 
 MK. PEESIDENT, 
 
 I must begin this course of lectures by 
 assuring you that I am fully sensible of my 
 rashness in venturing to bring before you a 
 subject which may be thought to be more 
 metaphysical than physical, and to be too 
 difficult to be of any practical utility ; but I 
 venture to take the great chance of failure, 
 
 B 
 
LECTURES 
 
 because I hold that the clearness and breadth 
 or dimness and narrowness of our ideas regarding 
 matter and force must constitute a good or a 
 bad foundation of all the knowledge we possess, 
 not only in medicine, but in every other 
 science. 
 
 In the history of the development of scien- 
 tific knowledge, whether in mankind, nations, 
 or individuals, ideas of matter and force are 
 found to become gradually more clear and more 
 broad; and, as soon as clearer and more 
 connected ideas are obtained, they immediately 
 lead to fresh investigations ; and on this ac- 
 count, if for no other cause, it is desirable that 
 from time to time we should ask ourselves 
 what is the degree of clearness and breadth to 
 which we have attained in our ideas of matter 
 and force ? 
 
 What are our present ideas ? Whence have 
 they come ? Whither are they going ? 
 
 Ideas that have become too old give no new 
 lines of research, and always cause the grossest 
 misinterpretation of new facts; whilst new 
 ideas, even though far from the perfect repre- 
 sentation of the ultimate truth, yet can gradu- 
 ally be made to come nearer and nearer to that 
 
ON MATTER AND FOKCE. 3 
 
 perfect knowledge which is based upon reason 
 and demonstration, and not on external or 
 internal authority. 
 
 In this lecture, I intend to bring before you 
 the history of our ideas regarding the union of 
 ponderable matter and force in those sciences 
 into which the idea of life does not enter. 
 
 Three distinct stages of ideas or epochs of 
 thought may be clearly recognised. 
 
 The first may be considered as the authori- 
 tative stage, or that of complete separation 
 between the ideas of ponderable matter and 
 force. This stage may be summed up in two 
 words, materialism, and immaterialism or 
 spiritualism. It may be called primitive, 
 because it implies a state of almost complete 
 ignorance of the first principles of natural 
 knowledge. 
 
 The second stage is founded partly on 
 authority and partly on natural knowledge. It 
 is marked by the incomplete separation between 
 the ideas of ponderable matter and force. Force 
 is held to be imponderable matter, or to be 
 inseparably united with imponderable matter. 
 This may be called the stage of imponderable 
 
4 CROONIAN LECTURES 
 
 materialism, and it may be marked as the 
 transition or Newtonian stage. 
 
 The third stage rests solely on the advance 
 of natural knowledge, and is characterised by 
 the complete union or perfect inseparability 
 between the ideas of ponderable matter and 
 force. This may be called materialism, if, in 
 the definition of matter, the definition of force 
 is included ; or it may be called spiritualism, 
 if, in the definition of spirit, the definition of 
 matter is contained. This stage, in which our 
 ideas of ponderable matter and force are in- 
 separably united, may be distinguished as the 
 modern stage. 
 
 The first or primitive stage is that of com- 
 plete separation between the ideas of matter 
 and force. 
 
 Before bringing to your notice some of the 
 records of this stage which exist, it is desirable 
 that you should for a moment consider what the 
 earliest ideas of matter and force were likely 
 to be when no knowledge of science existed. 
 
 The further we go back, the more we must 
 expect ideas of force and matter to be formed 
 on superficial likenesses and distinctions. Scien- 
 
ON MATTER AND FORCE. 
 
 tific separations or relations must not be looked 
 for. The different conditions of the same matter, 
 as solid, liquid, or vapour, will strike the senses 
 far more distinctively than the different ele- 
 mentary substances which are now known. So, 
 also, variations of form and quantity will be far 
 more noticeable than the action of the different 
 forces which we now recognise in matter. 
 Finally, we must expect no clear distinction 
 between the highest and the lowest phenomena 
 shown by animals and vegetables. The im- 
 mortal soul, the feelings, the reason, the instinct, 
 the life as it exists in animals and in vegetables, 
 are all likely to be utterly confused together ; 
 and it will be as vain to look for separate ideas 
 of different kinds of matter and force as to look 
 for separate ideas of the soul, the reason, the 
 animal life, and the vegetable life, to which 
 separation we are so well accustomed. 
 
 Probably by far the oldest recorded ideas 
 which exist on the matter and force of inorganic 
 nature are those of the Jews, contained in a 
 few words in the Book of Genesis. It is said, 
 " The earth was created, and it was without 
 form, and void." After\vards, God said, "Let 
 
6 CROONIAN LECTURES 
 
 there be light, and there was light." The 
 firmament, the waters, and the earth, were 
 made as light was made ; that is, in its creation, 
 light or force was regarded as perfectly separable 
 from matter. 
 
 In other ancient nations, or in savage tribes, 
 we may see how ideas of matter and force were 
 distinctly separated, by observing how the 
 different phenomena of nature were worshipped 
 as separate personal deities, according to the 
 distinctness of their action on the senses. 
 
 Wherever we come to the dawn of ideas, we 
 find man raising the forms or forces of matter 
 which he perceives around him until he makes 
 them into heroes or deities, to which he gives a 
 body and qualities like those he finds in himself. 
 Thus time, or night, or day, the heaven, the 
 earth, the sea, or light, darkness, fire, or life, 
 become incarnate gods, capable of doing good 
 or evil. 
 
 By reversing the process, we can descend 
 from the deities to the ideas from which they 
 came ; and everywhere we shall find that, in the 
 earliest ideas, force is regarded as self-existing,, 
 and altogether separable from the idea of matter. 
 
 The Vedas were perhaps compiled in the 
 
ON MATTER AND FORCE. 7 
 
 sixteenth or fourteenth century before Christ. 
 The Hindu religion contained among its deities 
 Indra, the god of the sky or light ; Vritra, the 
 demon of darkness or night ; Agni, the god of 
 fire ; Savitri, the god of the sun ; Ap, the god 
 of waters ; Prithri, the god of earth. Creation, 
 preservation, and destruction were worshipped 
 as Brahma, Vishna, and Seva. Brahma formed 
 fire, water, and earth.* 
 
 In the sacred books of the Chinese, the seven 
 gods deemed worthy of peculiar homage are the 
 
 * " Wherever in the world around him the Hindu observed 
 extraordinary manifestations of the brilliant or the beautiful, 
 the barren or the prolific, the sombre or the terrible, wherever 
 the action of the elements was such as to produce extraor- 
 dinary effects upon himself, his children, or his property, he 
 betrayed the consciousness of his dependence by some special 
 act of homage. He acknowledged in such powers the pre- 
 sence of divinity. He called the influence which affected 
 him or his a deva (deus}. It was pregnant for a time with a 
 divine or a diabolical efficacy, and therefore it became a fitting 
 object of desire or dread, of adoration or of deprecation, ac- 
 cording to the aspects it assumed in reference to the wor- 
 shipper. Hence also every province of Creation was soon 
 peopled by spiritual energies, all varying in their character 
 with human hopes and fears, with human interests and 
 passions. Nay, so far was the Hindu impelled in this di- 
 rection, that he deified the sacrifice itself (the soma or milky 
 juice of the moon-plant), from which he hoped to profit. He 
 worshipped his own offering. He worshipped the solemn 
 form of words by which his offering was accompanied."- 
 HardwicJe, vol. i., p. 178. 
 
8 CEOONIAN LECTUKES 
 
 sun, mooD, and five planets. The animated 
 material heaven and the earth were father and 
 mother of all things. To them the emperor 
 might sacrifice; whilst the mandarins might 
 only worship the lower deities wind, rain, 
 lightning. Confucius, who may have lived in the 
 sixth century before Christ, directs that the blue 
 firmament should be worshipped, especially at 
 the equinox, as the central point of influence 
 whence the cause of all things acts. 
 
 The old Egyptians " lived in adoration of the 
 world above, beneath, and around them." The 
 sun seems to have been the chief God and the 
 source of all the other Gods. They were divided 
 into pairs, masculine and feminine, and they 
 represented cosmic principles. 
 
 In Persia, the nature-worship was similar to 
 that of the Hindus. The sun, moon, fire, water, 
 earth, and winds, etc., were divided into good 
 and bad spirits. Zoroaster, the reformer, and 
 supposed writer of the Zendavesta, taught the 
 adoration of the sun and sacred fire as the best 
 representative of the good eternal spirit, Ormazd 
 or Ahuramazda. A corresponding evil spirit, 
 Ahriman, furnished the second element of his 
 dualistic creed. 
 
ON MATTER AND FORCE. 9 
 
 The earliest Greek ideas of matter and force 
 are given by Pherecides Syrius in the births 
 and marriages of the Gods. He says Zeus was 
 first of all. The second principle was a plastic 
 matter, or earth. Light was the third. Amongst 
 the deities were Uranus, Neptune, Vulcan, and 
 Venus sky, water, fire, and attraction. Em- 
 pedocles first taught the doctrine of the four 
 elements. To him, the force of heat was quite 
 distinct from the three forms of matter, earth, 
 water, and air. 
 
 If, instead of turning to the records of ancient 
 nations, we take the mythology of the natives 
 of Africa, America, or Polynesia, we find every- 
 where that ideas of matter and force are 
 distinctly separated or entirely confused, ac- 
 cording to the action of the different pheno- 
 mena of nature on the senses. In New Zealand, 
 the Maoris held that night was the first god, 
 because they thought night produced the day. 
 Heaven was next; then earth; then their 
 children, the gods of light, the sea, etc. They 
 thought that everything was the organ of a 
 special god, or lather, or demon, who made it, 
 and kept it what it was. Thus they deified 
 meteors, rainbows, sharks, ants, rats, or any 
 
10 CROONIAN LECTURES 
 
 image, to which they gave their own shape and 
 properties. 
 
 Among the wild tribes of America, the Great 
 Spirit is the highest member of a group, a 
 personification of the mightiest of all natural 
 energies ; the sun, God. The living sun itself 
 is not a symbol, but an actual God. The moon 
 is the evil spirit, capricious and changeful. An 
 animal or thing that is worshipped is not a 
 symbol of this or that divine natural power, 
 but becomes altogether a god, a fetish, or spell, 
 or magical charm. 
 
 Even if we look to the origin of our own 
 ideas, we shall find that the belief in the 
 existence of four elements earth, air, fire, 
 water which has lasted down to the infancy 
 and perhaps beyond the maturity of some now 
 alive, is quite sufficient to prove that we once 
 had our ideas of force or fire entirely separable 
 from our ideas of the three different conditions 
 in which ponderable matter may occur. We 
 have all gone through the primitive stage of 
 ideas, in which ponderable matter is entirely 
 separable from force.* 
 
 * In the origin of some of the latest religions, the separa- 
 bility of matter and force is distinctly seen. " In 1792, 
 
ON MATTER AND FORCE. 11 
 
 The second or transition stage of ideas consists 
 in an incomplete separation between the ideas 
 of matter and force. 
 
 In this stage, force is considered as altogether 
 separable from ponderable matter, but actually 
 to consist of, or to be perfectly inseparable 
 from an imponderable asther, gas, or fluid, 
 which is capable of being attached for a time to 
 the ponderable matter. 
 
 The first trace of the idea that force is 
 imponderable matter seems to have started from 
 Kepler : he used it to account for the motions 
 of the planets. He thought that a current of 
 fluid matter circulated round the sun, carrying 
 the planets with it like a boat in a stream. He 
 
 Johann Schonherr felt that he had got the results of nature 
 in his grasp. Light is the male vivifier ; water the female, 
 the nurse. These two arch-beings, the supreme male and 
 supreme female, bound in eternal and in necessary wedlock, 
 explain everything ; for in this great wedlock of principles 
 lies the only chance of the seed of things being brought to 
 life. Schonherr felt that this sudden gift of insight was no 
 accident of tune and place. It must be more : a revelation 
 from on high ; a working of celestial love in his soul ; a 
 pouring of the divine will into his spirit. One day he went 
 to Emmanuel Kant, to whom he wished to make known his 
 grand secret, that all living things consist of light and water. 
 ' Yery well,' said the expounder of pure reason, ' have you 
 tried to live on them ?' " Dixon. 
 
12 CROONIAN LECTURES 
 
 says the vehicle of that virtue which urges the 
 planets, circulates through the spaces of the 
 universe after the manner of a river or whirl- 
 pool (vortex), moving quicker than the planets. 
 He asserted these vortices to be an " immaterial 
 species," capable, however, of overcoming the 
 inertia of bodies. 
 
 Thence came the vortices of Descartes, by 
 which he showed how the world must have 
 been constructed, and thence the agitation of 
 the sether of Leibnitz. 
 
 And then follows Newton, who may rightly 
 give his name to this stage of our ideas on 
 matter and force; for Newtonian ideas on 
 matter and force have continued in consequence 
 of his authority down to the present time. 
 Even with regard to gravity, Newton refused 
 to entertain the third stage of ideas. In his 
 second letter to Bentley, 1693, he says : " You 
 sometimes speak of gravity as essential and 
 adherent to matter. Pray do not ascribe that 
 notion to me. The cause of gravity I do not 
 pretend to know, and would take more time to 
 consider of it." 
 
 He seems to have been disposed to refer the 
 tendency of bodies to a centre to the elasticity 
 
ON MATTER AND FORCE. 13 
 
 of an aether. It was, however, in his ideas of 
 light that Newton held the imponderable 
 materiality of force. Descartes said that light 
 consisted of small particles emitted by the 
 luminous body. He compares these particles 
 to balls, and endeavours to explain, by means 
 of this comparison, the laws of reflection and 
 refraction. Hooke proposed the theory of 
 undulations, and asserted that light consisted in 
 a quick, short, vibratory motion propagated in a 
 homogeneous medium. 
 
 Huygens says Whewell would have esta- 
 blished the undulatory theory, but Newton, 
 though at first by no means averse to the 
 assumption of an aBther as the vehicle of 
 luminiferous undulations, and even to the last 
 considering the assumption of an sether as 
 highly probable, and its vibrations as important 
 parts of the phenomena of light, yet made the 
 emission ideas the leading part of his optical 
 doctrines. " His disciples found it more easy 
 to conceive the motions of a particle than the 
 propagation of a wave, and the general ascen- 
 dency of the Newtonian doctrines led to a 
 belief in the materiality of light." 
 
 Newton's ideas of the actual emission of some 
 
14 CEOONIAN LECTURES 
 
 substance as the cause of light lasted until the 
 time of Dr. Young and Fresnel. 
 
 The materiality of light led directly to the 
 assumption of the materiality of heat. 
 
 Lambert, in 1755, published an essay on the 
 force of heat, in which he likens the communi- 
 cation of heat to the flow of a fluid. To account 
 for the phenomena of heat, a combustible 
 element, an igneous matter, capable of com- 
 bining or separating itself from other substances, 
 was assumed ; this was phlogiston. It was 
 considered, until the time of Black and 
 Lavoisier, as just as much a chemical element 
 as any ponderable element. It was assumed 
 even to have a principle of lightness. 
 
 The imponderable materialism of heat, how- 
 ever, survived in the idea of caloric ; material 
 heat was an actual flow and emission of material 
 particles. Leslie, in 1804, says, " What is this 
 calorific and frigorific fluid ?" It is merely the 
 ambient air. But afterwards he says, "It is 
 the same subtle matter that, according to its 
 different modes of existence, constitutes either 
 heat or light." Even as late as 1832, in the 
 Bibliotheque Universelle de Geneve, vol. 49, and 
 again in 1834, in \\\QAnnalesde Chimie, vol. 58, 
 
ON MATTER AND FORCE. 15 
 
 M. Ampere published his views on heat and 
 light considered as results of the vibratory 
 motion of the imponderable aether. 
 
 The imponderable materialism of the electric 
 and magnetic force commenced with the same 
 stage of ideas regarding heat. 
 
 In 1733, Dufay proposed the idea of two 
 electric fluids, each repelling its own parts or 
 attracting those of the other. Franklin assumed 
 only one fluid, repelling itself and attracting all 
 other matter. In 1803, Dr. Thomas Young, in 
 the Journal of the Royal Institution, vol. i., p. 103, 
 gives his ideas regarding the imponderable 
 material substance which, when present in 
 different bodies, gives rise to electricity. 
 " Perhaps," he says, " some antiphlogistian will 
 soon give us a chemical analysis of the electric 
 fluid. Might I be permitted such a doctrine, 
 it should be that it consists of oxygen and 
 hydrogen combined with caloric only." And 
 in the Annals of Philosophy, new series, vol. ii., 
 p. 196, Sept., 1821, Mr. Faraday says, "There 
 are many arguments in favour of the materiality 
 of electricity, and but few against it ; but still 
 it is only a supposition, and it will be as well to 
 remember, while pursuing the subject of electro- 
 
16 CROONIAN LECTURES 
 
 magnetism, that we have no proof of -the 
 materiality of electricity, or of the existence of 
 any current through the wire." 
 
 With regard to the imponderable materiality 
 of the magnetic force. Descartes considered 
 magnetic curves to be the traces of currents of 
 setherial matter, which are thus rendered 
 sensible even to the eye. According to 
 .ZEpinus, the phenomena of the opposite poles 
 arose from an excess or defect of a magnetic 
 fluid. Coulomb assumed an austral and a 
 boreal fluid instead of a single fluid ; Whewell 
 says the hypothesis of magnetic fluids, as 
 physical realities, was never so widely or 
 strongly embraced as that of two electric fluids. 
 There was no spark, shock, discharge, or me- 
 chanical effects. He continues, "if we doubt 
 regarding electric fluids, we cannot help pro- 
 nouncing upon the magnetic fluids as having 
 still more insecure claims to a material exist- 
 ence. They must be regarded as different effects 
 of one common cause. No philosopher would 
 dream of assuming electric fluids and magnetic 
 fluids as two distinct material agents." 
 
 Thus, then, in the second stage of ideas of 
 matter and force, force is made quite insepar- 
 
ON MATTER AND FORCE. 17 
 
 able from imponderable matter, although this 
 is considered to be perfectly separable from 
 ponderable matter. 
 
 In other words, there is an incomplete separa- 
 tion between the ideas of matter and force. 
 
 We come, then, now to the third, or modern 
 stage, in which there is complete union, and no 
 possibility of any separation between the ideas 
 of matter and force. 
 
 The absolute union the complete insepara- 
 bility of our ideas of matter and force is most 
 apparent in our ideas of matter and chemical 
 force. Molecules have been endowed with 
 forces which give rise to various chemical 
 qualities, and these never change either in 
 their nature or in their amount. Mr. Faraday 
 says, " A particle of oxygen is ever a particle of 
 oxygen nothing can in the least wear it. If 
 it enter into combination, and disappear as 
 oxygen if it pass through a thousand combi- 
 nations, animal, vegetable, and mineral if it 
 lie hid for a thousand years, and then be 
 evolved, it is oxygen with its first qualities. 
 Neither more nor less. It has all its original 
 force, and only that ; the amount of force* 
 which it disengaged when hiding itself has 
 
 c 
 
18 CKOONIAN LECTURES 
 
 again to be employed in a reverse direction 
 when it is set at liberty. (Faraday, Eesearches 
 in Chemistry, p. 454.) 
 
 If it were possible to take the ultimate atom 
 of any one of the elements, we should find that 
 the chemical force which constitutes and de- 
 termines its nature would be absolutely in- 
 separable from the matter of which the element 
 consists. 
 
 For example, the ultimate atom of carbon 
 would have the same kind of force as any mass 
 of carbon, and it would differ in kind, and 
 always from the ultimate atom of any other 
 element, because of the peculiarity of its force. 
 If the chemical force could be separated from 
 the atom of carbon, the matter might cease to 
 be carbon, and might become some other ele- 
 ment, and the transmutation of metals might 
 then be possible. 
 
 The union, also, between matter and gravity 
 is just as inseparable as the union between 
 matter and chemical force. Matter without 
 weight is not matter at all ; the weight belongs 
 to the matter, and cannot be taken from it. 
 'The gravity can no more be destroyed than the 
 matter itself can be destroyed. However small 
 
ON MATTER AND FORCE. 19 
 
 the matter may be divided, yet each part will 
 have a part of the force, and there can be no 
 more of the force lost than of the matter. We 
 cannot think that the matter can exist without 
 the force of gravity being always acting or 
 ready to act in each atom of it. Nor can we 
 think that any portion of the force of gravity 
 can be separated from the matter. If we 
 mentally attempt to divide any amount of the 
 force into its constituent portions, then every 
 portion, however minute, of the force must 
 have a corresponding portion of matter to 
 which it is inherent, and without which the 
 force cannot be thought to exist. 
 
 Newton's great discovery consisted in de- 
 termining the existence of force in each par- 
 ticle of the matter of the earth and the planets ; 
 and Adams and Leverrier, recognising the 
 action of a force not accounted for in the matter 
 that was known, predicted the existence of 
 unknown matter in an undiscovered planet 
 which was looked for and found. 
 
 The great advance, however, towards the 
 modern stage of ideas regarding the insepara- 
 bility of matter and force is owing to Young 
 and Fresnel, who overthrew the second stage 
 
20 CROONIAN LECTURES 
 
 by their discoveries regarding light. Dr. Whe- 
 well says, "By their ideas on the inter- 
 ference of undulations, of double refraction (or 
 the passage of undulations through substances 
 in which the resistance to the undulations is 
 different in different directions). By their ideas 
 of transverse vibration or polarisation and di- 
 polarisation, they did away with the most 
 material part of Newton's ideas on the nature 
 of light, and now the only vestige that remains 
 is the luminiferous aether, the imponderable 
 material substance which is still assumed to 
 carry the motions which constitute light." 
 
 As the question of the existence of this lumi- 
 niferous aether is of great interest in connection 
 with our ideas of matter and force, I must 
 bring before you as shortly as possible the 
 opposite views that now exist regarding it, 
 whether it be regarded simply as the carrier, 
 or as essential to the origination of that form 
 of motion called light. 
 
 The Eev. T. E. Birks, in his work on matter 
 and aether, published in 1862, most powerfully 
 defends its existence and defines its properties. 
 He assumes that it exercises a strong repulsive 
 power among its own particles, and a strong 
 
ON MATTER AND FORCE. 21 
 
 attraction and power of combining with all 
 other elements. Every monad of ordinary 
 matter, he considers, is combined with a monad 
 of aether, forming a double conjugate compound 
 atom or unit. Compounds of several monads 
 may combine in several ways, forming dif- 
 ferent chemical elements. Every chemical 
 element is not a solid sphere, either in motion 
 or at rest, but consists of a definite number of 
 units, duads, centres of force, or monads of 
 matter and aether inseparably joined together, 
 arranged in some definite order, revolving 
 usually round some axis of rotation, and parted 
 from the nearest elements by a certain amount 
 of attached gether. Every such element must 
 in its very structure have four or five different 
 sources of contrast, from which a kind of 
 polarity may arise : contrasts of matter, aether, 
 and rotation, and these contrasts may be in- 
 cluded under the general term of polarity 
 For example, positive or vitreous electricity 
 may be an excess of attached aether ; negative 
 or resinous, a deficiency. 
 
 Professor Clark Maxwell, in the Philosophical 
 Transactions, 1865, Part I, p. 460, says : " We 
 have, therefore, some reason to believe, from 
 
22 CROONIAN LECTURES 
 
 the phenomena of light and heat, that there 
 is an ethereal medium filling space and per- 
 meating bodies, capable of being set in motion 
 and of transmitting that motion from one part 
 to another, and of communicating that motion 
 to gross matter, so as to heat it and affect 
 it in various ways." 
 
 Mr. Grove, on the other side, says (p. 163) : 
 "In a lecture delivered in January, 1842, I 
 stated that it appeared to me more consistent 
 with known facts to regard light as resulting 
 from a vibration or motion of the molecules of 
 matter itself rather than from a specific aether 
 pervading it, just as sound is propagated by 
 the vibration of wood, or as waves are by water. 
 I am not here speaking of the character of the 
 vibrations of light, sound, or water, which are 
 doubtless very different from each other, but 
 am only comparing them so far as they il- 
 lustrate the propagation of force by motion in 
 the matter itself. 
 
 " To the main objection of Dr. Young, that all 
 bodies would have the properties of solar phos- 
 phorus if light consisted in the undulations of 
 ordinary matter, it may be answered that so 
 many bodies have this property, and with so 
 
ON MATTER AND FORCE. 23 
 
 great variety in its duration, that non constat 
 all may not have it, though for a time so short 
 that the eye cannot detect its duration. 
 
 "If it be said that there is not sufficient 
 elasticity in ordinary matter for the transmis- 
 sion of undulations with such velocity as light 
 is known to travel with, this may be so if the 
 vibrations be supposed exactly analogous to 
 those of sound ; but that molecular motion can 
 travel with equal, and even greater, velocity 
 than light, is shown by the rapidity with which 
 electricity traverses a metal wire when each 
 particle of metal is undoubtedly affected." 
 
 Mr. Brooke, in the Proceedings of the Royal 
 Society, 1867 (p. 412), says : " The known enor- 
 mous velocity (of probably not less than 
 250,000 miles in a second) at which electricity 
 travels through a copper conductor is complete 
 evidence that ordinary matter is capable of 
 transmitting something at a considerably greater 
 velocity than the waves of light and heat. 
 Why should not appropriate kinds of matter 
 be assumed capable of transmitting these also ? 
 and if so, the need of the interstitial presence 
 of aether ceases altogether." 
 
 Mr. Grove sums up the arguments in favour 
 
24 CROONIAN LECTURES 
 
 of and against the luminiferous aether thus : 
 (p. 186, ed. 1867) : " At the utmost our as- 
 sumption, on the one hand, is that whenever 
 light, heat, etc., exist, ordinary matter exists, 
 though it may be so attenuated that we cannot 
 recognise it by the test of other forces such as 
 gravitation ; and that to the expansibility of 
 matter no limit can be assigned. On the other 
 hand, a specific matter without weight must be 
 assumed, of the existence of which there is 
 no evidence but in the phenomena, for the 
 explanation of which its existence is supposed. 
 To account for the phenomena the aether is 
 assumed, and to prove the existence of the 
 aether the phenomena are cited. For these 
 reasons, and others above given, I think the 
 assumption of the universality of ordinary 
 matter is the least gratuitous." 
 
 Mr. W. K. Clifford, in a lecture at the Koyal 
 Institution, says : "It has been supposed for a 
 long time that light consists of waves trans- 
 mitted through an extremely thin ethereal 
 jelly that pervades all space ; it is easy to see 
 the very rapid tremor which spreads through 
 a jelly when you shake it at one point. From 
 this hypothesis we can deduce the laws of the 
 
ON MATTER AND FORCE. 25 
 
 propagation of light, and of the way in which 
 different rays interfere with one another, and 
 the laws so deduced are abundantly confirmed 
 by experiment. But here also science kicks 
 down the ladder by which she has risen. In 
 order to explain the phenomena of light, it is 
 not necessary to assume anything more than a 
 periodical oscillation between two states at any 
 given point of space. What the two states are 
 nobody knows, and the only thing we can 
 assert with any degree of probability is that 
 they are not states of merely mechanical 
 displacement, like the tremor of a jelly, for the 
 phenomena of fluorescence appear to negative 
 this supposition.'* 
 
 Of the existence of this aether, spectrum 
 analysis has given us no evidence, yet this 
 most sensitive test has proved that some of the 
 substances that are on our earth exist also in 
 the stars, nebulae, and comets. As yet no great 
 opportunity for analysing the matter of comets 
 has occurred. It is probable that nitrogen and 
 the aerolitic metals exist in them. When we 
 are told that the tail of the comet of 1811 
 extended 112 million miles through space, and 
 that the nature of the matter composing it may 
 
26 CROONIAN LECTURES 
 
 be determined, it is evident that ultimately we 
 shall know much more regarding the interstel- 
 lar medium than we do at present. 
 
 However much our knowledge may extend, 
 even if it should be proved that an aether exists 
 for the conveyance of light through interstel- 
 lar space, probably it will be found to be as 
 unessential for the production of light itself, as 
 it is unessential for the production of heat. 
 
 The ideas of the union of matter and force 
 followed the same course with regard to heat 
 as they did with regard to light. 
 
 " The discovery of polarisation of heat by 
 Professor Forbes, and its confirmation and ex- 
 tension to dipolarisation by Melloni, almost at 
 a single blow ruined the emission theory" 
 (Whewell). It made the doctrine of emission 
 as untenable regarding heat as it had before 
 been found regarding light. 
 
 As early as 1798, Count Kumford read a 
 paper before the Koyal Society concerning 
 the heat which is excited by friction. "It 
 appears to me," he says, "to be extremely 
 difficult, if not quite impossible, to form any 
 distinct idea of anything capable of being 
 
ON MATTER AND FORCE. 27 
 
 excited and communicated in these experi- 
 ments, except motion." 
 
 In 1799, Davy published a paper on heat 
 and light, in which he said : " 1 conclude that 
 heat or the power of repulsion is not matter." 
 " Again," he says, " heat, then, or that power 
 which prevents the actual contact of the cor- 
 puscles of bodies, and which is the cause of our 
 peculiar sensations of heat and cold, may be 
 defined as a peculiar motion, probably as a 
 vibration of the corpuscles of bodies tending to 
 separate them. It may, with propriety, be 
 called the repulsive motion." 
 
 " I am obliged," says Mr. Grove, " in order 
 to be intelligible, to talk of heat as an entity, 
 and of its conduction, radiation, etc. ; yet these 
 expressions are, in fact, inconsistent with the 
 dynamic theory, which regards heat as motion, 
 and as nothing else. Thus conduction would 
 be simply a progressive dilatation or motion of 
 the particles of the, conducting substance." 
 " The phenomena depend upon the molecular 
 structure of the matter affected ; and, although 
 these facts are not absolutely inconsistent with 
 the theory which supposes them to be fluids or 
 entities, it will, I think, be found to be far 
 
28 CROONIAN LECTURES 
 
 more consistent with that which views them as 
 motion. 
 
 " Heat, which we are at present considering, 
 cannot be insulated. We cannot remove the 
 heat from a substance, and retain it as 
 heat. We can only transmit it to another 
 substance, either as heat, or as some other 
 mode of force. We only know certain changes 
 of matter, for which changes heat is a generic 
 name. The thing heat is unknown." 
 
 In 1863, Professor Tyndall says : " The dy- 
 namical theory, or, as it is sometimes called, 
 the mechanical theory of heat, discards the 
 idea of materiality as applied to heat. The 
 supporters of this theory do not believe heat to 
 be matter, but to be an accident or condition 
 of matter namely, a motion of its ultimate 
 particles. From the direct contemplation of 
 some of the phenomena of heat, a profound 
 mind is led almost instinctively to conclude 
 that heat is a kind of motion." 
 
 The theory, then, which Rumford so power- 
 fully advocated, and Davy so ably supported, 
 was, that heat is a kind of motion ; and that by 
 friction, percussion, and compression, this motion 
 may be generated, as well as by combustion. 
 
ON MATTER AND FORCE. 29 
 
 Mr. Clifford, in his lecture at the Koyal 
 Institution, says : " Fourier, in trying to find 
 the laws of the spread of heat from one part of 
 a body to another, took the hypothesis that 
 heat was a fluid which flowed from the hot end 
 into the cold as water flows through a pipe. 
 From this hypothesis the laws of conduction 
 were deduced; but, in the process, it was 
 found that the very same laws would flow 
 from other hypotheses. In fact, whatever can 
 be explained by the notion of a fluid, can be 
 equally well explained either by the attraction 
 of particles or by the strains of a solid sub- 
 stance. The very same mathematical calcula- 
 tions result from three distinct hypotheses." 
 
 With regard to the third stage of ideas 
 regarding the union of matter and electric and 
 magnetic force, Dr. Whewell says, the discovery 
 of the polarisation of heat shook the idea of the 
 electric fluids as physical realities. Material 
 caloric and material electricity fell together. 
 
 Mr. Grove says : " Electricity is that affec- 
 tion of matter or mode of force which most 
 distinctly and beautifully brings into relation 
 other modes of force, and exhibits to a great 
 extent, in a qualitative form, its own relation 
 
30 CROONIAN LECTURES 
 
 with them, and their reciprocal relations with 
 it and with each other. From the manner in 
 which the particular force called electricity 
 is seemingly transmitted through certain 
 bodies, such as metallic wires, the term cur- 
 rent is commonly used to denote its apparent 
 progress. 
 
 "It is very difficult to present to the mind 
 any theory which will give a definite con- 
 ception of its modus agendi. The early 
 theories regard its phenomena as produced 
 either by a single fluid, idio-repulsive, but 
 attractive of all other matter ; or else as pro- 
 duced by two fluids, each idio-repulsive, but 
 attractive of the other. No substantive theory 
 has been proposed other than these two. But, 
 although this is the case, I think I shall not be 
 unsupported by many who have attentively 
 studied electrical phenomena, in viewing them 
 as resulting, not from the action of a fluid or 
 fluids, but as a molecular polarisation of or- 
 dinary matter, or as matter acting by attraction 
 and repulsion in a definite direction." 
 
 Whenever we come to the third stage of ideas 
 regarding electricity and magnetism, like light 
 and heat, they will be regarded as peculiar 
 
ON MATTER AND FORCE. 31 
 
 vibratory motions of ponderable matter, having 
 quantitative relations to all other forms of 
 motion. A clear idea of the nature of a 
 complex transverse double polar motion of a 
 particle of gaseous, liquid, or solid matter, is, 
 however, far beyond our attainment now. 
 
 Such, then, is a sketch of the history of the 
 three stages of ideas regarding the separability 
 of matter and force. 
 
 It must, however, be remembered, that these 
 three stages pass insensibly into one another ; and 
 that, in the history of these ideas in individual 
 minds, some ideas regarding the separability 
 of matter and force may be found in the third 
 stage, while other ideas may still halt at the 
 second, or never get beyond even the first stage 
 which I have described. 
 
 Thus every one may admit the inseparability 
 of matter from the causes of gravitation and 
 chemical action; whilst some may hardly be 
 prepared even now to allow that heat is equally 
 inseparable from matter. Still less readily may 
 the cause of light be admitted to be inherent in 
 ponderable matter ; and few at present are able 
 to believe that electricity and magnetism are 
 
32 CROONIAN LECTURES 
 
 peculiar motions, excited only in the molecules 
 of ponderable matter. 
 
 In other words, the third stage of ideas re- 
 garding the union of matter and force may to 
 some extent be received by every one ; but, in 
 its full extent, it is only gradually becoming 
 recognised as undoubted truth. 
 
 As soon as it is admitted that force is absolutely 
 inseparable from matter, whether gas, liquid, or 
 solid, it will become as impossible to think that 
 matter can consist only of centres of force, as to 
 think that matter can be inert or void of all force. 
 
 Matter, if it be inseparable from force, must 
 always be in a state of motion, or of tendency 
 to, or of resistance to, motion ; it can never be 
 in a state of perfect rest. 
 
 Immediately connected also with the idea of 
 the inseparability of matter and force is another 
 modern idea regarding force, the history of 
 which in England must be given here. 
 
 This idea was first represented by the term 
 conversion of force, then by correlation of 
 forces, then by conservation of force, and now 
 by conservation of energy. 
 
 In 1839, Mr. Faraday, in a paper on the 
 Improbability of Contact exciting Voltaic 
 
ON MATTER AND FORCE. 33 
 
 Electricity, wrote (Exp. Besearches, vol. ii., 
 p. 103) : " We have many processes by which 
 the form of the power may be so changed that 
 an apparent conversion of one into another 
 takes place." " But in no case is there a pure 
 creation a production of power, without a 
 corresponding exhaustion of something to sup- 
 ply it." 
 
 Mr. Grove, in a lecture on the Progress of 
 Physical Science in 1842, says : t( The present 
 tendency of theory seems to lead to the opinion 
 that all these affections (of matter) are resolv- 
 able into one namely, motion ;" and : " Light, 
 heat, electricity, magnetism, motion, and che- 
 mical affinity, are all convertible material affec- 
 tions. Assuming either as the cause, one of 
 the others will be the effect. Thus heat may 
 be said to produce electricity, electricity to 
 produce heat, magnetism to produce electricity, 
 electricity magnetism, and so of the rest. . . . 
 We must humbly refer their causation to one 
 omnipresent influence, and content ourselves 
 with studying their effect, and developing by 
 experiment their mutual relations." 
 
 In 1843, in a course of lectures on the 
 Correlation of Forces, he says : " The view 
 
 D 
 
34 CROONIAN LECTURES 
 
 which I venture to submit to you in these 
 lectures is, that force cannot be annihilated, 
 but is merely subdivided, and altered in direc- 
 tion and character." " I will venture as an 
 opinion, founded after much consideration, that 
 science is rapidly progressing towards the es- 
 tablishment of immediate or direct relations 
 between all these forces." 
 
 In 1843, Mr. Joule (Phil. Mag., vol. xxiii., 
 p. 442), on the Mechanical Value of Heat, says 
 that he shall repeat and extend his experi- 
 ments, being satisfied that the grand agents of 
 Nature are, by the Creator's fiat, indestructible, 
 and that, wherever mechanical force is ex- 
 pended, an exact equivalent of heat is always 
 obtained ; and he mentions the practical con- 
 clusions which may be drawn from the conver- 
 tibility of heat and mechanical powers into one 
 another. 
 
 Mr. Faraday, in a lecture on the Conservation 
 of Force in 1857 (Researches, p. 454), says the 
 idea we have of the indestructibility of indi- 
 vidual matter is one case, and a most important 
 one, of the conservation of force ; and, in a 
 manuscript, he says : " Force cannot be anni- 
 hilated or created at pleasure. It cannot act, 
 
ON MATTER AND FORCE. 35 
 
 then cease to act, then act, then cease to act, 
 without being otherwise disposed of." 
 
 In another manuscript, he says : " What I 
 mean by the word force is the source or sources 
 of all possible actions of the particles or 
 materials of the universe; being often called 
 the powers of Nature, when spoken of in respect 
 of the different manners in which these effects 
 are shown." 
 
 In order to avoid the indistinctness and con- 
 fusion which come from using the word force at 
 one time as the cause of an effect, and at 
 another time as the effect itself ; and, in order 
 to confine ideas to the effect which alone can 
 be the object of experimental research, the term 
 conservation of energy is now adopted, instead 
 of the term, conservation of force. 
 
 Thus, force, which we assume to be indestruct- 
 ible and inseparable from matter, is the cause of 
 energy, and energy is the effect of force. 
 
 This diagram may perhaps render the use of 
 these terms more clear : 
 
 CAUSE. EFFECTS. 
 
 Force or power, total 
 quantity of which is 
 as constant as the total 
 quantity of matter. 
 
 Actual energy = Motion _ 
 Potential energy = Tension [ 
 
 = o 
 
36 CROONIAN LECTURES 
 
 The idea of the conservation of energy is, 
 that the sum of the actual and potential energy 
 in the world is constant. 
 
 The force, or, as it is better called, the actual 
 energy, that can be put into the cannon ball, is 
 exactly equal to the latent or potential energy 
 in the gunpowder, and this depends on the 
 chemical force in the oxygen, hydrogen, and 
 carbon. The ball gains only what the powder 
 loses. As the potential energy, or tension, 
 decreases, the actual energy, or motion, in- 
 creases, and no loss or gain in the total amount 
 of motion and tension can occur. 
 
 Whatever the form of motion may be, it can 
 only come either from some other form of 
 motion or from some form of tension. 
 
 It has been Dr. Joule's great work to exhibit 
 experimentally the measurable relation between 
 heat and gravity. He has determined that a 
 certain amount of one kind of motion does 
 produce an equivalent quantity of another kind. 
 He proved that 772 pounds weight of matter 
 falling one foot gives rise to enough heat to 
 raise a pound of water one deg. Fahr. in 
 temperature. He called the unit of mechanical 
 motion one pound weight falling one foot = one 
 
ON MATTER AND FORCE. 37 
 
 foot-pound, and the unit of heat that quantity 
 which raises one pound of water one deg. Fahr. ; 
 then the mechanical equivalent of heat is 772 
 foot-pounds. 
 
 The equivalence of other forms of energy has 
 yet to be determined by experiment. 
 
 Meanwhile, according to modern ideas, the 
 different forms are so related to one another, 
 that none can be lost, and none can be produced 
 except by passing into or out of some other 
 form of energy. 
 
 "But," says Mr. Faraday (Researches in 
 Chemistry and Physics, p. 459), "after all, 
 the principle of the conservation of force may 
 by some be denied. Well, then, if it be un- 
 founded, even in its application to the smallest 
 part of the science of force, the proof must be 
 within our reach, for all physical science is so. 
 In that case, discoveries as large, or even larger, 
 than any yet made, may be anticipated. I do 
 not resist the search for them ; for no one can 
 do harm, but only good, who works with an 
 earnest and truthful spirit in such a direction. 
 But let us not admit the destruction or creation 
 of force without clear and constant proof. 
 
 " Just as the chemist owes all the perfection of 
 
38 CROONIAN LECTURES 
 
 his science to his dependence on the certainty 
 of gravitation applied by the balance, so may 
 the physical philosopher expect to find the 
 greatest security and the utmost aid in the 
 principle of the conservation of force. All 
 that we have that is good and safe, as the 
 steam-engine, the electric telegraph, etc., wit- 
 ness to that principle. It would require a 
 perpetual motion, a fire without heat, heat 
 without a source, action without reaction, cause 
 without effect, or effect without a cause, to 
 displace it from its rank as a law of Nature." 
 
 Finally, he says: "By admitting no hypo- 
 thesis, and believing in no assertion of any fact 
 opposed to the principle of the conservation 
 of force, the natural philosopher is prepared to 
 look for effects and conditions as yet unknown, 
 and the way for him is open to any degree of 
 development of the consequences and relations 
 of power. By denying this principle, he opposes 
 a dogmatic barrier to improvement ; whilst, by 
 admitting it, he has a fresh stimulus to investi- 
 gation and a pilot to human science." (P. 450.) 
 
 In my next lectures, I shall show you how 
 far the three stages of ideas on the separability 
 of matter and force can be recognised in the 
 
ON MATTER AND FOECE. 39 
 
 
 
 history of sciences into which the idea of life 
 enters ; and I shall try to make some applica- 
 tion of the doctrine of the conservation of 
 energy to physiology, pathology, and thera- 
 peutics. 
 
40 CROONIAN LECTURES 
 
 LECTUEE II. 
 
 ON THE FIRST AND SECOND STAGES OF OTJB IDEAS 
 REGARDING THE UNION OF PONDERABLE MATTER 
 AND FORCE IN THE BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES. 
 
 " And matter, whatever it is, must be held to be so adorned, 
 furnished, and formed, that all virtue, essence, action, and 
 natural motion, may be the consequence and emanation 
 thereof." LOKD BACON. 
 
 MR. PRESIDENT, 
 
 I ought to repeat the apology which I 
 offered to you in my first lecture, because I shall 
 begin this lecture with some words of wisdom 
 which might not be expected in this theatre, and 
 yet they are words to which I must ask you to 
 give the utmost weight as regards what I am 
 about to say. Mr. Faraday was the greatest 
 experimental philosopher, judging from the 
 quantity and quality of his work, that England, 
 or I might say the world, ever produced ; and, at 
 the same time, perhaps he was one of the most 
 
ON MATTER AND FORCE. 41 
 
 religious men that ever lived. Among his 
 manuscripts, that have been entrusted to me 
 since his death, I have found this passage : 
 " But, though the natural works of God can 
 never by any possibility come into contradiction 
 with the higher things which belong to our 
 future existence, and must, with everything 
 concerning Him, ever glorify Him, still I do 
 not think it at all necessary to tie the study of 
 the natural sciences and of religion together." 
 
 It appears, from what I have said in my 
 first lecture, that a certain fixed direction of 
 development of knowledge is found to obtain 
 in our ideas of the union of matter and force 
 in the sciences from which the idea of life is 
 excluded. 
 
 Whether we judge from the general history 
 of science, or from the history of the knowledge 
 of individual minds, the same succession of ideas 
 marks the advance which is gradually being made. 
 
 First, the ideas of matter and force are con- 
 sidered to be completely separable ; secondly, 
 they are held to be incompletely separable; 
 and, lastly, these ideas are found to be com- 
 pletely inseparable the one from the other. 
 
 When all idea of life is excluded, the present 
 
42 CEOONIAN LECTUKES 
 
 state of our ideas regarding the union of matter 
 and force may be summed up in the following 
 formulae. Where matter is, there force must 
 be, showing itself in motion, or tension, or in 
 resistance. Without matter, no kind of motion, 
 nor tension, nor resistance, occurs. 
 
 Turning now to the matters and forces in 
 those sciences in which the idea of life is con- 
 cerned, the question arises, What is the history 
 of the progress of our ideas regarding the union 
 of living matter and vital force ? 
 
 As regards the biological sciences in general, 
 or as regards the biological knowledge which 
 each individual acquires, are these three stages 
 here also recognisable? First the complete, 
 and secondly the partial separation of our ideas 
 regarding living matter and living force ; and 
 is there a third stage, in which there is a 
 perfect inseparability of the ideas of matter and 
 force? Has our biological knowledge passed, 
 or is it passing, through these three stages? 
 Will the biological sciences follow in the foot- 
 steps of all other sciences? Will they share 
 with them in the extent and rate of progress 
 which will result from clearer and more con- 
 nected ideas regarding matter and force ? 
 
ON MATTER AND FORCE. 43 
 
 Before I proceed, let me state most distinctly, 
 that what I shall say regarding Life will not 
 apply only to man, but will be just as truly 
 applicable to every other class of animals down 
 to the infusoria and protozoa, and, beyond 
 these, to the whole extent of the vegetable 
 creation, in which no reason, no mind, no soul, 
 can by any stretch of the imagination be sup- 
 posed to exist. 
 
 In this theatre, at least, there can be no fear 
 of misapprehension, no danger of mistake, from 
 any confusion of our ideas of life with our ideas 
 of the immortal soul. And, however much 
 these ideas may be generally confounded and in- 
 distinct, to us at least the question whether, first, 
 a peculiar vital spirit can temporarily lodge in 
 the matter of the body ; or whether, secondly, a 
 peculiar imponderable vital fluid can temporarily 
 be diffused through the matter of the body ; or 
 whether, thirdly, a peculiar form of motion of 
 the matter of the body is all we can recognise 
 as constituting life; each and all of these 
 questions, I say, can never be considered by us 
 to have anything whatever in common with any 
 question regarding the existence of the immortal 
 soul. 
 
44 CROONIAN LECTURES 
 
 Let us, then, proceed to the primitive stage 
 of ideas regarding the union of matter and 
 vital force. 
 
 In the earliest Jewish record, the same se- 
 paration may be traced between vegetable and 
 animal matter and life as between earthy and 
 watery matter and light. 
 
 The separation between matter and force is 
 most distinctly stated in the highest of all 
 organised beings. We read that man was 
 formed of the dust of the ground; and, after 
 he was formed, the breath of life was breathed 
 into his nostrils. This is probably the oldest 
 idea in existence regarding the nature of the 
 vital force. It was a something added to the 
 matter of the full-formed man. The body was 
 without force until the life was given. The 
 idea of the force is distinctly separable from 
 the idea of the body, just as the idea of light 
 was distinctly separable from the idea of the 
 sun. This, then, is the earliest statement of 
 the first stage of ideas regarding the union of 
 matter and force. In it, perfect separation is 
 supposed to be possible between matter and 
 living force. 
 
 If the Book of Genesis be a revelation of 
 
ON MATTER AND FORCE. 45 
 
 physical science by the Almighty to man, then 
 the existence of vital force separate from the 
 full-formed body is true, and must be believed ; 
 but if this book, so far as regards science, 
 represents only the existing state of knowledge 
 at the time when it was written, as is shown by 
 the facts mentioned in it contradicting the 
 revelation which the Almighty has made in his 
 works,* then, whatever may be the interest we 
 feel in the earliest record of scientific know- 
 ledge, still it cannot be allowed to possess any 
 scientific authority in determining what is the 
 true relation of matter and vital force. 
 
 By the early Hindus, the human soul, or 
 life, was thought to be a portion of the Supreme 
 Kuler ; as a spark of the fire ; as a part of the 
 
 * The contradictions between the Book of Genesis and the 
 revelation given in God's works, are seen in the statement 
 1, that day and night and light existed before the sun was 
 made ; 2, that darkness was as much an entity as light ; 
 3, that the moon had a light of its own like the sun ; 4, that the 
 firmament divided the waters from the waters in other words, 
 that there was water compared to the sea above the heavens ; 
 and 5, in the particulars regarding the order and time of crea- 
 tion of inorganic and organic things. Similar or identical 
 ideas are met with among other nations and tribes before the 
 dawn of natural knowledge. The supposition that an untrue 
 revelation was willingly made by omniscience in consequence 
 of the ignorance of the Jews is far beyond all possibility of 
 belief. 
 
46 CROONIAN LECTURES 
 
 whole. After transmigration, the spirit was 
 thought to be utterly reabsorbed into the 
 divine essence. The vital powers, and the 
 elements of which the body consists, were 
 both considered to be absorbed absolutely and 
 completely. Both name and form ceased. 
 Immortality without members or parts began.* 
 The Brahman of the old religion and the 
 Buddhist of the later religion rejected entirely 
 the idea of the personal immortality of the 
 matter of the body ; but they differed com- 
 pletely in the idea of the state in which the 
 separated spirit ultimately existed. In the 
 later religion, Nirvana, or utter annihilation, 
 was the ultimate aim of the human spirit. 
 
 * " From the doctrine of emanation sprung up the doctrine 
 of transmigration. The human spirit may be united with 
 the lowest species of organic life, may ascend in successive 
 births into the bodies of spiders, snakes, and chameleons, 
 until deemed worthy of inhabiting a human tenement. Then 
 an opportunity is given it of achieving its own liberation ; 
 and, according to the present quality of its actions, it will 
 mount directly upwards through the ranks of demigods and 
 gods, or plunge again into the lower region of existence, and 
 commence a fresh series of births. 
 
 " The great object of Brahmin ical or Buddhist religion is 
 the discovery of the means of putting a stop to further trans- 
 migration ; the discontinuance of corporeal being ; the libera- 
 tion of the soul from the body." Archdeacon HardwicJ;, 
 vol. ii,, p. 295. 
 
ON MATTEE AND FORCE. 47 
 
 The Egyptians took a different view of 
 matter. " The conservation of the body was 
 essential to the vigour and felicity of the soul ; 
 hence embalming, in order that the spirit may 
 have something on which to lean for help. In 
 virtue of the strength afforded to the spirit by 
 this union with the former cause of her vitality, 
 she continued to exist in some analogous con- 
 dition disembodied, but stil] associated with 
 her previous tenement, and still in some mys- 
 terious fashion living by its life." (Hardwick, 
 vol. ii., p. 297.) 
 
 The tombs and pyramids were made to pro- 
 tect the body while the spirit went to Amenti, 
 to be judged by Osiris, either when acquitted 
 to pass into a state of permanent felicity in the 
 sun, or when condemned to return to some 
 animal shape on earth. 
 
 One chief part of the religion of the Egyptians 
 consisted in the worship of the dead. They 
 prayed to the authors of their bodies. They 
 buried with them food, dress, and implements - 
 of war, business, and pleasure. They even 
 made the spirit into a peculiar material sub- 
 stance, and did not consider it as a purely 
 spiritual essence. 
 
48 CEOONIAN LECTURES 
 
 Confucius taught the Chinese duty to parents 
 while they lived, and to give sacrifices to them 
 when dead. They worshipped their ancestors, 
 as beings capable of giving aid and counsel to 
 the deserving, and inflicting vengeance on the 
 unworthy. They gave them food, clothes, and 
 even gilt paper-money. 
 
 Confucius said the body consisted of two 
 principles the one light, invisible, and ascend- 
 ing; and the other gross, palpable, and de- 
 scending ; and that, on the separation of these 
 two principles, the light or spiritual part as- 
 cended into the air, whilst the heavy or cor- 
 poreal part sank into the earth. 
 
 The Greeks personified their idea of life, 
 and confused it with motion, matter, and 
 mind. 
 
 Thales thought that there must be a living- 
 soul, a vital principle, in amber and the 
 magnet, because they have a moving force. 
 
 Anaximenes thought the air was an en- 
 souled and ensouling force, and that it was the 
 life of the body. 
 
 Heraclitus of Ephesus admitted no distinc- 
 tion between fire, life, and the soul. Man's 
 soul or life was an emanated portion of the 
 
ON MATTER AND FORCE. 49 
 
 universal fire or universal reason which en- 
 compasses the heaven and rules all. 
 
 Democritus maintained that the vital prin- 
 ciple and mind were absolutely identical. 
 
 If we look at the belief of savages, we find 
 that the Maoris worship departed ancestors, 
 because their spirits could exercise vengeance 
 and inflict injuries (after the fashion of witches). 
 The chief had his bow and arrows buried with 
 him, that he might go forth at night to his old 
 calling. He was made a god, and went to 
 battle for his kinsmen. He was hovering near 
 them in the hours of gloom, of peril and priva- 
 tion. He was spoken to as a familiar friend, 
 and was given offerings of betal < and tobacco, 
 and appeared personally in the sacred house to 
 the living chief of the tribe. 
 
 The extent to which they separated and 
 personified their ideas of force is seen in the 
 fact that they supposed each disease was 
 caused by a different god, who resided in the 
 part affected. 
 
 Livingstone says (p. 642) that some of the 
 southern tribes of Africa not only believe in 
 the transmigration of souls, but think that, 
 while persons are still living, they may enter 
 
 E 
 
50 CROONIAN LECTURES 
 
 into lions and alligators, and then return again 
 to their own bodies. 
 
 Thus, then, in Hindustan, Egypt, and China, 
 and among the wild tribes of New Zealand and 
 Africa, the idea of the separation between body 
 and spirit was distinctly held. The spirit of 
 the deceased ancestor was believed to linger 
 for a certain period near the place of burial, 
 and to be pleased or displeased by the offerings 
 made to it. After a time, it began to pass 
 through the different forms of matter to which 
 it was to be temporarily attached. 
 
 At the time of the revival of knowledge, the 
 perfect separation of the ideas of life and body 
 prevailed universally. 
 
 Thus Yan Helmont considered that the body 
 contained a presiding spirit or archseus. 
 
 Paracelsus considered this archdeus lived in 
 the stomach. 
 
 Stahl taught that the body, as body, has no 
 power to move itself, but must be always put 
 into motion by an immaterial substance. The 
 cause of all activity, he said, was an imma- 
 terial being, which he called the soul. 
 
 Harvey (ed. 1766, p. 294) has a chapter 
 headed " Ovum non esse opus uteri sed animre." 
 
ON MATTEK AND FORCE. 51 
 
 Looking at the great operations which go on 
 in the egg, he says we must agree with the 
 poet 
 
 " Spiritus intus alit, totamque infusa per artus 
 Mens agitat molem." 
 
 He carries us, in the idea of life, far beyond 
 cells, nuclei, and germinal granular matter, 
 even as far as flatulence, when he says, " Ali- 
 bique, etiam flatibus vitam quandam atque 
 ortum et interitum inesse, arbitrantur." 
 
 He ends this chapter on the egg thus: 
 "Quibus rite pensitatig, propriam illi inesse 
 animam concludimus/' 
 
 At the present time, the popular idea is, 
 that no distinction exists between the life, the 
 mind, and the soul of man; all are confused 
 together ; and all are thought to compose a 
 single immaterial spirit, which comes at birth 
 and goes at death, being perfectly separable 
 from the matter of which we are made. 
 
 Thus, in the earliest ideas of all nations, and 
 probably of all individuals, no doubt whatever 
 exists as to the entire separability of the ideas 
 of ponderable matter and of vital force; and 
 the first stage of ideas in the biological sciences 
 is identically the same as the first stage in 
 
52 CROONIAN LECTURES 
 
 those sciences into which the idea of life does 
 not enter. 
 
 As the second stage of ideas in the abiolo- 
 gical sciences consisted in the assumption of an 
 imponderable matter, which was considered to 
 be separable from the ponderable matter, and 
 diffusible through it, giving rise to the phe- 
 nomena of force in every part ; so the second 
 stage, or partial separation in the ideas of 
 living force and matter, is marked by the 
 assumption of a living imponderable gas or 
 fluid pervading the ponderable matter. 
 
 This stage, from the renown of him who gave 
 it the greatest support in England, may well be 
 called the fiunterian stage. 
 
 Even Asclepiades and Galen spoke of a 
 subtle humour or spirit existing in the body, 
 which they compared to air. 
 
 The chemical tendencies of the seventeenth 
 century led to the supposition that it was 
 sulphureous or nitrous acid ; and, soon after- 
 wards, it was compared to an aether. Even 
 Newton, in the twenty-third query, says : " Is 
 not vision performed by the vibrations of this 
 medium aether at the bottom of the eye, propa- 
 gated by the solid capillamenta of the nerves 
 
ON MATTER AND FORCE. 53 
 
 to the place of sensation?" and in the twenty- 
 fourth query : " Is not animal motion performed 
 by the vibrations of this medium 8ether ?" 
 
 The idea of a vital fluid, a material substance 
 of extreme subtlety, volatility, and energy in 
 other words, a subtle setherial fluid diffused 
 through the frame, enabling it to show all the 
 phenomena of life was taught by Hofmann. 
 
 This imponderable fluid was even so far 
 personified or incarnated, that each particle of 
 the vital fluid was believed to have a determined 
 idea of the whole mechanism and organism; 
 and, according to this idea, it formed the body, 
 and preserved it by its motion. 
 
 As the idea of an electric fluid or fluids 
 became stronger, so the idea of the vital fluid 
 was made more scientific by imagining it to be 
 similar to or even identical with the electric 
 fluid. 
 
 John Hunter said : " The living principle of 
 the blood is the materia vitce di/usa, of which 
 every part of an animal has its portion. It is 
 as it were diffused through the whole solids and 
 fluids, making a necessary constituent part of 
 them, and forming with them a perfect whole, 
 giving to both the power of preservation and 
 
54 CROONIAN LECTURES 
 
 the susceptibility of impression, and, from their 
 construction, giving them consequent reciprocal 
 action." (Hunter's Works, vol. iii., p. 115.) 
 
 Again, he says : " The blood has as much the 
 materia vitop as the solids, which keeps up that 
 harmony between them." (P. 115.) 
 
 Instead of a single vital fluid capable of 
 being an imponderable of all work, many dif- 
 ferent vital fluids, each capable of doing its own 
 work and no other, were assumed. The most 
 remarkable of all these was the nervous fluid. 
 
 Glisson describes the vital fluid residing in 
 the nerves as resembling the spirituous part of 
 white of egg. Whether this was carbonate of 
 ammonia or sulphuretted hydrogen, must be 
 undetermined. 
 
 Even Cuvier, in the introduction to the 
 Regne Animal, p. 30, says : " There is great 
 probability that it is by an imponderable fluid 
 that the nerve acts upon the fibre ; and that 
 this nervous fluid is drawn from the blood and 
 secreted by the medullary matter." 
 
 Johannes Mliller taught that the nervous 
 agent differed entirely from electricity or light, 
 but was either an imponderable matter, or the 
 undulations of a fluid capable, like electricity 
 
ON MATTER AND FORCE. 55 
 
 through copper, of travelling at the rate of 
 nearly three hundred thousand miles a second, 
 or, like light through the interstellar sether, 
 at two hundred thousand miles a second. 
 
 The researches of Helmholtz* show that the 
 rate of passage of that motion through the 
 particles of matter in a nerve which gives rise 
 to sensation or to motion is only between 
 twenty-eight and thirty-three feet in a second; 
 
 So late as 1866, Professor Bain, in a lecture 
 at the Eoyal Institution on the Correlation of 
 Force in its Bearing on Mind, speaks " of a 
 certain flow of the influence circulating through 
 the nerves." 
 
 Another very remarkable vital fluid was con- 
 sidered to be a chemical agent, an element- 
 ary principle, or highly-attenuated substance, 
 which, among its other singular and remark- 
 able properties, had that of imparting to the 
 constituent matters of the animal frame new 
 chemical affinities between it and the surround- 
 ing elements, and thereby protecting the living 
 fibre from dissolution, or giving them other 
 properties which, without this vitalisation, they 
 would not possess. 
 
 * Appendix I. 
 
56 CROONIAN LECTURES 
 
 Out of many other examples, I will take two 
 most interesting chemical discoveries, not yet 
 fully completed, which show in a striking way 
 how many so-called vital actions, as knowledge 
 advances, may be included among ordinary 
 chemical or physical actions. 
 
 The first of these discoveries is respecting the 
 coagulation of the blood. Hunter said (vol. iii., 
 p. 113): "As the coagulation of the blood 
 appears to be that process which may be com- 
 pared with the action of life in the solids, we 
 shall examine this process a little further, and 
 see if this power of coagulation can be 
 destroyed. If it can, we shall next inquire if 
 by the same means life is destroyed in the 
 solids, and if the phenomena are nearly the 
 same in both." 
 
 " Coagulation," again he says, " I conceive to 
 be an operation of life corresponding to the 
 convulsion of muscles which takes place at the 
 moment of death." "The blood loses the 
 principle of coagulation, and, I suppose, life." 
 (P. 115.) 
 
 Alexander Schmidt has found that fibrine is 
 formed by the contact of two albuminous 
 matters. One he calls fibrinoplastic, and the 
 
ON MATTEE AND FOKCE. 57 
 
 other fibrinogenic. The first is especially 
 plentiful in the red corpuscles, the serum of the 
 blood, the cellular tissue, and the cornea. The 
 second is found in exudations, especially in the 
 pericardium and fluid of hydrocele, in lymph 
 and chyle. When these two substances come 
 into contact in any fluid, they combine quickly 
 or slowly, according to the greater or less 
 quantity of each substance, to form fibrine. 
 The action takes place more quickly at a high 
 temperature, more slowly at a low temperature. 
 
 You see these two substances here. The 
 paraglobulin or plastic substance has been 
 obtained from serum or blood-corpuscles ; the 
 fibrinogenic substance from pericardium-fluid. 
 Apart, they never form fibrine. When mixed 
 together, they form it quickly, as you see, 
 although they have been already many hours 
 in these flasks. 
 
 All idea, then, of a vital action in the coagu- 
 lation of the blood must be given up, although 
 much more has to be made out of the chemistry 
 of these substances, and especially of the 
 paraglobulin, which is, according to Professor 
 Briicke (Proceedings of the Imperial Academy of 
 Sciences, May 23, 1867), a mixture of two sub- 
 
58 CROONIAN LECTURES 
 
 stances, one of which acts as the fibrinogenic 
 matter. 
 
 Those who still think that vital action must 
 be concerned in the coagulation of the blood 
 will probably say that it is the principle of life 
 that stops the mutual action of these two sub- 
 stances in healthy circulating blood. 
 
 The chemist will before long solve the 
 problem why these two substances do not 
 always act upon one another, since they can 
 both be got out of the blood. The most 
 probable answer is, that there is some slight 
 difference of composition between these sub- 
 stances as they exist in circulating blood and 
 as we obtain them from blood that has been 
 drawn from the body. The fibrinoplastic sub- 
 stance is rapidly acted on by ozone. The 
 fibrinogenic substance also is rapidly changed 
 after it is formed, so that possibly the necessary 
 quantity of these substances is not given the 
 necessary time to act upon one another for the 
 production of coagula. 
 
 The second of the unfinished discoveries 
 which I wish to bring before you relates to the 
 subject of digestion. 
 
 In Dr. Prout's Bridgewater Treatise (p. 493), 
 
ON MATTEK AND FORCE. 59 
 
 he says : " The stomach must have the power 
 of organising and vitalising the different ali- 
 mentary substances. It is impossible to 
 imagine that this agency of the stomach can 
 be chemical. This agency is vital, and its 
 nature is completely unknown." 
 
 In his work on Stomach and Eenal Disease 
 (5th ed., p. 490), he says: "The third or 
 vitalising function may in some instances be 
 suspended or otherwise deranged. Thus, when 
 more food is taken by healthy individuals than 
 is required for the purposes of the animal 
 economy, there is reason to believe that, how- 
 ever perfectly the superfluous portion of the 
 aliments may, for the sake of enabling them 
 to pass through the system without producing 
 great disorder, be dissolved and converted, the 
 vitalising function is withheld ; and that such 
 superfluous matters are finally eliminated either 
 with the bile or in the form of lithate of 
 ammonia in the urine." In short, excess of 
 urates in the urine after a large meal may 
 depend on a want of vital action. 
 
 Some late researches of Kiihne on the action 
 of the pancreas (Yirchow's Archiv, vol. xxxix., 
 p. 130) appear to me to promise the solution 
 
60 CROONIAN LECTURES 
 
 of the problem why a portion of the albuminous 
 food passes off as urates in the urine, whilst the 
 larger portion remains as albumen in the blood. 
 
 Kiihne shows that albuminous and fibrinous 
 substances when subjected to the continuous 
 action of the pancreatic juice give rise to 
 tyrosine, leucine, and an aniline-like substance 
 in much greater quantity than happens when 
 albumen is fused with potassa, or boiled with 
 sulphuric acid, or allowed to decompose. 
 
 Here are tyrosine and leucine thus prepared 
 by the action of the pancreatic juice. 
 
 It seems in the highest degree probable 
 that, when an excess of albuminous food is 
 taken, then, in consequence of the slower 
 absorption, a portion of it remains long exposed 
 to the action of the pancreatic fluid, and this 
 continued action of the pancreatic fluid on 
 albumen produces substances which are able, 
 more or less immediately, to form uric acid. 
 
 The relation of some of these substances is 
 seen in the following table : 
 
 Tyrosine = C 9 H 11 N O 3 
 
 Leucine = C 6 H 13 N O 2 
 
 Uric acid = C 5 H 4 N 4 O 3 
 
 Creatine = O 4 H 9 N 3 2 ' 
 
 Urea = C H 4 N 2 O 
 
ON MATTEB AND FORCE. 61 
 
 Measured by the carbon it contains, tyrosine is 
 a higher product of albumen than leucine, uric 
 acid, or urea. 
 
 Whether it, or some other product from 
 albumen in the blood or in the kidney, gives 
 rise to uric acid, has to be determined. 
 
 Certain it is that our chemical knowledge 
 now entirely does away with all idea of any 
 want of vital action, causing excess of urates in 
 the urine, and a very slight advance will 
 probably enable us to prepare uric acid in the 
 laboratory from the albuminous substances. 
 
 The progress of animal chemistry proves 
 more and more clearly that the matter in the 
 body has no special chemical properties peculiar 
 to life ; but that matter within possesses the 
 same chemical energy which it possesses out of 
 the body. 
 
 Life has no power to create or to destroy 
 any chemical force in the matter of living 
 things ; but the very slightest difference in the 
 circumstances under which any chemical action 
 occurs, produces a variation in the effects that 
 are produced. 
 
 Ultimately, when all the circumstances 
 under which vital chemical actions occur are 
 
62 CEOONIAN LECTURES 
 
 fully made out, there will be found to be no 
 difference between these actions and those 
 which can be made to take place where no 
 influence of life can be supposed to exist. 
 
 Another vital fluid, or principle, has been 
 assumed to account for the phenomena dis- 
 played at the beginning of life in animal and 
 vegetable bodies. 
 
 Dr. Prichard says : " This vital principle 
 assumes the character of a plastic or formative 
 power. It presides over, and sets in action, 
 the different processes by which growth and 
 organisation are effected ; and gives form and 
 modification to the component parts of the 
 animal and vegetable body, and contributes 
 afterwards by a preserving influence to the 
 maintenance of its existence for a definite 
 portion of time. This doctrine ascribes to a 
 thing which is supposed to be merely a species 
 of matter highly attenuated, properties and 
 agencies which belong to the highest power 
 and the highest intelligence." 
 
 It appears, then, that, in the biological as in 
 the abiological sciences, ideas of the union of 
 matter and force have gone, or are going, 
 through two identical phases. 
 
ON MATTER AND FOECE. 63 
 
 As in the abiological sciences the earliest 
 ideas of matter were quite separate from the 
 ideas of force, so vital force, in the first stage 
 of our ideas, was originally pure spirit, void 
 of all materiality, perfectly separable from 
 matter. 
 
 In the second or transition stage in the 
 abiological sciences, force was imperfectly 
 separable from matter. Force was itself a 
 highly-attenuated volatile substance, an im- 
 ponderable elementary principle ; or the force 
 was inseparably united with an imponderable 
 fluid, gas, or aether, which gave to ponderable 
 matter its energies whilst the union lasted. 
 
 In the second, or transition, or Hunterian 
 stage in the biological sciences, the vital force 
 is either itself an imponderable solid, fluid, gas, 
 spirit (geist\ -or ghost, or it is inseparably 
 attached to an imponderable matter which can 
 temporarily be diffused through ponderable 
 matter. 
 
 In my next lecture I shall show you that the 
 abiological sciences are far in advance of the 
 biological sciences in the extent to which the 
 third stage of ideas of the perfect union of 
 ponderable matter and force is held to obtain. 
 
64 CROONIAN LECTURES 
 
 I shall try, also, by some examples in 
 physiology, pathology, and therapeutics, to 
 show you that in this third stage of perfect 
 inseparability of matter and force, and in the 
 principle of the conservation of energy, "we 
 have," in the words of Mr. Faraday, " a new 
 stimulus to investigation and a pilot which will 
 lead to discoveries far beyond the region to 
 which our present (biological) knowledge ex- 
 tends." 
 
ON MATTER AND FORCE. 65 
 
 LECTUKE III. 
 
 ON THE THIRD STAGE OF OUR IDEAS REGARDING THE 
 UNION OF PONDERABLE MATTER AND FORCE IN THE 
 BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES. 
 
 ME.' PRESIDENT, 
 
 I come now to the object for which I 
 undertook this course of lectures. 
 
 It is to show you that, even in this country 
 in which John Hunter's great authority makes 
 the materia mice diffusa a reality, and I might 
 almost say a part of the religio medici, yet even 
 here, the third stage of ideas regarding the 
 union of ponderable matter and force is be- 
 ginning to grow up amongst us, and gives the 
 promise of fruit far beyond any we have 
 hitherto gathered in physiology, pathology, 
 and therapeutics. 
 
 The general ideas regarding the union of 
 
 F 
 
66 CROONIAN LECTURES 
 
 ponderable matter and force in the biological 
 sciences have not as yet got beyond the second 
 or Hunterian stage ; and there are many who 
 think that the first stage, which consists in the 
 complete separability between matter and vital 
 force, still represents the whole truth. 
 
 The third stage, or complete union between 
 the ideas of matter and vital force that is, the 
 utter inseparability of one particle of vital 
 force from the matter in which it has been 
 placed, is as yet in its infancy, and cannot be 
 yet subjected to the examination it will have 
 to undergo. 
 
 We are only just entering upon the inquiry 
 how far our ideas of conservation and correla- 
 tion of energy can be extended to the biological 
 sciences. 
 
 We are only just beginning to ask how far a 
 balance can be struck between the income and 
 outgoing of all the energy which vegetables 
 and animals possess in health and in disease. 
 
 The quantity and quality of the energy that 
 comes in, and the quantity and quality of the 
 energy that goes out of the living thing, are 
 questions in every respect as inseparable from 
 the progress of biology, as the quantity and 
 
ON MATTER AND FORCE. 67 
 
 quality of the ponderable matter that enters 
 into or is thrown out of any system. 
 
 The slight progress that has hitherto been 
 made is seen in the fact that there are many 
 persons at present able to rest in the belief 
 that the inseparability and conservation of 
 matter and force are our main principles and 
 our best guides in the abiological sciences ; 
 whilst most persons think that in the biological 
 sciences the perfect or imperfect separability 
 of matter and force, and the constant creation 
 and annihilation of . energy, are most likely to 
 be the true foundations on which the sciences 
 that include life must be built. 
 
 But, if this be so, then the creation and 
 annihilation of force must be established by 
 positive proof, and must not rest only on as- 
 sumptions which are directly opposed to the most 
 certain knowledge we possess regarding ponder- 
 able matter and force in other branches of 
 science. 
 
 We know now that in all living things no 
 separate or peculiar matter is present. 
 
 The stuff which takes part in the living 
 actions, and the forces which are inherent in 
 
68 CROONIAN LECTURES 
 
 that stuff are there, and indestructible and 
 inseparable. Inorganic matter and inorganic 
 force always exist, together in living things ; so 
 that, if a separable living force be also present, 
 then we must admit that two totally different 
 relations of ponderable matter and force must 
 obtain in the same matter at the same time. 
 
 The unity of nature will at least be preserved 
 by our hesitation to admit the assumption of 
 a force capable of creation and annihilation, 
 until some very conclusive evidence is obtained 
 that there actually is in living things such a force 
 or forces capable of being separated entirely 
 from the matter of which they are made. 
 
 Until this be proved, let us inquire how far 
 the third stage of ideas regarding the union of 
 matter and force and the principle of the con- 
 servation of energy opens new paths for inves- 
 tigation, and gives us new glimpses of truth. 
 
 What are the actual and potential energies 
 which enter into the body ? To what motions 
 do these energies give rise there? How do 
 these motions leave the body ? 
 
 Matters in a state of tension, and ready for 
 chemical motion, are constantly going into the 
 body in the food and air. The quantity of 
 
ON MATTER AND FORCE. 69 
 
 active and latent energy which goes in, ought 
 exactly to balance the quantity which comes 
 out, deducting that which remains latent in 
 the chemical substances, or becomes active in 
 the actual warmth of the body itself. 
 
 The chemical changes in the matter within 
 the body (that is, the decrease of potential 
 energy or tension) give rise to different forms 
 of motion. These motions appear as the func- 
 tions or work of the body. 
 
 Two chief kinds may be distinguished first, 
 motion in great masses, as mechanical work, etc. ; 
 secondly, motion in little masses, or molecular 
 motion, as heat, electricity, nutrition, etc. A 
 little mass of carbon and of oxygen contains a 
 certain amount of tendency to move ; that is, of 
 potential energy. These molecules, as soon as 
 they can, move together, and the motion pro- 
 duced must continue in some form until a state 
 of tension or potential energy again results. 
 
 The latent force of the nourishment is most 
 easily measured by determining the amount of 
 latent heat which the food contains. In order 
 to do this a known amount of substance is 
 burnt, and the amount of heat produced is 
 determined ; and as the mechanical equivalent 
 
70 CROONIAN LECTURES 
 
 of lieat is known, the equivalent amount of 
 work which the substance can do may be 
 calculated. 
 
 By far the greater part of the potential 
 energy or tension which goes in is ultimately 
 changed into warmth. Other modes of motion, 
 as electricity and mechanical work, take but a 
 small part of the total income. The balance- 
 sheet at present can give an idea of the form 
 which the account will ultimately take ; but it 
 cannot tell the items with any approach to 
 accuracy. 
 
 The difficulties which surround the determi- 
 nation of these items at present may be seen 
 by looking for a few moments where our 
 knowledge now is regarding the origin of 
 muscular motion. 
 
 According to the earliest ideas, muscular 
 motion was produced by the soul. 
 
 According to transition ideas, the motion was 
 considered to be created by a definite some- 
 thing, a vital force or fluid, capable of being 
 increased or diminished according as stimulants 
 (nervous or other) acted on it or not ; and 
 finally, capable of quitting the matter of the 
 muscle a short time after the body was dead. 
 
ON MATTER AND FORCE. 71 
 
 The Hallerian irritability was the best repre- 
 sentative of this stage of ideas. 
 
 According to the latest ideas, the origin of 
 the motion must be some antecedent equivalent 
 motion. This is looked for in the chemical 
 changes in the nitrogenous or the non-nitro- 
 genous matter of the contractile texture or sur- 
 rounding blood. 
 
 " No one," says Dr. Frankland, " possessing 
 any knowledge of physical science, would now 
 venture to hold that vital force is the source of 
 muscular power. An animal, however high its 
 organisation, can no more generate an amount 
 of force capable of moving a grain of sand than 
 a stone can fall upwards, or a locomotive drive 
 a train without fuel." 
 
 Professors Liebig and Playfair, and others, 
 say that the chemical changes in the nitro- 
 genous matter of the muscles are the cause of 
 motion. 
 
 Professors Frankland, Fick,* and others, say 
 that the mechanical work is much greater 
 than can be accounted for by the amount of 
 change in this matter, as measured by the urea 
 produced. They determine the amount of 
 
 * Appendix II. 
 
<Z CROONIAN LECTTJEES 
 
 mechanical work done in a given time, and 
 they translate it into its equivalent of heat, 
 weighing also the urea produced in that time. 
 By burning a known weight of muscle out of 
 the body, they determine how much heat it 
 can produce ; and from this they can calculate 
 how much muscle must be burnt in the body to 
 give an amount of heat equivalent to the 
 mechanical work done in the given time. 
 They then calculate what amount of urea this 
 weight of muscle would produce. By com- 
 paring the actual amount of urea produced with 
 the calculated amount, it appears that only 
 one-fifth of the work can come from chemical 
 change in the nitrogenous texture of the 
 muscles. Four-fifths of the work must arise 
 from the chemical action going on in the non- 
 nitrogenous matters in the muscles or in the 
 surrounding blood. 
 
 The experiments made by Dr. Parkes most 
 completely confirm the view that the motion of 
 the muscle during exercise does not bear any 
 relationship to the amount of chemical disinte- 
 gration in the albuminous substance of the 
 muscle. Indeed, he suggests the opinion that 
 the action of the muscle is not connected with 
 
ON MATTER AND FORCE. 73 
 
 disintegration, but with formation ; that, when 
 it is in exercise, it increases ; and, when it is 
 quiescent, it lessens in bulk ; that is, that it 
 more rapidly disintegrates during rest than 
 during exercise. This view can only be proved 
 by a vast amount of further experimental 
 research. 
 
 When this question, which regards the value 
 of this one item in the expenditure and income 
 of matter and force, is solved by experiment, 
 there will be left still more difficult problems 
 as, for example, how this conversion of heat 
 into contraction of muscular fibre takes place ; 
 how the nerves are made to be able to increase 
 or lessen the conversion of latent into active 
 energy at will. 
 
 This most extensive and important inquiry, 
 which the doctrine of the conservation of energy 
 has opened to our work, is good evidence that 
 the third stage of ideas on the union of matter 
 and force is beginning to be received in phy- 
 siology. 
 
 What the worth of these ideas is may be seen 
 in the comparative simplification of the problem 
 of the source of animal heat, when the doctrine 
 of the conservation of energy is admitted. 
 
74 CROONIAN LECTURES 
 
 Whether animal heat arises from nervous 
 force or from chemical action has been a point 
 as disputed as whether voltaic electricity arose 
 from metallic contact or from chemical action. 
 
 The dispute is ended in both instances by 
 the admission of the doctrine of the conserva- 
 tion of energy. 
 
 If the animal heat comes from nervous force, 
 or the electricity from metallic contact, then 
 what is the equivalent of potential energy that 
 gives these their actual energy ? Unless the 
 creation of force be assumed, the equivalent in 
 actual or potential energy must be forthcoming. 
 
 In the case of animal heat, it may be said 
 that the nervous force comes from an equiva- 
 lent energy of nutrition ; but then the further 
 question must be answered, Whence does this 
 energy of nutrition come ? And this brings us 
 ultimately to the chemical force which gives 
 the potential energy to the matter that enters 
 the body. This is the prime origin of the 
 motion which we call animal heat. 
 
 The different kinds of apparatus or organs 
 which the animal possesses for the conversion 
 of energy determine in what form of motion 
 the expenditure of energy can take place. 
 
ON MATTER AND FOECE. 75 
 
 The brain, the nerves, the muscles, the 
 electric organs, the textures in general, all 
 these are machines set in action chiefly by 
 the potential energy or tension in the food, 
 textures, and air; the supply of oxygen, hy- 
 drogen, and carbon being the first necessary 
 condition. 
 
 The mechanical, chemical, nutritive, muscular, 
 and nervous motions are so related, that it is 
 most difficult to separate the action of any one 
 motion, even the simplest which can occur in 
 the human body. 
 
 When these motions are so increased or 
 diminished as to constitute disease, then the 
 difficulty of isolating any one motion becomes 
 by no means lessened. Still, even in disease, 
 the doctrine of the conservation of energy can 
 enable us to make at least as great an advance 
 as was made in our ideas and language when 
 the doctrine of phlogiston, or the hypothetical 
 inflammable principle which was thought to 
 possess a power of levity, was given up. 
 
 Vital force in disease must cease to be 
 regarded as an imponderable material capable 
 of varying in quantity and quality. We must 
 cease to think that it can be made more active 
 
76 CROONIAN LECTURES 
 
 by stimulants, or be kept up by whips, whether 
 ponderable as alcohol, aether, ammonia; or 
 imponderable as heat, light, electricity, friction; 
 or that it can be made less active, or let down 
 or untoned by excessive use or by withdrawal 
 of the stimulants. 
 
 When any excess of motion takes place, we 
 must have an answer where the equivalent of 
 that motion comes from, and whither it will 
 go. Our ponderable and imponderable whips 
 and stimulants are bound up with the matter, 
 and produce more active motion according to 
 the latent energy which the matter itself 
 possesses. 
 
 When any want of motion occurs, we must 
 ask whence the deficiency of motion comes. Is 
 there a want of matter possessing latent energy ? 
 or is there increased resistance to the conversion 
 of latent energy into active motion ? 
 
 It may be said that this is only a verbal 
 alteration ; but it is, in truth, an alteration in 
 the foundation on which all our knowledge is 
 based. 
 
 It is an alteration which represents the 
 direction in which science is advancing ; and 
 it is an alteration which not only marks the 
 
ON MATTER AND FORCE. 77 
 
 advance, but renders further progress more 
 certain and more easy. 
 
 I will take the first and greatest question in 
 pathology to illustrate the importance of the 
 change in our views regarding the union and 
 conservation of ponderable matter and force. 
 
 Inflammation, according to our unchanged 
 ideas, is an increase of heat, redness, swelling, 
 and pain, caused by an excess amounting to 
 tumult in the nutritive changes in the inflamed 
 part. 
 
 The dilatation of the smallest arteries and 
 veins; the retardation of the current of the 
 blood ; the disappearance of the layer of serum 
 which lines the vessels; the piling up of the 
 colourless globules in the veins ; the stoppage 
 in the capillaries, all these are produced by a 
 direct or reflex paralysis of the contractile 
 textures of the small arteries and veins. 
 (Cohnheim, Virchows Arehiv, Sept. 1867.) 
 
 In other words, excess of nutrition in the 
 inflamed part is considered to arise from a loss 
 of energy. 
 
 This is directly opposed to the principle of 
 the conservation of energy. Let us apply this 
 principle to inflammation in parts free from 
 
78 CROONIAN LECTURES 
 
 blood-vessels and nerves, as the cartilage and 
 cornea, where, at least, no question of a direct 
 or reflex paralysis of the blood-vessels can arise. 
 
 In the non-vascular textures, the increased 
 action is limited to increased heat and nutrition. 
 These two forces are directly related, so that a 
 certain quantity of heat can produce a certain 
 quantity of nutrition, and vice versa; but 
 neither can arise from nothing. Either requires 
 some other mechanical, chemical, electrical, or 
 thermal motion to be given to the matter in 
 the inflamed part, to increase the healthy 
 motions which are always there. 
 
 This increased motion may come from with- 
 out by injuries and accidents, or from within 
 by diffusion of active substances into the cornea 
 and cartilage. According to the amount of 
 increase of motion, will be the amount of 
 inflammation. In the vascular textures, the 
 increased motions of oxidation and nutrition 
 outside the vessels act directly on the contents 
 of the nearest vessels, and, from the increased 
 action between the vessels and textures, the 
 dilatation of the vessels, the disappearance of 
 the serous layer, and the heaping up of the red 
 and white corpuscles arise. 
 
ON MATTER AND FORCE. 79 
 
 The principle of the conservation of energy 
 requires that increased oxidation and nutrition 
 in the inflamed part cannot arise except from 
 an equivalent quantity of some form of motion, 
 or some form of potential energy reaching the 
 part. 
 
 The same principle also requires that the 
 inflammation must continue until the increased 
 motion passes off in heat, or in forming pus, or 
 in some other form of motion or nutrition. 
 Thereby the increased motions subside to the 
 amount which is called health. 
 
 The doctrine of the conservation of energy 
 and the inseparability of matter and force will 
 lead to an entire change not only in physiology 
 and pathology, but also in that most practical 
 part of medicine, therapeutics. 
 
 At present, our knowledge is very confused 
 and uncertain as to how and where medicines 
 act. We almost believe that our medicines 
 have the power not only of creating, but of 
 annihilating force ; and we almost think that 
 they are able to select the part on which they 
 will act, whilst they leave other parts of the 
 body entirely free from their presence. 
 
80 CROONIAN LECTURES 
 
 From our want of knowledge how and where 
 the effects are produced, the greatest possible 
 difference of opinion exists as to the action and 
 work of all the different classes of medicines 
 stimulants, sedatives, tonics, alteratives, spe- 
 cifics, evacuants. 
 
 We are almost led to say that stimulants 
 create force, because they increase contractility 
 and sensibility ; that sedatives destroy force, 
 because they diminish contractility and sensi- 
 bility ; that tonics create force, and specifics 
 destroy force, and alteratives change force. 
 
 But the law of the conservation of energy 
 requires us to believe that no food and no 
 medicine can cause the creation or the de- 
 struction of the slightest particle of energy. 
 The amount of conversion of potential into 
 actual energy may be made more or less, The 
 conversion of one kind of motion into another 
 kind may be diminished or increased, but no 
 annihilation nor creation of force is possible. 
 
 We must cease to regard the so-called im- 
 ponderable heat, or its negation cold ; friction, 
 or its negation rest ; electricity ; light, etc., as 
 entities that can be increased or diminished as 
 remedies ; and we must begin to look at them 
 
ON MATTER AND FORCE. 81 
 
 as modes of motion of the particles of matter 
 in the different parts where they act. These 
 modes of motion, by their correlations with the 
 motions of oxidation and nutrition which are 
 going on in the affected part, determine whether 
 more motion or less motion of matter should 
 result. 
 
 The medicines which are taken into the 
 body have the same incapability as food to 
 create or annihilate force; but they possess 
 chemical energies by which, wherever they go, 
 they take part in the motions of oxidation and 
 nutrition which are going on there ; and, 
 according to their chemical properties, they 
 add to the motions, or increase the resistance 
 to the motions, that constitute disease. 
 
 The questions, then, which must be answered 
 before we can obtain clear ideas of the actions 
 of medicines in the body are: 1. What are 
 the different motions which occur in the body ? 
 and how are these different motions related to 
 one another ? and 2. How do different agents 
 or medicines increase or diminish these different 
 motions which occur in the different organs 
 and textures ? 
 
 Assuming that any energy which shows itself 
 
 G 
 
82 CROONIAN LECTURES 
 
 in any of the motions of the body must arise 
 from some other form of energy, and that this 
 must ultimately be traced up to the chemical 
 energy which enters with the food and air, 
 then the action of medicines in increasing or 
 diminishing or altering the action of oxygen in 
 the different textures must be at least one of 
 the most important questions in therapeutics. 
 
 Let me for a moment take the most directly 
 chemical of all medicines, alkalies and acids, 
 and let me try to show you that they are 
 capable of taking a part in oxidation ; and, 
 from this experiment regarding the actions of 
 acids and alkalies out of the body, perhaps you 
 will be inclined to agree with me that they are 
 capable of playing opposite parts in the oxida- 
 tion which is going on everywhere in the body. 
 
 I have here an organic matter, grape-sugar, 
 and oxygen in the oxide of copper, precipitated 
 from the sulphate by alkali, which I can bring 
 into contact with each particle of the organic 
 matter. In each of these glasses, the same 
 amount of sugar and oxygen and alkali is 
 present. I will leave one glass as a standard 
 of comparison regarding the rate of oxidation 
 of the grape-sugar. To the other glasses I will 
 
ON MATTER AND FOECE. 83 
 
 add different amounts of alkali and acid ; and 
 even in a few minutes, without raising the 
 fluids to the temperature of the body, you will 
 see that the most alkaline is most rapidly 
 oxidised, and that the least alkaline or acid 
 fluid will have the oxidation retarded or alto- 
 gether stopped. 
 
 That alkalies and acids have the same action 
 in the body, and that they can promote or 
 retard oxidation, must be determined by direct 
 experiments ; but meanwhile these views will 
 lead us to think more of the alkalescence of 
 the blood, and of the extent of the evil that 
 acidity may occasion, even if we do not use 
 sugar and acids more freely in inflammations 
 and fevers, and urge our alkalies with greater 
 perseverance where fatty and gouty thickenings 
 and deposits exist. 
 
 If time permitted, I might here mention the 
 wonderful experiments on the production of 
 acute fatty disease of the liver, spleen, heart, 
 etc., by phosphorus-poison. The formation of 
 phosphoric acid in the textures probably is the 
 direct cause of the accumulation of fat by 
 arrest of chemical action. 
 
 Inseparable from the action of oxygen in the 
 
84 CROON I AN LECTURES 
 
 system are the other correlated actions heat, 
 electricity, nutrition, contractility, and sensi- 
 bility. These must increase or diminish as the 
 action of oxygen increases or diminishes ; and 
 the questions which arise as to the mode and 
 extent of the convertibility of any one of these 
 motions into other modes of motion have to be 
 determined by further investigation. 
 
 Stimulants, tonics, and evacuants, may, per- 
 haps, not only take part directly in the motions 
 of any part, but they may also promote or 
 retard the conversion of one motion into other 
 motions. 
 
 Specifics and alteratives may, directly as 
 well as indirectly, change the motions in the 
 system. 
 
 And sedatives and narcotics may have the 
 same double action in retarding or stopping 
 the motions that take place. 
 
 This view will almost lead us to consider all 
 medicines as alteratives, and, if so, we may 
 perhaps place stimulant and sedative medi- 
 cines at the two extremes of the alterative 
 actions ; the stimulants giving rise to the 
 greatest increase of motion, and the sedatives 
 allowing the least motion or the nearest ap- 
 
ON MATTER AND FORCE. 85 
 
 proach to rest. Hence rest and motion may 
 be taken as the two great aims of therapeutical 
 actions. 
 
 The two substances which perhaps I might 
 name as best showing these opposite actions, 
 are laughing gas, Np 9 ^ which, in small quan- 
 tity, rapidly increases involuntary and volun- 
 tary motion; and prussic acid, HCN, which 
 almost immediately stops all conversion of 
 energy in the heart, diaphragm, and other 
 respiratory muscles, by paralysing the excito- 
 motory ganglia in the heart itself, and by the 
 same action on the eighth pair.* 
 
 These are some of the questions which are 
 opened to therapeutical inquiry by the doctrine 
 of the conservation of energy and the insepara- 
 bility of matter and force. 
 
 When these questions can be answered, most 
 
 * Some late experiments of Dr. Preyer, of Bonn, show that 
 when an animal is made for some time to hreathe oxygen, 
 and then is given a small poisonous dose of prussic acid, the 
 poison takes no effect whatever. (Die Blausaure, W. Preyer, 
 M.D., Bonn, p. 67.) 
 
 " Prussic acid, he says, acts as if it suddenly robbed the 
 blood of oxygen. If we were able to take away from an 
 animal all the oxygen of its blood in a few seconds, then, 
 without the least doubt, we should have a perfect representa- 
 tion of poisoning by prussic acid." P. 69. 
 
86 CROONIAN LECTURES 
 
 of the differences of opinion on the action of 
 medicines will disappear. 
 
 Perhaps we shall ultimately be able to 
 estimate the increase or diminution of any one 
 motion which, by affecting all other motions in 
 a part or in the whole body, constitutes disease. 
 When the disease arises from increased action, 
 we shall restore that normal quantity and 
 quality of motion in the body on which the 
 health depends, by decreasing the motion or 
 adding to the resistance to conversion; and, 
 when the disease arises from diminished action, 
 we shall attain the same result by increasing 
 the motion or lessening the resistance to con- 
 version. 
 
 With regard to the question where medicines 
 act, the idea of the inseparability of matter 
 and force will probably lead to far broader 
 views than we now hold. 
 
 For want of more definite knowledge, we 
 are almost tempted to assume that medicines 
 have an elective affinity which determines the 
 place where they will act 
 
 If, however, it can bo shown that most 
 medicines pass into every texture of the 
 body, and carry with the matter whatever force 
 
ON MATTER AND FORCE. 
 
 87 
 
 they possess, then it follows that our present 
 ideas of the local action of medicines are far 
 too restricted. 
 
 The experiments which I have published in 
 the Proceedings of the Royal Society, June 15th, 
 1865,* on the rate of passage of lithium into 
 and out of the vascular and non-vascular tex- 
 tures, show the rate at which chloride of lithium 
 passes into the textures through the stomach 
 of the guinea-pig : 
 
 lg grain in 3 days 
 
 3 grains in 15 minutes 
 
 > ., 30 
 30 
 30 
 60 
 60 
 
 I 
 
 . 4 
 
 8 
 
 24 
 26 
 
 5* 
 
 ho rs 
 
 plenty found everywhere. 
 
 everywhere except in the lens. 
 > > 
 
 traces in the lens. 
 
 outer part of the lens. 
 
 > 
 
 except in the lens. 
 
 and throughout the lens. 
 
 except in the lens. 
 
 Hence, in four minutes, in a guinea-pig, 
 after three grains of chloride of lithium it may 
 be found everywhere by the spectrum-analysis ; 
 .and this quantity was found to give traces in 
 the lens of the eye after thirty-three days; 
 and it appeared in the urine for thirty more 
 * See Appendix III. 
 
88 
 
 CKOONIAN LECTURES 
 
 days, the guinea-pig probably re-dosing itself 
 from its own skin. 
 
 The following table shows the rate of passage 
 of carbonate of lithia into and out of cataracts 
 in men : 
 
 20 grains of carbonate of lithia were taken 
 
 25 minutes before the operation No trace of lithium was 
 
 found in the cataract. 
 
 2^ hours Lithium in the watery ex- 
 
 tract of the cataract. 
 Lithium in each particle. 
 
 Of 
 
 
 
 41 
 
 " 
 
 4 
 
 n 
 
 5" 
 
 (old man) 
 
 5 
 
 
 
 7 
 
 
 
 4 i 
 
 fspontane-1 
 ous soft 
 
 
 ays cataract, ( " 
 
 
 [ 25 to 30 J 
 
 7 
 
 
 
 7 ,,5 hours 
 
 7 
 
 Traces in alcoholic extract 
 of ash. 
 
 In alcoholic extract not 
 the slightest trace of 
 lithium. 
 
 Slightest trace in the al- 
 coholic extract. 
 
 In man after taking five grains, lithium was 
 found in the urine in from ten to twenty 
 minutes, and continued to pass out for eight days. 
 After a twenty-grain dose of carbonate of lithia, 
 the crystalline lens showed lithia in two and a 
 half hours. After seven days none was found. 
 
ON MATTER AND FOECE. 89 
 
 * 
 
 Sulphate of thallium was also shown, by 
 spectrum-analysis, to pass into all the vascular 
 and non-vascular textures, and even sulphate 
 of silver was traced in almost every texture. 
 
 In the Proceedings of the Royal Society, 
 April 12, 1866, Dr. Dupre and I further 
 showed that four grains of sulphate of quinine 
 passed in fifteen minutes into every texture 
 of a guinea-pig, and was detectable for forty- 
 eight hours. 
 
 If we had sufficiently delicate modes of detect- 
 ing other substances, it can hardly be doubted 
 that they would follow the same law, and 
 be found to pass rapidly into every texture. 
 
 With the matter, whatever energy that 
 matter possesses must pass also ; and wherever 
 the matter finds motions going on in which it 
 can take part, there the medicine will act. It 
 may be present in equal quantity elsewhere, 
 and yet give no sign of its presence, because 
 no increase or diminution of the motions in 
 those parts may occur. Let me illustrate this 
 for an instant by supposing a shower or sheet 
 of any substance fell in every part of this 
 room for example, alcohol. In many places 
 it would apparently not be present, no action 
 
90 CKOONIAN LECTURES 
 
 would occur. Where there was varnish, it 
 would act chemically on the resin ; where the 
 fire was burning, it would burn ; and in our 
 eyes it would act chemically, increasing the 
 actions there. 
 
 From these glimpses into the physiology, 
 pathology, and therapeutics of the future, each 
 of which might well have been the subject of 
 many lectures, it is evident that a great change 
 will take place in our ideas in the biological 
 sciences when we follow the progress of know- 
 ledge in the abiological sciences. 
 
 As the abiological sciences have passed, or 
 are passing, through three different stages of 
 perfect and imperfect separation and perfect 
 union of ideas regarding ponderable matter 
 and force, so it is reasonable to expect that 
 ultimately we shall pass through the same three 
 stages of ideas regarding the union of matter 
 and force in the biological sciences ; and, if so, 
 we shall arrive at an idea of life which will be 
 based on the perfect union of ponderable 
 matter and force. 
 
 If biology be disposed to profit by the pro- 
 gress of the other sciences, we must expect 
 that all we shall know of vital force will be got 
 
ON MATTER AND FORCE. 91 
 
 by looking for its effect as the most peculiar of 
 all the motions of which matter is capable. 
 This must be able to arise from other motions 
 and be able to give rise to other motions ; and 
 its cause must be altogether as incapable of 
 destruction and creation as the abiological 
 forces themselves. 
 
 It may well be said, what can be the nature 
 of this motion ? how can it be understood ? The 
 answer must be the same as that which we 
 must give even now regarding the nature of 
 the motion of the simple or compound atoms of 
 matter which we call electricity or magnetism, 
 or even light or heat. 
 
 How many among us at present have a clear 
 idea of the motion of the simple molecules of 
 matter which we call heat, or even gravitation 
 and crystallisation ? Whilst we are unable to 
 grasp the marvellously complex double polar 
 motion of compound molecules which consti- 
 tutes electricity, can we expect to be able to 
 form an idea of the most complex of all the 
 motions of matter from which the mind turns 
 away to the image of some aerial or setherial 
 spirit, with large wings and larger powers ; or 
 rests satisfied with an imponderable gaseous or 
 
92 CROONIAN LECTURES 
 
 liquid matter diffused through living liquids, 
 or temporarily attached to more solid granular 
 matter? 
 
 Notwithstanding our ignorance, let us at- 
 tempt to gain knowledge by following in the 
 footsteps of the abiological sciences. 
 
 Whatever form of motion or tension proceeds 
 from the body, let us regard it not as created or 
 destroyed, but as the representative and equiva- 
 lent of that energy which went into the body. 
 
 Let us consider that the balance of in-going 
 and out-coming energy of the body is exactly 
 comparable with the balance of the in-going 
 and out-coming ponderable matter ; and let us 
 remember that these balances are inseparably 
 dependent the one on the other. 
 
 The views which I have endeavoured to 
 bring before you will be at once condemned as 
 materialism by those who think that they know 
 more of matter than as the fixed abode of 
 force, and more of force than as that which 
 gives energy to matter. 
 
 Those who are so ready to use the word 
 materialism as a reproach, should remember 
 that they can give no definition of matter 
 which does not involve the definition of force, 
 
ON MATTER AND FORCE. 93 
 
 and that they know nothing whatever of matter 
 except as that which can exert or resist force ; 
 and they should not forget that there is no 
 proof whatever that force is something without 
 weight which the Creator has made separably 
 to adhere to matter. 
 
 Those also who are tempted to oppose 
 spiritualism to materialism must remember 
 that, in the progress of science, this something 
 without weight, this fluid, air, or aether, has 
 ceased to be regarded as the actual force itself, 
 but is considered only to be an imponderable 
 matter to which the force is inseparably united ^ 
 
 From this point of view, the question be- 
 tween materialism and spiritualism is, in fact, 
 only a question between ponderable and im- 
 ponderable materialism. Hence the scientific 
 spiritualist of the present day differs from the 
 materialist of the present day only as far as 
 imponderable differs from ponderable matter. 
 
 The spiritualist who still holds the primitive 
 idea of the perfect separation of matter and 
 force may find full occupation for his reason in 
 weighing the evidence on which his belief or 
 internal conviction rests; but he must leave 
 the investigation of the foundations of natural 
 
94 CROONIAN LECTURES. 
 
 knowledge to those who can see no reason for 
 faith in witches, ghosts, transmutations, and 
 transmigrations. 
 
 There are some who think little of scientific 
 truth, but, comparatively speaking, care much 
 to recognise the Almighty Will as the primary 
 cause of all things. 
 
 Such persons will find that this power and 
 will are shown in the inseparable union of 
 ponderable matter and force quite as much as 
 if he had willed to make them completely 
 separable. 
 
 We, who search for truth above all things, 
 are compelled by our belief in the insepara- 
 bility of matter and force in the abiological 
 sciences to work out the inquiry how far this 
 inseparability holds true in the biological 
 sciences also. 
 
 Our ideas of the grandeur, the unity, and the 
 power of the first cause will surely not be 
 lessened if it can be shown that one law of the 
 union of force and matter and of the conserva- 
 tion of energy obtains throughout the organic 
 as well as throughout the inorganic creation. 
 
APPENDICES 
 
APPENDICES. 
 
 APPENDIX I. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 ON the Time required for the Transmission of Volition 
 and Sensation through the Nerves . - . . 97 
 
 APPENDIX II. 
 On the Source of Muscular Power .... 133 
 
 APPENDIX III. 
 
 On the Eate of Passage of Crystalloids into and out of 
 the Vascular and Non- Vascular Textures of the 
 Body 178 
 
APPENDIX I. 
 
 ON THE TIME REQUIRED FOR THE TRANSMISSION 
 
 OF VOLITION AND SENSATION THROUGH 
 
 THE NERVES. 
 
 A LECTURE GIVEN AT THE EOYAL INSTITUTION, 
 BY EMIL DTI BOIS-REYMOND, 
 
 Professor of Physiology in the University of Berlin. 
 
 Introduction. The speaker first pointed out a certain 
 similarity of action between the nerves and tele- 
 graph-wires. Just as little as telegraph-wires, do 
 the nerves betray by any external symptom that 
 any or what news is speeding along them ; and, like 
 those wires, in order to be fit for service, they must 
 be entire. But, unlike those wires, they do not, 
 once cut, recover their conducting power when their 
 ends are caused to meet again ; in fact, every injury 
 by which the organic structure of the nerve is im- 
 paired, such as bruising it between the blades of a 
 forceps or by a ligature, or burning it, or corroding 
 it by some chemical substance, will stop the trans- 
 mission of either the influence of the will upon tis 
 
 H 
 
98 APPENDIX I. 
 
 central, or of the impressions of external objects 
 upon its peripheric end. 
 
 This was illustrated by placing the sciatic nerve 
 of a frog, still attached to the gastrocnemius muscle, 
 on three electrodes, A, B, C A being the remotest 
 from, and C the nearest to, the muscle. A being 
 connected with one end of a self-acting induction 
 apparatus, and either B or C with the other end, a 
 strong tetanus of the muscle ensued, and was ren- 
 dered visible by the raising of a little mica flag ;* but 
 after a ligature had been tightened around the nerve 
 between B and C, which was simply done by pressing 
 down a lever , j the tetanus was observed to arise only 
 on making the connection with C, because only then 
 a portion of the nerve between the ligature and the 
 muscle was stimulated, whereas, on making the con- 
 nection with B, the ligature intercepted the effect 
 produced by the stimulation of the portion A B. 
 
 These facts, the speaker said, are calculated to 
 impress us with a notion of something moving along 
 the nerves in the act of volition and in that of sen- 
 sation, which, to preclude any hypothetical view 
 regarding its nature, we will term the nervous agent. 
 As this agent for its conveyance requires an un- 
 
 * See the description and drawing of the apparatus in 
 Beschreibung einiger Vorrichtungen und Versuchsweisen zu 
 elektrophysiologischen Zwecken. Von E. du Bois-Keymond. 
 Abhandlungen der K. Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Berlin, 
 1862, S. 141. 
 
 t The apparatus used is described and figured in Unter- 
 suclmngen uber thierische ElektridtdL Von E. du Buis- 
 Eeymond. Bd. ii., Abth. i. Berlin, 1849. S. 341 ; Taf. iii., 
 Fig. 109, 110. 
 
APPENDIX I. 99 
 
 injured state of the nerve, being checked by so gross 
 an obstacle as a cut or a ligature, it must necessarily 
 be something material, not, however, the electricity 
 such as it moves along a telegraph-wire, for this 
 would readily overleap those impediments* But, 
 whatever the nervous agent may be, it obviously 
 must proceed in the nerves with a certain definite 
 velocity. In other words, however great this ve- 
 locity may be, a certain definite time will be required 
 for the messages of the brain to reach the muscles 
 and for those of the senses to reach the brain. 
 
 In common life, it is true, we never notice any 
 phenomenon indicative of such a delay in the trans- 
 mission of despatches in our nerves. Certainly our 
 limbs do not instantaneously carry out the orders of 
 our will ; but this is rather owing to the circum- 
 stance of time being required for motion. On the 
 other hand, we fancy we see the light, we hear the 
 sound, we feel the prick on the toes as well as on 
 the cheek at the very instant the corresponding 
 organs of the senses have been affected. But a 
 little reflection shows that this is altogether a 
 delusion; in fact, if we only had one sense, an 
 indefinite time might elapse between its organ being 
 affected and the sensation taking place in the brain, 
 without our perceiving it ; we simply should always 
 be so much behind the real time, just as we are 
 when listening to distant music, or when looking at 
 the stars. The same thing would also happen if we 
 had two senses, both equally slow in working. We 
 should only perceive that something was wrong, if 
 the two senses had a different rate of working, and 
 
100 APPENDIX I. 
 
 if the difference of time resulting therefrom for the 
 perception of messages conveyed by the two senses 
 were large enough to become apparent, as is the case 
 when we see the flash of the gun before hearing its 
 report. Now we cannot well distinguish intervals of 
 time smaller than one-tenth of a second at the most ; 
 so that within that limit any irregularity in the 
 working of our organs of sense may occur, from any 
 cause whatever hence from a delay of the messages 
 in the nerves without our becoming aware of it. 
 
 The problem thus suggests itself, to ascertain 
 whether any perceptible time is required for the 
 transmission of volition and sensation through the 
 nerves, and if so, what is the rate of propagation of 
 the nervous agent. 
 
 Historical Remarks. This problem is by no 
 means a new one ; for a hundred and fifty years it 
 has engaged the attention of physiologists, and many 
 an adventurous hypothesis has been broached in order 
 to approach to at least a pretence of a solution. 
 
 One of the early latro-mathematicians preposter- 
 ously conceived that the velocity of the nervous 
 agent ought to bear the same proportion to that of 
 the blood in the aorta as the width of the aorta to 
 that of the nerve-tubes, and he thus inferred the 
 velocity of the former to be one hundred and twenty 
 millions of miles in one second, rather more than 
 six hundred times the velocity of light.* 
 
 Haller himself tried, in reading the 2Eneid aloud, 
 how many letters he could pronounce in one minute. 
 
 * Haller, Elementa Physiologix Corporis liumani. Tom. iv. 
 Lausann, 1762. 4 C . P. 372. 
 
APPENDIX I. 
 
 Finding that they were fifteen hundred, among 
 which the R, according to him, requires for its 
 formation ten successive contractions of the M. sty- 
 loglossus, he states that in one minute a muscle 
 may contract and relax fifteen thousand times, and 
 as the relaxing lasts as long as the contracting, each 
 contraction would have lasted only 8o ^ 00 of a 
 minute, or -^ of a second. Hence Haller argues 
 that the nervous agent requires -^^ of a second 
 for travelling from the brain to the M. styloglossus, 
 say a distance of about four inches, which makes 
 about 160 feet in one second. Now this result is 
 not a little remarkable. In Haller's reasoning 
 every single step is erroneous, and the whole rests 
 on a perfectly absurd basis. Nevertheless, the 
 result to which Haller has thus been led wonder- 
 fully coincides with that which has recently been 
 arrived at by the methods which it is the object of 
 this lecture to explain; so that in this case the 
 JSneid really has proved a book of oracles.* 
 
 John Miiller, of Berlin, hardly seventeen years 
 ago, used in his lectures to dwell upon the apparent 
 impossibility of ever solving the problem under 
 consideration, on account of the enormous rate of 
 propagation, comparable to that of light and elec- 
 tricity, which he ascribed to the nervous agent, 
 while the small compass of the animal body did not 
 offer sufficient range for its measurement.! 
 
 * Haller, Elementa Physiologiae Corporis humani. Tom. iv. 
 Lausann, 1762. 4. Pp. 373, 483. 
 
 f Handbuch der Physiologic des Menschen, u. s. w. Bel. i., 
 ' 4 Aufl. Coblenz, 1844. S. 581. 
 
102 'APPENDIX I. 
 
 These historical details, perhaps, will not be 
 deemed superfluous, inasmuch as they are calculated 
 to bring out more fully the beauty and the high 
 scientific value of the following researches. 
 
 Description of M. Pouillefs Clironoscope. More 
 than twenty years ago, M. Pouillet suggested a very 
 ingenious plan for measuring the velocity of pro- 
 jectiles. If an electric current flows constantly 
 through the coil of a galvanometer, the needle is 
 deflected to an amount which depends upon the 
 intensity of the current, and upon the sensitiveness 
 of the galvanometer. But if the current be sent 
 through the coil only for a time so short that it 
 vanishes when compared to the duration of one 
 oscillation of the needle, things happen differently. 
 The needle then receives as it were a single impulse, 
 yielding to which it slowly recedes, till its velocity 
 has been annihilated by the magnetic force of the 
 earth, which draws it back to zero. And the initial 
 velocity imparted to the needle by the current, pro- 
 vided this be of constant intensity, will be propor- 
 tional to its duration, so that from the velocity, 
 which can be calculated from the deflection of the 
 needle, the duration of the current may be inferred. 
 The galvanometer is thus transformed into a chrono- 
 scope, which can be used for measuring the duration 
 of rapidly transient processes, whenever there is a 
 possibility of making the beginning and the end of 
 the process coincide with the beginning and the end 
 of the chronoscopic current, for so we will style the 
 current, which, by its action on the galvanometer, 
 becomes an indicator of time. And similarly we 
 
APPENDIX I. 103 
 
 will style chronoscopic circuit, the circuit of the 
 chronoscopic current. 
 
 If, e. g., the velocity of a bullet, within the very 
 barrel of a gun, were to be measured, the chrono- 
 scopic circuit, in addition to the battery and the 
 galvanometer, should comprise a wire stretched out 
 just before the muzzle of the gun, the cock, which 
 in some way or other should be insulated from the 
 gun, and lastly the gun itself. Then at the moment 
 when the cock strikes the percussion-cap, the circuit 
 is made and remains so till the bullet tears the 
 wire; and so the current will only have lasted 
 during the time required for the explosion of the 
 percussion-cap, for that of the gunpowder in the 
 gun, and for the moving of the bullet along the 
 barrel. This time has been found to be from y^ to 
 Y^ of a second. By repeating the same experi- 
 ment with the wire or a net of wires at any greater 
 distance from the muzzle, and by taking the differ- 
 ence of the times required in both cases, the time 
 elapsed during the flight of the bullet through the 
 space comprised between the two positions of the 
 wire can be ascertained.* 
 
 Application of this Method to our Problem by Pro- 
 fessor Helmholtz. The same method was, a few 
 years later (1850), successfully applied by Professor 
 Helmholtz to the solution of our problem. 
 
 Suppose that the chronoscopic current, when its 
 
 circuit is made, causes the muscle to contract by 
 
 stimulating a motor nerve at a point A. It will be 
 
 easy to arrange things so as to cause the muscle by 
 
 * Comptes Bendus, &c., 1844, t. xix. f p. 1384. 
 
104 
 
 APPENDIX I. 
 
 its contraction to break the circuit. The current 
 will then have lasted the time necessary for the 
 transmission of the nervous agent from the point 
 A of the nerve to the muscle, and, moreover, that 
 necessary for the muscular contraction to break the 
 circuit. But by repeating the experiment, with the 
 sole difference that the chronoscopic current is made 
 to act upon a point B of the nerve farther from the 
 muscle than A, and by taking the difference of the 
 times required in both cases, the time which elapses 
 while the nervous agent is travelling from point B 
 to point A will be found. 
 
 FIG. 1. 
 
 Fig. 1 shows the experiment, not exactly as made 
 
APPENDIX I. 105 
 
 by Professor Helmholtz, but with some slight modi- 
 fications, that the speaker has introduced for the 
 sake of convenience, g is the gastrocnemius muscle 
 of a frog, fastened by the thigh-bone in the clamp c, 
 which can be raised or lowered by the screw 8. 
 Through the tendo-Achillis a hook is thrust, and to 
 this, by an insulating piece t, a brass lever / k is 
 attached, turning on the axis &, and, near its end Z, 
 supported by a platinum point resting on a platinum 
 plate p. Just underneath the muscle, a scale-pan is 
 suspended from the lever, on which any suitable 
 weight may be placed. At the end I of the lever an 
 amalgamated copper point dips into a mercury cup 
 m. G is the galvanometer-coil; and it is hardly 
 necessary to mention that the readings are made 
 with mirror, telescope, and scale. B l is the battery 
 belonging to the chronoscopic circuit. This circuit 
 is formed by B 1 , G, m, j>, L, and the place of contact 
 , where for the present it is interrupted. For 
 several reasons, which it would take too long here 
 to explain, the chronoscopic current cannot be em- 
 ployed for directly stimulating the nerve by its 
 beginning, and this has to be done indirectly, in the 
 following way : 
 
 n o q is an insulating lever turning on the axis o, 
 and bearing at n a platinum plate connected with B 1 . 
 This plate corresponds to a platinum point at the 
 end of the brass lever L, which in its turn is con- 
 nected with jp, so that by pressing down L, the 
 chronoscopic circuit is made. But by pressing down 
 the extremity n of the lever n o q, its extremity q is 
 simultaneously raised, and thus another circuit is 
 
106 APPENDIX I. 
 
 broken. This circuit comprises a battery B 2 , and 
 the primary coil p c of an induction apparatus, from 
 whose secondary coil s c wires extend to the part of 
 the nerve which is to be stimulated, or to the muscle. 
 No perceptible time elapses between the breaking of 
 the primary circuit and the generation of the in- 
 duced current, and the duration of the latter does 
 not exceed a few ten-thousandths of a second. 
 Hence the stimulation of the nerve can be assumed 
 to happen at the very instant the chronoscopic cir- 
 cuit is made. 
 
 By means of the screw s, it is easy to make the 
 muscle support the lever / k so that the platinum 
 point just rests on the plate p. This is done by 
 lowering the screw, till on percussing the lever 
 above the platinum point no clattering is heard. If 
 now the tension of the muscle be ever so little in- 
 creased, the lever will be lifted, and the chronoscopic 
 circuit broken at p. 
 
 After the contraction is over, as the lever sinks 
 back into its original position, the chronoscopic cir- 
 cuit would be made again, and the experiment spoilt 
 in consequence of the new and overpowering action 
 exercised on the needle, unless some measure were 
 taken to prevent it. This very serious difficulty has 
 been met by Professor Helmholtz with singular 
 felicity. The mercury cup into which the amalga- 
 mated copper point dips is lowered before the ex- 
 periment, till by capillary attraction the mercury is 
 drawn up in a cone connected with the point by a 
 thread. The slightest upward motion of the point 
 then will cause the mercury thread to break, after 
 
APPENDIX I. 107 
 
 which the liquid metal speedily reassumes its sphe- 
 roidal surface. So that when the amalgamated point 
 comes down again, it cannot reach the mercury, and 
 the chronoscopic circuit remains open. 
 
 In order to obtain a clear insight into the condi- 
 tions of the experiment, it should first be made by 
 stimulating, not the nerve, but the muscle itself. 
 For this purpose, the ends of the secondary coil 
 should be united with the wires 1 and 2 in the 
 diagram. As, on doing so, all the parts of the 
 muscle are acted upon simultaneously at the* very 
 instant the chronoscopic circuit is made, no delay 
 in the nerves can occur ; nevertheless, a deflection 
 of the needle is thus obtained, which shows that 
 after the stimulation there is an interval of time of 
 about '01 of a second, during which the tension of 
 the muscle still remains unaltered. This interval 
 has been styled by Professor Helmholtz the stage of 
 latent stimulation. 
 
 If, after having made the muscle support the 
 lever so that it just rests on the plate p, a weight be 
 placed upon the scale-pan, the deflection obtained 
 on stimulating the muscle as before is increased, 
 and, up to a certain limit, the more so the heavier 
 the weight. It thus appears that after the stage of 
 latent stimulation is over, the muscle does not at 
 once acquire its whole energy, but that its tension 
 (at equal length) gradually increases, and reaches 
 its maximum after about -05 of a second. 
 
 This result (which the speaker illustrated by two 
 experiments, one without, and the other with an 
 additional charge on the scale-pan) is in itself of 
 
108 APPENDIX I. 
 
 considerable interest, as it shows that the difference 
 which, up to the time of Professor Helmholtz's 
 researches, had been admitted between the mode of 
 contracting of the striped and of the unstriped 
 muscles -is only one of degree. Of the latter 
 class of muscles, in contradistinction to the first 
 class, it was said that their contraction did not 
 immediately follow stimulation, and that their 
 energy rose, and subsided again, gradually. But it 
 is now obvious that all this holds equally with the 
 striped muscles, only that the whole process here 
 lasts but a few hundred ths of a second, whereas 
 with the unstriped muscles every stage of the con- 
 traction may take up as many seconds, so as to be 
 easily perceptible without artificial means. 
 
 The values obtained in repeated trials for the 
 duration of the latent stimulation do not accord 
 very well ; but those which represent the tinie re- 
 quired by the muscle to raise an additional weight 
 remain almost identical as long as the muscle does 
 not become exhausted, provided the stimulation be 
 capable of producing the maximum of contraction 
 which can be called forth by instantaneous stimula- 
 tion. This also happens when, instead of stimu- 
 lating the muscle itself, the induced current, in 
 successive trials, is made to act with sufficient 
 energy upon always the same part of the nerve, only 
 in this case the time of latent stimulation is found 
 to be a little longer than in the case of the muscle 
 itself being stimulated. But on making the current 
 pass alternately through the part A of the nerve 
 nearer to the muscle, by means of the wires 3 and 4 
 
APPENDIX I. 109 
 
 in the diagram, and through the part B farther from 
 the muscle, by means of the wires 5 and 6, two sets 
 of observations are obtained, the corresponding 
 figures of which differ from each other by a small 
 but constant quantity, independent, moreover, of the 
 additional charge placed upon the scale-pan. This 
 difference obviously indicates the time required by 
 the nervous agent for travelling from B to A, and 
 the distance between A and B being known, the rate 
 of propagation of the stimulation or the velocity of 
 the nervous agent can easily be calculated. 
 
 This velocity, in Professor Helmholtz's experi- 
 ments, has been found to be 26*4 metres (86'6 feet) 
 in one second.* The reason why on stimulating 
 the nerve the time of latent stimulation appears a 
 little longer than on stimulating the muscle itself, 
 is now also evident. It is owing to the time which 
 elapses during the passage of the nervous agent from 
 the stimulated part of the nerve-tubes to their ter- 
 mination in the muscle. 
 
 Professor Helmholtz's Experiments with the Myo- 
 graphion. Soon after Professor Helmholtz had thus, 
 for the first time, succeeded in determining the 
 velocity of the nervous agent, he devised another 
 method for obtaining the same result in a manner 
 more simple and more adapted to a variety of pur- 
 poses. 
 
 As before, the gastrocnemius muscle is caused to 
 lift a lever by its contraction, but this time with 
 the view of making the muscle itself register the 
 
 * Job. Mailer's Archiv filr Anatomie, Physiologie und wis- 
 senschaftliche Medicin. Berlin, 1850. S. 276. 
 
110 APPENDIX I. 
 
 beginning, and the successive stages, of the contrac- 
 tion ; wherefore the apparatus employed is termed 
 a myographion. To this end, opposite a steel point 
 or style suspended from the lever is placed a 
 rotating cylinder of glass, blackened over a lamp. 
 The cylinder is moved by clockwork at an increasing 
 rate, and, when it has acquired the proper speed, 
 the centrifugal force developed releases a piece of 
 mechanism which breaks the primary circuit of the 
 induction apparatus connected with the muscle or 
 nerve. In consequence of a very ingenious arrange- 
 ment, which will hereafter be explained, this always 
 happens when the cylinder is in exactly the same 
 position to the style ; so that always the same point 
 of the datum-line traced by the style during the 
 quiescent state of the muscle corresponds to the 
 instant of stimulation. 
 
 The contracting muscle thus traces a curve on 
 the cylinder, like those in Fig. 2. The point s of 
 the datum-line marks the instant of stimulation. 
 
 FIG. 2. 
 
 The curve does not start from this point, but a little 
 later, from m, the distance 8 m corresponding to the 
 stage of latent stimulation, if we suppose the muscle 
 to have been acted upon directly by the current. 
 The muscle then, slowly and gradually, begins to 
 act, in due time reaches a climax of energy, and 
 
APPENDIX I. Ill 
 
 then again gradually relaxes. The results obtained 
 by M. Pouillet's method regarding the successive 
 stages of contraction are thus confirmed by the 
 graphic method. The curve traced by the contract- 
 ing muscle of course becomes the more stretched 
 the quicker the cylinder rotates, but, at an equal 
 rate of rotation, the curves traced successively by 
 the same muscle, stimulated by a current capable of 
 giving rise to the maximum of contraction, coincide 
 so as almost entirely to coalesce, so long as the 
 muscle does not become exhausted. This also hap- 
 pens when in repeated trials the current, instead of 
 on the muscle itself, is made to act with sufficient 
 energy upon always the same part of the nerve, say 
 the part A ; only all the curves thus obtained are 
 found to start a little further from s on the datum- 
 line, say at a. 
 
 But, on stimulating the nerve alternately at a 
 place A nearer to, and B farther from, the muscle, 
 the curves obtained no longer coincide. They 
 separate, and the curves traced on stimulating B 
 will again be found to lie farther off on the datum- 
 line, starting at b instead of at a, and keeping every- 
 where the same horizontal distance a b from the 
 curve traced when A is stimulated. 
 
 This horizontal distance of the two curves, or sets 
 of curves, evidently corresponds to the time the 
 nervous agent has spent in travelling along the 
 nerve from B to A. It is, in* fact, the displacement 
 of the surface of the cylinder which, according to 
 its angular velocity, has occurred during the same 
 time. Determining this angular velocity by means 
 
112 APPENDIX I. 
 
 of an indicator, the velocity ot tne nervous agent 
 was found by Professor Helinholtz to be 27-25 
 metres (89*4 feet) in one second, which agrees very 
 well with the figure formerly obtained by M. 
 Pouillet's method.* It is hardly necessary to 
 mention that the difference s a s m corresponds to 
 the time spent by the nervous agent in travelling 
 from A to the termination of the nerve-tubes in the 
 muscle. 
 
 Different "kinds of Myographion proposed ; descrip- 
 tion of the Apparatus used by the speaker on the present 
 occasion. The myographion, as it was originally 
 designed by Professor Helmholtz, is a rather com- 
 plicated and expensive apparatus. Various modifi- 
 cations have been proposed in order to simplify it. 
 For the clockwork moving the cylinder, Thiry has 
 substituted a reaction-engine moved by air, like that 
 in M. Foucault's apparatus for comparing the 
 velocity of light in air and in water. The rotation 
 of the cylinder in this myographion is uniform, and 
 its rate is ascertained by the pitch of a siren connected 
 with it.f Harless and Professor Fick altogether 
 abandoned the rotating scheme, which, in fact, 
 involves great and, perhaps, unnecessary difficulties, 
 and for the rotating cylinder substituted a glass 
 plate moving in its own plane. Harless allowed the 
 plate to drop in an apparatus constructed upon the 
 principle of Atwood's machine, and thus obtained an 
 uniform velocity, which could easily be determined 
 
 * Job. Muller's Archiv, u. s. w., 1852. S. 199. 
 t Henle und Pfeuffer, Zeitschrift filr rationelle Medicin, 
 3. B., B. xxi., 1864, S. 300. 
 
APPENDIX I. 113 
 
 theoretically.* Professor Fick attached the plate 
 to a heavy pendulum, and although the velocity then 
 was no longer uniform, yet the law of its variation 
 was known. j" 
 
 The speaker himself had formerly devoted much 
 attention to the improvement of the rotating 
 myographion, and had suggested some alterations of 
 it, which, executed by that most skilful instrument- 
 maker, M. Sauerwald, of Berlin, answer remarkably 
 well, and have done good service in some very 
 important researches, hereafter to be mentioned, if 
 For the present occasion, however, he contrived a 
 new myographion which in simplicity far exceeds 
 every previous design, and which may be styled the 
 spring-myograpJiion. As in Harless's and in Pro- 
 fessor Fick's myographion, in the spring-myo- 
 graphion the cylinder is replaced by a glass plate 
 moving in its own plane. But instead of being 
 impelled by gravity, the plate, on pulling a trigger, 
 is, as it were, shot by a spiral spring along two 
 horizontal steel wires which act as supports and 
 guides. The curve is traced on the plate, after this 
 has reached its greatest velocity, i.e., after the spring 
 has passed through its position of equilibrium. On 
 account of the friction, however, the velocity of the 
 plate cannot be taken as uniform, nor can the law of 
 its variation and its amount at any given place 
 
 * Abhandlungen der K. Bayer. Aliademie der Wiss. II. CL, 
 Bd. ix., Abtb. ii. Miinchen, 1862. S. 361. 
 
 t Vierteljahrschrift der Naturforschenden Gesellschaft in 
 Zurich, 1862, S. 307. 
 
 $ A. v. Bezold, Untersuchungen uber die elektrische Errejung 
 der Nerven und Musheln. Leipzig, 1861. S. 85. 
 
 I 
 
114 APPENDIX I. 
 
 theoretically be ascertained with any degree of pre- 
 cision. But, if required, this could easily be done 
 experimentally, by recurring to Dr. Thomas Young's 
 original plan*, viz., by causing a tuning-fork to 
 record its vibrations upon the plate, together with 
 the curve traced by the contraction of the muscle. 
 On the present occasion this would be useless, as it 
 is only intended to show that there is a larger 
 interval between the instant of stimulation and the 
 beginning of contraction, if a part of the nerve 
 farther from, than if a part of it nearer to, the 
 muscle be acted upon. For this purpose it is only 
 requisite that the motion of the plate should always 
 follow the same law and attain the same velocity, 
 and that the point of the datum-line, corresponding 
 to the instant of stimulation, should always be the 
 same. 
 
 In the spring-myographion the latter condition is 
 fulfilled in the same manner as in Professor Helm- 
 holtz's, and every other myographion. The frame 
 carrying the plate has a projecting piece or tooth, 
 which, just when the frame has reached its highest 
 speed, strikes a lever, and thus breaks the primary 
 circuit of the induction apparatus. This, of course, 
 always happens in exactly the same position of the 
 plate, whatever may be its velocity ; so that in 
 order to find the point of the datum-line correspond- 
 ing to the instant of stimulation, it is only necessary 
 to move the plate with the hand along its guides so 
 slowly that the contraction of the muscle, instead of 
 
 * A Course of Lectures on Natural Philosophy and the 
 Mechanical Arts. London, 1807. Vol. i., p. 190. 
 
APPENDIX I. 115 
 
 a curve, traces a vertical line (s s f in Fig. 2) corre- 
 sponding to the two limbs of the curve, the ascending 
 and the descending one, which have coalesced. 
 
 A very essential precaution in these, as well as in 
 all experiments on nerves or muscles, is that these 
 textures, especially the nerves, should be carefully 
 preserved from becoming dry. This can be done 
 by covering the part of the apparatus containing 
 them with a shade, the inner walls of which are 
 lined with moist bibulous paper ; or, as was the 
 case on the present occasion, by enclosing the nerve 
 in a tube of vulcanite, in which it rests on two pairs 
 of platinum electrodes, one as near to, the other as 
 far from, the muscle as possible. This tube of 
 vulcanite is also provided with another contrivance, 
 which will be more fully mentioned presently. 
 
 The speaker now proceeded to show a complete 
 experiment with the spring-myographion. After 
 two curves had been traced, one by stimulating the 
 nerve near to, the other by stimulating it far from, 
 the muscle, the magnified image of the curves was 
 exhibited to the audience by means of the electric 
 light. 
 
 Conditions upon which the rate of Propagation of the 
 Nervous Agent has leen hitherto found to depend. 
 1. The figures given above (see pages 104 and 110) 
 for the rate of propagation of the nervous agent were 
 obtained at a temperature of from 11 to 21 C. At 
 a lower temperature, Professor Helmholtz found the 
 velocity was greatly diminished.* This can easily 
 * Joh. Muller's Archiv, u. s. w., 1850, 8. 358. 
 
116 APPENDIX I. 
 
 be shown by means of the tube of vulcanite belong- 
 ing to the speaker's new myographion. The nerve, 
 inside the tube and between the two pairs of elec- 
 trodes, rests on a varnished copper-plate, which 
 forms part of a small vessel, lodged in the wall of 
 the vulcanite tube. Through this vessel water of 
 any temperature may be passed. By thus cooling 
 the nerve, a wider interval is obtained between the 
 two curves; in fact, this artifice was put into 
 practice in the above-mentioned experiment to make 
 the result more striking. Plates were also exhibited 
 with curves traced on them at a higher and a still 
 lower temperature, thus showing that the horizontal 
 distance of the two curves is in a measure propor- 
 tional to the lowering of the temperature. 
 
 2. Dr. H. Munk, by delicate researches made in 
 the speaker's laboratory, has succeeded in demon- 
 strating that the velocity of the nervous agent is not 
 the same in different parts of the same nerve. Ac- 
 cording to him, this velocity in the motor nerves 
 increases as the nerve approaches the muscle.* 
 
 3. Professor v. Bezold, also in the speaker's 
 laboratory, has undertaken to answer the question 
 whether and how the velocity of the nervous agent 
 may be altered by the electrotonic state of the nerve 
 as sixteen years ago the speaker ventured to term 
 the remarkable condition into which he found the 
 whole nerve thrown when any part of it is pervaded 
 by an electric current; a condition making itself 
 manifest by a most striking change in the electromo- 
 
 * Keichert's tmd du Bois-Keymond's Arcliiv. fur Anatomic, 
 u. s, w., 1860, S. 798. 
 
APPENDIX I. 117 
 
 tive action of the nerve,* and, as afterwards demon- 
 strated chiefly by Professor Pfliiger, also by a 
 change in the excitability of its different points, j 
 These changes, which only last as long as the 
 current itself, are found to be the more considerable 
 the nearer to the electrodes the nerves are examined. 
 In addition to these facts, Professor v. Bezold found 
 the velocity of the nervous agent to be diminished 
 in the electrotonic state, and that also the more, the 
 nearer to the electrodes the nerves were examined. 
 These researches were made with the speaker's im- 
 proved rotating myographion, alluded to above. 
 (See p. 113.)} 
 
 Rate of Transmission of Sensation in the Nerves 
 and the Spinal Cord of Man. All the preceding 
 experiments were made upon the motor fibres in the 
 sciatic nerve of the frog. Similar results, however, 
 have been arrived at with regard to the nerves of 
 sensation in the living body of man, in the following 
 way. 
 
 An induced current is made to impinge alternately 
 upon two different places on the skin, so as to cause 
 just a slight sensation of pain. The two places 
 should be such as are supplied, like the big toe and 
 the inguinal region, for instance, with sensory fibres 
 
 * UntersucJiungen iiber thierische Elektricitdt, Bd. ii., Abth. i. 
 Berlin, 1849, S. 289. On Animal Electricity, &c., by H. Bence 
 Jones. London, 1852. P. 174. 
 
 t Untersuchungen uber die Physiologie des Electrotonus. 
 Berlin, 1859. 
 
 J A. v. Bezold, Untersuchungen uber die eleldrische Erregung 
 der Nerven und Muskeln. Leipzig, 1861. 
 
118 APPENDIX I. 
 
 emanating from neighbouring roots, but of very 
 unequal length. The person experimented on is 
 desired, as soon as he becomes aware of the shock, 
 or sensation-signal, as it may be termed, to answer it 
 by another signal, volition-signal, which generally 
 consists in making or breaking a circuit at the 
 instant when the sensation-signal is given ; and 
 means are provided for measuring the time, that we 
 shall designate by T, which elapses between the two 
 signals. The time T comprises, firstly, the time 
 required for the transmission of sensation to the 
 brain for its perception there for volition for 
 the transmission of volition to the muscles for 
 muscular contraction; secondly, T comprises the 
 time lost in the purely mechanical and physical 
 process of signaling. This last time, of course, 
 depends upon the experimental method employed, 
 and by suitable arrangement may even be reduced 
 to nothing. Now, should the value of T, when the 
 more distant place on the skin is stimulated, always, 
 and by nearly the same amount, exceed its value 
 when the nearer place is stimulated, then, as every- 
 thing else in both experiments remains the same, 
 the difference of time must obviously depend upon 
 the unequal distance which in both cases the 
 nervous agent has to travel from the place stimulated 
 to the brain. 
 
 This scheme also, in the main, was suggested by 
 Professor Helmholtz, as early as 1850 ;* the first 
 correct results, however, were thus arrived at eleven 
 
 * KonigsbergerNalurwissenschaftliche Unterhaltungen. Bd. ii., 
 Hft. ii. 1851. S. 169. 
 
APPENDIX I. 119 
 
 years later by Dr. Hirsch, the able astronomer of 
 Neuchatel in Switzerland, by means of Hipp's 
 chronoscope, which he so regulated as to obtain the 
 first part of the time T, i. e., that merely occupied^by 
 physiological processes, entirely free from the 
 second.* For that physiological part of the time 
 T, with reference to the part it plays in modern 
 astronomical observation, he proposed the name of 
 physiological time. The subject has since been taken 
 up, and as regards physiology more fully treated by 
 Dr. Schelske, of Berlin, whose experiments were 
 made at the Utrecht Observatory, by means of the 
 chronograph now in use among astronomers for 
 registering their observations. 
 
 In this chronograph, as constructed by Krille, of 
 Hamburg, there is again a rotating cylinder, on 
 whose blackened surface two points or styles, a and b, 
 mark a spiral track. Each of them is fixed to the 
 keeper of an electro-magnet, and, when the keeper 
 is attracted, deviates a little from its path, so as to 
 trace a broken line. The circuit of the magnet A 
 is alternately made and broken by the pendulum of 
 a clock, in accordance wherewith the style a traces 
 a broken line like a a' in Fig. 3, every horizontal 
 segment of which corresponds to one second. The 
 circuit of the magnet B contains the primary coil of 
 the induction apparatus, whose secondary coil is 
 connected with the skin of the person experimented 
 on. Two keys, moreover, form part of this circuit : 
 a lever-key, which, when pressed down, keeps the 
 
 * Moleschott's Untersuclmngen zur Naturlehre des Menschen 
 und der Thiere, Bd. ix., S. 183. 
 
120 APPENDIX I. 
 
 circuit closed by establishing a bridge between two 
 points of it ; and a spring-key, which the person 
 holds in his hand, ready, by it, to make the circuit 
 a^ain after it has been broken by the lever-key. 
 All the rest is very simple, and easily understood 
 
 FIG. 3. 
 
 -3' 
 
 C d / 
 
 when looking at the broken line b V in Fig. 3, which 
 is the record of an experiment as written down by 
 the style 6. At c, the lever-key has been pressed 
 down in order to prepare the experiment. At d, 
 the circuit of the magnet B, and of the primary coil 
 of the induction apparatus, has been broken, and 
 the induction current passed through the skin, all 
 by again lifting the lever-key. At e, the person, 
 having perceived the shock, has made the circuit 
 again by means of the spring-key, and at / has 
 broken it once more, in order to render another 
 experiment possible. So that the distance d e here 
 would correspond to the time we have designated 
 by T, and would be found to be greater or smaller 
 according to the distance the nervous agent had to 
 travel from the stimulated place on the skin to the 
 brain. 
 
 The velocity of the nervous agent in the nerves 
 of common sensation, in the living body of man, 
 has thus been found by Dr. Schelske to be 29-6 
 
APPENDIX I. 121 
 
 metres (97'1 feet) in one second, which is only very 
 little more than the result obtained for the motor 
 nerves of the frog. (See pages 109 and 112.)* 
 
 By similar experiments, Dr. Schelske has ascer- 
 tained that the transmission of sensation through the 
 spinal cord of man takes place at very nearly the 
 same rate as in the nerves. This is the more 
 remarkable, as in other respects the nerve-tubes 
 undergo a material change on entering the spinal 
 cord, where, according to Professor van Been, of 
 Groningen, and others, they are no longer capable 
 of stimulation by electricity, chemical substances, 
 mechanical injuries, &c. 
 
 Considerations suggested by the foregoing Results. 
 The following table affords an opportunity of 
 comparing the velocity of the nervous agent, as it 
 has been established by the foregoing researches, 
 with that of several other agents, or bodies in 
 motion, from which comparison some interesting 
 conclusions may be drawn : 
 
 VELOCITY OF Metres in one second. 
 Electricity in Mr. Wheatstone's ex- 
 periment .... 464,000,000 
 
 Light 300,000,000 
 
 Sound in Iron .... 3,485 
 
 Water .... 1,435 
 
 Air .... 332 
 
 Shooting Star .... 64,380 
 
 Earth in Orbit round Sun . . 30,800 
 
 Earth's Surface at Equator . . 465 
 
 * Reichert's und du Bois-Reymond's Archiv, u. s. w., 1864, 
 S. 151. 
 
122 APPENDIX I. 
 
 VELOCITY OF Metres in one second. 
 
 Cannon-ball .... 552* 
 
 Wind 120 
 
 Eagle's flight .... 35f 
 
 Locomotive . . 27 
 
 Greyhound, Racehorse ... 25 
 
 Nervous Agent .... 2630 
 
 Hand throwing stone 24m '5 high . 21 '9 
 
 Muscular contraction ... 8 1 2 
 
 Arterial wave , . . . 9*25 
 
 Blood in dog's carotid . . . 0'2 0'3 
 
 capillaries . . . 0-00060-0009 
 
 Particles moved by cilia . . 0-00007 
 
 A glance at this table shows that the velocity of 
 the nervous agent, far from being enormously great, 
 as most physiologists formerly supposed, is, on the 
 contrary, wonderfully small. Not only is it beyond 
 any comparison smaller than the velocity of elec- 
 tricity and light, and the so-called planetary veloci- 
 ties, but it is even small when compared to the 
 velocity of sound in different media, or to the initial 
 velocity of a cannon-ball. 
 
 In order better to realize how slowly sensation 
 and volition are transmitted through the nerves, let 
 us suppose that a large whale, which may be thirty 
 metres long (98J feet), has its tail struck by a 
 harpoon. It will then take about one whole second 
 before the pain reaches the huge creature's brain ; 
 and, neglecting even the time required for the 
 
 * Rev. Samuel Haughton, in the Proceedings of the Eoyal 
 Irish Academy, 1862, vol. viii., p. 113. 
 
 t Simmler, Poggendor/'s Annalen, u. s. ic., 1864. Bd. cxxi., 
 S. 331. 
 
APPENDIX I. 123 
 
 processes in the brain, nearly another second will 
 elapse before the order can be telegraphed to the 
 muscles of the tail to capsize the boat. 
 
 Again, suppose the engine-driver on the locomo- 
 tive of an express-train running a mile a minute 
 holds his arm extended towards the tender, and 
 moves his fingers, then the nervous agent in the 
 motor fibres of his arm will rest in space or nearly 
 so, because its motion is destroyed by that of the 
 train, just as a cannon-ball, fired at the equator due 
 west, has its motion destroyed by that of the earth 
 around its axis, and does not strike the wall or the 
 ship's side, but is struck by them. And the same 
 thing will happen with the nervous agent in the 
 sensory fibres of the fireman's arm, if, standing on 
 the tender, he should burn his hand at the loco- 
 motive. 
 
 But also in the racehorse and greyhound, when 
 they are running at full speed, the nervous agent 
 will nearly rest in space, and in the flying eagle it 
 will even be carried in the opposite direction. 
 
 As in these cases the whole body of the animal is 
 darted through space at a rate equal or even superior 
 to that of the nervous agent, it will be less a matter 
 of surprise that a man should be able to move his 
 hand almost as quickly as that agent moves along 
 his nerves. This can be made apparent by the 
 height to which a heavy body, a stone, for instance, 
 may be thrown. Throwing, in fact, is nothing else 
 than imparting the greatest possible velocity to the 
 hand, together with the projectile, and letting this 
 fly when the tangent to the curve, wherein the hand 
 
124 APPENDIX I. 
 
 necessarily moves, points in the proper direction. 
 The initial velocity of the stone, then, can never 
 exceed that of the hand, or the velocity of the 
 hand, on throwing the stone vertically, must have 
 been equal to that with which the falling stone 
 passes through the horizontal plane from which 
 it started. This reasoning leads to the result 
 put down in the table, and it may safely be con- 
 jectured that the same figure also applies with 
 tolerable accuracy to the motion of the fist when 
 striking a blow. 
 
 The arterial wave, which in more superficial 
 arteries is felt as pulse, travels only about three 
 times more slowly than the nervous agent, according 
 to Professor E. H. Weber's observations.* 
 
 By the velocity of the muscular contraction, we 
 understand the rate at which the wave of contraction 
 runs along the fibre, when one end of the muscle is 
 stimulated. This rate has been ascertained by 
 Professor Aeby, now of Berne, by experiments 
 made on the muscles of frogs poisoned with Curare, 
 in order to exclude the co-operation of the nerves, 
 and by means of a myographion, on whose cylinder 
 two styles marked their track. The lever bearing 
 each style rested on the muscle with a sort of 
 crutch, and, when the wave of contraction passed 
 under the crutch, it was raised by the thickening of 
 the muscle. Two curves were thus obtained, whose 
 horizontal distance was equal to the distance of the 
 styles, plus the distance corresponding on the 
 
 * De pulsu, resorptione, auditu et tactu. Annotationes 
 anatomies et physiologies, &c. Lipsise, 1831. 4, p. 2. 
 
APPENDIX I. 125 
 
 cylinder to the time spent by the wave of contrac- 
 tion in travelling from the first to the second 
 crutch. The velocity of the contraction thus ob- 
 tained, falls as much short of that anticipated by 
 theory, as did that of the nervous agent ; being, in 
 fact, even in muscles fresh from the body of the 
 frog, only about one yard in one second.* 
 
 Time required for Reflex Action in the Spinal 
 Cord. The conduction of sensation in the spinal 
 cord, according to Dr. Schelske's above-mentioned 
 experiments, takes place at nearly, perhaps quite, 
 the same rate as in the nerves ; but a great delay is 
 occasioned by the so-called reflex action, when the 
 sensation, impinging upon the spinal cord, starts an 
 involuntary motion by the intervention of the 
 ganglionic cells. By experiments performed on 
 frogs poisoned with strychnia, Professor Helmholtz 
 has found that the reflex contraction happens from 
 -j^ to T T o- of a second later than the contraction 
 directly produced by the same induced current ; 
 from which observation it may be concluded, that 
 the reflex action in the spinal cord takes more than 
 twelve times the time required for the transmission 
 of the stimulation through the sensory and the 
 motor nerves. | This is doubly interesting, because 
 it was chiefly by the impossibility of catching with 
 
 * Dr. Ch. Aeby, Untersuchungen uber die Fortpflanz- 
 ungsgeschwindigkeit der Eeizung in der quergestreiften Muslcel- 
 faser. Braunschweig, 1862. 
 
 t Monatsberichte der Berliner Akademie der Wissens- 
 chaften, 1854. S. 332. 
 
126 APPENDIX I. 
 
 the eye the slightest lapse of time between the 
 stimulation and the reflex contraction that John 
 Miiller had been induced to admit, as we have 
 pointed out, so enormous a velocity for the nervous 
 
 agent.* 
 
 Time required for Sensation and Volition in the 
 Brain. More recently researches of this kind have 
 been extended even to the time required for one of 
 the simplest operations of the brain, viz., the act of 
 sensation and subsequent volition. Dr. de Jaager, 
 in Professor Donders's laboratory, in Utrecht, first 
 repeated Dr. Schelske's experiment on the trans- 
 mission of sensation in the human body ; but with 
 this modification, that the shock could at will be 
 given either on the right or on the left side. In 
 one set of experiments, the person had to answer the 
 right-side shock with a spring-key in his right 
 hand, the left-side shock with a similar key in his 
 left hand ; and he knew, beforehand, on which side 
 he was going to be stimulated, and, therefore, would 
 have to answer. In another set of experiments the 
 side was not known beforehand, and the person, 
 after having received the shock, had first to consider 
 which side had been struck, and with which hand, 
 accordingly, he had to act. Now the mean result 
 in the first case was . . T! = *205 sec. 
 in the second T 2 = -272 
 
 and the difference T^T^ =-067 
 * L. c., p. 583. 
 
APPENDIX I. 127 
 
 is obviously the time spent in the operation of the 
 brain required in the second, and not required in 
 the first case. 
 
 The physiological time necessary for answering 
 a signal given to the eye has also been determined 
 by Dr. Hirsch by means of Hipp's chronoscope, 
 regulated so as to eliminate the error in time 
 resulting from the working of the apparatus. The 
 sensation-signal being an electric spark, -204 of a 
 second elapsed before the volition-signal could be 
 given; but if, while watching the rapidly-moving 
 hand of the chronoscope, the observer proposed to 
 stop it at a given position on the dial (by throwing 
 it out of gear, which with this chronoscope is the 
 mode of making a volition-signal), only -077 of a 
 second were required for doing so. 
 
 Dr. de Jaager repeated these experiments with 
 his chronograph and with variously coloured light, 
 and he found that with red as well as with white 
 light, '200 of a second on the average were required 
 for answering the signal. This figure cannot be 
 compared directly with Dr. Hirsch' s figures, with 
 the first of which it so closely agrees, because 
 Dr. de Jaager's observations represent the time T, 
 those of Dr. Hirsch the physiological time only. 
 In these trials the colour of the light to appear was 
 known to the person, and he simply had to answer 
 the signal with the right or with the left hand, 
 according to what had been agreed upon before- 
 hand. In other experiments, however, the colour 
 of the light was not known, and it was agreed that 
 red light should be answered with the right, white 
 
128 APPENDIX I. 
 
 light with the left hand. Here the time required 
 for answering was found = '355 sec., that is, '154 
 of a second longer than in the first case, the latter 
 figure again representing the time spent in the 
 operation of the brain. 
 
 The physiological time intervening between a 
 signal received by the ear and answered by Hipp's 
 chronoscope has been found by Dr. Hirsch to be 
 149 sec. Dr. de Jaager, in company with Professor 
 Donders, has had recourse to quite another method 
 for determining the same time. He has applied to 
 this purpose Mr. Scott's phonautograph, as con- 
 structed by M. Konig, of Paris. In this apparatus 
 a membrane partakes of the vibrations of any 
 sounding body placed opposite the mouth of a 
 paraboloid cavity over whose bottom that membrane 
 is stretched ; and a point connected with the mem- 
 brane traces curves, indicative of its vibrations, on 
 a blackened cylinder, on which simultaneously a 
 tuning-fork records the time. Two persons, A and 
 B, separated by a screen, sit down before the 
 phonautograph. A utters some sharp, explosive 
 syllable, such as ka, ke, M, or the like. B endea- 
 vours to repeat the syllable as quickly as possible. 
 The instant at which both persons have begun to 
 utter the sound is plainly discernible in the track 
 of the style on the cylinder. Now, if the syllable 
 to be repeated has been agreed upon before, the 
 time required varies from -180 sec. to -250 sec., 
 according to the person experimented upon, and to 
 practice ; but if the syllable be unknown, about 
 088 sec. more are necessary for answering the 
 
APPENDIX I. 129 
 
 signal.* It thus appears that " quick as thought " 
 is, after all, not so very quick. 
 
 Concluding Remarks. The preceding results are 
 not entirely without a practical bearing. In medi- 
 cine, it is true, they have not yet been applied, 
 although, perhaps, in cases of paralysis, the velocity 
 of the nervous agent will be found diminished, and 
 diagnostic signs, more or less important, might be 
 derived therefrom. But as, strange to say, the 
 warlike art of gunnery first supplied physiology 
 with the means of measuring the velocity of the 
 nervous agent, so again it is a science apparently 
 far remote from this field of inquiry, astronomy, 
 which is the first to benefit by the progress achieved 
 in it. Astronomical observations, as regards the 
 exact determination of time, have hitherto attained 
 only a limited perfection. Till very recently, in- 
 deed, though the observations of the same astronomer 
 might agree ever so closely, still, between the 
 observations of several, even first-rate astronomers, 
 discrepancies occurred of one second and more, 
 resulting from the different estimate formed by the 
 observers of the time between the passage of the 
 star at the cross-wire and the next beat of the clock. 
 This uncertainty as to the real time of an astro- 
 nomical event has been greatly diminished by the 
 introduction into observatories of the electric chrono- 
 graph. It still subsists, however, and the only way 
 of removing it as completely as possible seems to 
 
 * De physiologische Tijd bij psychische Processen, Acade- 
 misch Proefschri/t, &c. Utrecht, 1 Julij, 1865. 
 
 K 
 
130 APPENDIX I. 
 
 be that adopted by Dr. Hirsch, viz., to ascertain by 
 appropriate experiments the time required for 
 registering the passage at the cross-wire of an 
 artificial star moving at a rate similar to that of the 
 real stars, and thus, for the knowledge of the 
 personal equation of two observers, to substitute that 
 of their personal corrections, the difference of which 
 corresponds to their personal equation.* 
 
 As to the theory of the nervous agent, now that 
 we know that this agent moves more than ten times 
 less quickly than sound in air, every attempt to 
 identify it with the electric current as it circulates 
 in a telegraph-wire must appear hopeless, even if a 
 circuit, such as would be necessary for the supposed 
 nerve current to circulate in, were anatomically 
 demonstrated. Thus to the other arguments against 
 this view of the nervous agent that the resistance 
 of the nerve-tubes would be far too great for any 
 battery to send an available current through them 
 that the physiological insulation of the nerve-tubes 
 from each other would be impossible to explain 
 that the effect of ligature or of cutting the nerve 
 and causing its ends to meet again, would be equally 
 obscure to these arguments, unanswerable as they 
 are in themselves, the researches sketched in this 
 lecture have added corroborative evidence of the 
 highest order. What we have termed the nervous 
 agent, if we look upon its very small velocity, in all 
 probability is some internal motion, perhaps even 
 
 * Plantamour et Hirsch, Determination te'le'graphique de 
 la difference de longitude entre les Observatoires de Geneve et 
 de Neuchdtel. Geneve et Bale, 1864. 4, p. 89. 
 
APPENDIX I. 131 
 
 some chemical change, of the substance itself con- 
 tained in the nerve-tubes, spreading along the tubes, 
 according to the speaker's experiments, both ways 
 from any point where the equilibrium has been 
 disturbed; being capable of an almost infinite 
 number of variations or gradations, and of so 
 peculiar a character as to require the unimpaired 
 condition of the nervous structure. It would be out 
 of place on the present occasion to venture upon 
 any more definite statement regarding the nature 
 of the nervous agent, although the progress recently 
 made in this line, chiefly by the modern school of 
 German physiologists, already affords the means of 
 doing so, and of discussing the merits and defects 
 of several solutions proposed. It may not, however, 
 be inappropriate to remark, that although the 
 electric theory of the nervous agent, in the sense 
 just alluded to, cannot any longer be thought of (as 
 little, indeed, as with any degree of probability it 
 ever could), yet it would be rash, as the matter 
 stands, entirely to dismiss the notion of electricity 
 being concerned, and even playing a prominent 
 part, in the internal mechanism of the nerves. 
 The electric currents discovered in the nerves by 
 the speaker four-and-twenty years ago ; the remark- 
 able changes which these currents undergo when- 
 ever the nervous agent is called into action; the 
 wonderful phenomena of electric fish ; those of the 
 muscles and glands ; finally, the extreme sensitive- 
 ness of the nerves for electricity however applied, 
 and the beautiful and peculiar laws which govern 
 their reaction thereupon, all these are facts which 
 
132 APPENDIX 1. 
 
 certainly ought not to be disregarded as long as the 
 close connection which they seem to indicate be- 
 tween the two agents has not otherwise proved a 
 fallacy. Nor is it by any means impossible to frame 
 an electrical hypothesis of the nervous agent such 
 as would embrace that newly-discovered feature of 
 it, which has formed the subject of this lecture 
 its comparative sluggishness. If the electro-motive 
 molecules, by which the speaker has tried to account 
 for the electro-motive effects of the nerves, muscles, 
 and electrical organs viz., minute centres of chemi- 
 cal action, all arranged regularly so as to turn 
 homologous sides the same way are conceived to 
 act upon each other electrically, mutually deter- 
 mining their position of equilibrium and controlling 
 their deviations from it, in such a system, though 
 electricity were the connecting link of the whole 
 and the means of transmitting power through it, 
 the rate of transmission would be independent of 
 that of electricity, and might in proportion to it be 
 almost infinitesimal ; it might, indeed, be what the 
 rate of transmission of the nervous agent really is. 
 
 The speaker concluded by exhibiting a model of 
 such a system in which the electro-motive molecules 
 were represented by astatic needles ; a more detailed 
 account of which, however, cannot well be given 
 here. 
 
APPENDIX II. 
 
 ON THE SOURCE OF MUSCULAR POWER. 
 A LECTUKE GIVEN AT THE EOYAL INSTITUTION, 
 
 BY EDWARD FRANKLAND, Ph.D., F.R.S. 
 
 Professor of Chemistry, R.I. 
 
 Introduction. What is the source of muscular power ? 
 Twenty years ago, if this question had been asked, 
 there were but few philosophers who would have hesi- 
 tated to reply, " The source of muscular power is that 
 peculiar force which is developed by living animals, 
 and which we term the vital force /" But the progress 
 of scientific discovery has rendered the view implied 
 in such an answer so utterly untenable that, at the 
 present moment, no one possessing any knowledge 
 of physical science would venture to return such a 
 reply. We now know that an animal, however high 
 its organization may be, can no more generate an 
 amount of force capable of moving a grain of sand, 
 than a stone can fall upwards or a locomotive drive 
 a train without fuel. All that such an animal can 
 do is to liberate that store of force, or potential 
 energy, which is locked up in its food. It is the 
 
131 APPENDIX II. 
 
 cliemical change which food suffers in the body of an 
 animal that liberates the previously pent-up forces 
 of that food, which now make their appearance in 
 the form of actual energy as heat and mechanical 
 motion. 
 
 From food, and food alone, comes the matter of 
 which the animal body is built up ; and from food 
 alone come all the different kinds of physical force 
 which an animal is capable of manifesting. 
 
 The two chief forms of force thus manifested are 
 Heat and Muscular motion or mechanical work, and 
 these have been almost universally traced to two 
 distinct sources the heat to the oxidation of the 
 food, and the mechanical work to the oxidation of the 
 
 This doctrine, first promulgated, the speaker 
 believed, by Liebig, occupies a prominent position 
 in that philosopher's justly celebrated Cliemico- 
 Pliysiological Essays. 
 
 In his work entitled Die organische Chemie in 
 Hirer Anwendung auf Physiologic und Pathologie, 
 Braunschweig, 1842, Liebig says : " All experience 
 teaches that there is only one source of mechanical 
 power in the organism, and this source is the trans- 
 formation of the living parts of the body into life- 
 less compounds. . . . This transformation occurs in 
 consequence of the combination of oxygen with the 
 substance of the living parts of the body." And 
 again, in his Letters on Chemistry, 1851, p. 366, 
 referring to these living parts of the body, he says : 
 " All these organized tissues, all the parts which 
 in any way manifest force in the body are derived 
 
APPENDIX II. 135 
 
 from the albumen of the blood ; all the albumen of 
 the blood is derived from the plastic or sanguineous 
 constituents of the food, whether animal or vege- 
 table. It is clear, therefore, that the plastic con- 
 stituents of food, the ultimate source of which is 
 the vegetable kingdom, are the conditions essential 
 to all production or manifestation of force, to all 
 these effects which the animal organism produces 
 by means of its organs of sense, thought, and 
 motion." And again, at page 374, he says : " The 
 sulphurized and nitrogenous constituents of food 
 determine the continuance of the manifestations of 
 force; the non-nitrogenous serve to produce heat. 
 The former are the builders of organs and organized 
 structures, and the producers of force ; the latter 
 support the respiratory process, they are materials 
 for respiration." 
 
 This doctrine has since been treated as an almost 
 self-evident truth in most physiological text-books ; 
 it has been quite recently supported by Ranke;* 
 and, in his lecture On the Food of Man in relation 
 to his Useful Work, 1865, Playfair says, page 37 : 
 " From the considerations which have preceded, we 
 consider Liebig amply justified in viewing the non- 
 nitrogenous portions of food as mere heat-givers. . . . 
 While we have been led to the conclusion that the 
 transformation of the tissues is the source of 
 dynamical power in the animal." At page 30 he 
 also says : " I agree with Draper and others in 
 considering the contraction of a muscle due to a 
 disintegration of its particles, and its relaxation to 
 
 * Tetanus eine Physiologische Studie. Leipzig. 1865. 
 
136 APPENDIX II. 
 
 their restoration. . . . All these facts prove that 
 transformation of the muscle through the agency of 
 oxygen is the condition of muscular action." 
 Finally, in a masterly review of the present re- 
 lations of chemistry to animal life, published in 
 March last, * Odling says, page 98 : " Seeing, then, 
 that muscular exertion is really dependent upon 
 muscular oxidation, we have to consider what should 
 be the products, and what the value of this oxida- 
 tion." And again, page 103 : " The slow oxida- 
 tion of so much carbon and hydrogen in the 
 human body, therefore, will always produce its due 
 amount of heat, or an equivalent in some other form 
 of energy ; for while the latent force liberated by 
 the combustion of the carbon and hydrogen of fat is 
 expressed solely in the form of heat, the combustion 
 of an equal quantity of the carbon and hydrogen of 
 voluntary muscle is expressed chiefly in the form of 
 motion" 
 
 Nevertheless, this view of the origin of muscular 
 power has not escaped challenge. Immediately 
 after its first promulgation, Dr. J. K. Mayer wrote :f 
 " A muscle is only an apparatus by means of which 
 the transformation of force is effected, but it is not the 
 material by the chemical change of which mechanical 
 work is produced." He showed that the 15 Ibs. of 
 dry muscles of a man weighing 150 Ibs. would, if 
 their mechanical work were due to their chemical 
 change, be completely oxidized in 80 days, the heart 
 
 * Lectures on Animal Chemistry. 
 
 t Die organische Bewegung in ihrem Zusammenhange mil 
 dem Sto/wechsel, 1845. 
 

 APPENDIX II. 137 
 
 itself in 8 days, and the ventricles of the heart in 
 2J days. After endeavouring to prove by physi- 
 ological arguments that not one per cent, of the 
 oxygen absorbed in the lungs could possibly come 
 into contact with the substance of the muscles, 
 Mayer says : " The fire-place in which this com- 
 bustion goes on is the interior of the blood-vessels, 
 the blood however a slowly-burning liquid is the 
 oil in the flame of life. . . . Just as a plant-leaf 
 transforms a given mechanical effect, light, into 
 another force, chemical difference, so does the muscle 
 produce mechanical work at the cost of the chemical 
 difference Consumed in its capillaries. Heat can 
 neither replace the sun's rays for the plant, nor the 
 chemical process in the animal : every act of motion 
 in an animal is attended by the consumption of 
 oxygen and the production of carbonic acid and 
 water ; every muscle to which atmospheric oxygen 
 does not gain access ceases to perform its functions." 
 But Mayer was not the first to conceive this view 
 of muscular action. Nearly 200 years ago, a Bath 
 physician, Dr. John Mayow,* distinctly stated that 
 for the production of muscular motion two things 
 are necessary the conveyance of combustible sub- 
 stances to the muscle by the blood, and the access of 
 oxygen by respiration. He concluded that the chief 
 combustible substance so used was fat. A century 
 before Priestley isolated oxygen, Mayow was aware 
 of its existence in the air, in nitre, and in nitric 
 acid ; he knew that combustion is supported by the 
 
 * De Motu muscular i, 1681. Mayow was bora in 1645, 
 and died 1679. 
 
138 APPENDIX II. 
 
 oxygen of the air, and that this gas is absorbed in 
 the lungs by the blood, and is absolutely necessary 
 for muscular activity. 
 
 For two centuries this doctrine sank into oblivion ; 
 and it is only within the last two years that it has 
 been again advanced, chiefly by Haidenhain,* 
 Traube, and, to a limited extent, by Donders.f 
 
 Experimental evidence was, however, still want- 
 ing to give permanent vitality to the resuscitated 
 doctrine; for although the laborious and remarkable 
 investigations of VoitJ and of Edward Smith point 
 unmistakably in the direction of Mayow and Mayer's 
 hypothesis, yet the results of these physiologists 
 were not sufficiently conclusive to render the 
 opposite view untenable. This want of data of a 
 sufficiently conclusive character has been supplied 
 by a happily conceived experiment undertaken by 
 Fick and Wislicenus in the autumn of 1865, and 
 described in the Philosophical Magazine, vol. xxxi., 
 p. 485. In the application of these data, however, 
 to the problem now under consideration, one 
 important link was found to be wanting, viz., the 
 amount of actual energy generated by the oxidation 
 
 * Mechanische Leistung Wdrmeentwickelung und Stoffum- 
 satz lei der Muskdthatigleeit, 1864. 
 
 t As this is passing through the press, the speaker has 
 become aware that Messrs. Lawes and Gilbert advocated this 
 doctrine in 1852, and repeatedly since ; their opinions being 
 founded upon experiments on the feeding of cattle. 
 
 t Untersuchungen uber den Einfluss des Kochsalzes, des 
 Kaffee's und der Muskel-lewegungen auf den Sto/wedisel, 
 p. 150, Munich, 1860. 
 
 Phil Trans., 1861, p. 747. 
 
APPENDIX II. 139 
 
 of a given weight of muscle in the human body. 
 Fick and Wislicenus refer to this missing link in 
 the following words : " The question now arises 
 what quantity of heat is generated when muscle is 
 burnt to the products in which its constituent 
 elements leave the human body through the lungs 
 and kidneys ? At present, unfortunately, there are 
 not the experimental data required to give an 
 accurate answer to this important question, for 
 neither the heat of combustion of muscle nor of the 
 nitrogenous residue (urea) of muscle is known." 
 Owing to the want of these data, the numerical 
 results of the experiment of Fick and Wislicenus are 
 rendered less conclusive against the hypothesis of 
 muscle combustion than they otherwise would have 
 been, whilst similar determinations, which have been 
 made by Edward Smith, Haughton, Playfair, and 
 others, are even liable to a total misinterpretation 
 from the same cause. 
 
 The speaker stated that he had supplied this want 
 by the calorimetrical determination of the actual 
 energy evolved by the combustion of muscle and of 
 urea in oxygen. Availing himself of these data he 
 then proceeded to the consideration of the problem 
 to be solved, the present condition of which might 
 be thus summed up : It is agreed on all hands that 
 muscular power is derived exclusively from the 
 mutual chemical action of the food and atmospheric 
 oxygen ; but opinions differ as to whether that food 
 must first be converted into the actual organized 
 substance of the muscle, before its oxidation can 
 give rise to mechanical force, or whether it is not 
 
140 APPENDIX II. 
 
 also possible that muscular work may be derived 
 from the oxidation of the food, which has only 
 arrived at the condition of blood and not of or- 
 ganized muscular tissue. 
 
 The importance of this problem can scarcely be 
 overrated ; it is a corner-stone of the physiological 
 edifice, and the key to the phenomena of the 
 nutrition of animals. For its satisfactory solution 
 the following data require to be determined : 
 
 1st. The amount of force or actual energy gene- 
 rated by the oxidation of a given amount of muscle 
 in the body. 
 
 2nd. The amount of mechanical force exerted by 
 the muscles of the body during a given time. 
 
 3rd. The quantity of muscle oxidized in the body 
 during the same time. 
 
 If the total amount of force involved in muscular 
 action, as measured by the mechanical work per- 
 formed, be greater than that which could possibly 
 be generated by the quantity of muscle oxidized 
 during the same time, it necessarily follows that 
 the power of the muscles is not derived exclusively 
 from the oxidation of their own substance. 
 
 Istly. As regards the first datum to be determined, 
 it is necessary to agree upon some unit for the 
 measurement of mechanical force. The unit of 
 force most commonly adopted is that represented 
 by the lifting of a kilogram weight to the height of 
 one metre. The researches of Joule and Mayer 
 have connected this standard unit with heat ; they 
 prove that the force required to elevate this weight 
 425 times will, when converted into heat, raise the 
 
APPENDIX II. 141 
 
 temperature of an equal weight of water 1 C. If 
 this weight were let fall from a height of 425 
 metres, its collision with the earth would produce 
 an amount of heat sufficient to raise the temperature 
 of 1 kilogram of water 1 C. The same heating 
 effect would also of course be produced by the fall 
 of 425 kilograms through 1 metre. This standard 
 of force is termed a metrekilogravfr ;* and 425 metre- 
 kilograms are equal to that amount of heat which is 
 necessary to raise the temperature of 1 kilogram of 
 water through 1 C. If then it be found that 
 the heat evolved by the combustion of a certain 
 weight of charcoal or muscle, for instance, raises 
 the temperature of 1 kilogram of water through 
 1 C., this means, when translated into mechanical 
 power, 425 metrekilograms. Again, if a man 
 weighing 64 kilograms climbs to a height of 1,000 
 metres, the ascent of his body to this height re- 
 presents 64,000 metrekilograms of work; that is, 
 the labour necessary to raise a kilogram weight to 
 the height of 1 metre 64,000 times. 
 
 In order to estimate the amount of actual energy 
 generated by the oxidation of a given amount of 
 muscle in the body, it is necessary to determine, 
 first, the amount of actual energy generated by the 
 combustion of that amount of muscle in oxygen, and 
 then to deduct from the number thus obtained the 
 amount of energy still remaining in the products of 
 the oxidation of this quantity of muscle which leave 
 the body. Of these products, urea and uric and 
 
 * I follow the example of the Registrar-General in abbre- 
 viating the French word gramme to gram. 
 
142 APPENDIX II. 
 
 hippuric acids are the only ones in appreciable 
 quantity which still retain potential energy on 
 leaving the body, and of these the two latter are 
 excreted in such small proportions that they may be 
 considered as urea without introducing any material 
 error into the results. 
 
 These determinations were made in Lewis Thomp- 
 son's calorimeter, ^vhich consists of a copper tube 
 to contain a mixture of chlorate of potash with the 
 combustible substance, and which can be enclosed in 
 a kind of diving-bell, also of copper, and so lowered 
 to the bottom of a suitable vessel containing a 
 known quantity (2 litres) of water. The deter- 
 minations were made with this instrument in the 
 following manner : 19' 5 grams of chlorate of pot- 
 ash, to which about -|th of peroxide of manganese 
 was added, was intimately mixed with a known 
 weight (generally about 2 grams) of the substance 
 whose potential energy was to be determined, and 
 the mixture being then placed in the copper tube 
 above mentioned, a small piece of cotton thread 
 previously steeped in chlorate of potash and dried 
 was inserted in the mixture. The temperature of 
 the water in the calorimeter was now carefully 
 ascertained by a delicate thermometer ; and the end 
 of the cotton thread being ignited, the tube with its 
 contents was placed in the copper bell and lowered 
 to the bottom of the water. As soon as the com- 
 bustion reached the mixture a stream of gases issued 
 from numerous small openings at the lower edge of 
 the bell and rose to the surface of the water a 
 height of about 1.0 inches. 
 
APPENDIX II. 143 
 
 At the termination of the deflagration, the water 
 was allowed free access to the interior of the bell, 
 by opening a stopcock connected with the bell by a 
 small tube rising above the surface of the water in 
 the calorimeter. The gases in the interior of the 
 bell were thus displaced by the incumbent column 
 of water, and by moving the bell up and down re- 
 peatedly a perfect equilibrium of temperature 
 throughout the entire mass of water was quickly 
 established. The temperature of the water was 
 again carefully observed, and the difference between 
 this and the previous observation determines the 
 calorific power or potential energy, expressed as 
 heat, of the substance consumed. 
 
 The value thus obtained is, however, obviously 
 subject to the following corrections : - 
 
 1. The amount of heat absorbed by the calori- 
 meter and apparatus employed, to be added. 
 
 2. The amount of heat carried away by the 
 escaping gases, after issuing from the water, to be 
 added. 
 
 3. The amount of heat due to the decomposition 
 of the chlorate of potash employed, to be deducted. 
 
 4. The amount of heat equivalent to the work 
 performed by the gases generated in overcoming the 
 pressure of the atmosphere, to be added. 
 
 Although the errors due to these causes to some 
 extent neutralize each other, there is still an out- 
 standing balance of sufficient importance to require 
 that the necessary corrections should be carefully 
 attended to. 
 
 The amount of error from the first cause was once for 
 
144 APPENDIX II. 
 
 all experimentally determined, and was added to the 
 increase of temperature observed in each experiment. 
 The amount of heat carried away by the escaping 
 gases after issuing from the water may be divided 
 into two items, viz. : 
 
 a. The amount of heat rendered latent by the 
 water which is carried off by the gases in the form 
 of vapour. 
 
 b. The amount of heat carried off by these gases 
 by reason of their temperature being above that of 
 the water from which they issue. 
 
 It was ascertained that a stream of dry air when 
 passed through the water of the calorimeter, at 
 about the same rate and for the same period of time 
 as the gaseous products of combustion, depressed the 
 temperature of the water by only 0< 02 C. 
 
 By placing a delicate thermometer in the escaping 
 gases, and another in the water, no appreciable 
 difference of temperature could be observed. Both 
 these items may therefore be safely neglected. 
 
 The two remaining corrections can be best con- 
 sidered together, since a single careful determina- 
 tion eliminates both. When a combustible sub- 
 stance is burnt in gaseous oxjsgen, the conditions 
 are essentially different from those which obtain 
 when the same substance is consumed at the expense 
 of the combined or solid oxygen of chlorate of pot- 
 ash. In the first case the. products of combustion, 
 when cooled to the temperature of the water in the 
 calorimeter, occupy less space than the substances 
 concerned in the combustion, and no part of the 
 energy developed is therefore expended in external 
 
APPENDIX II. 145 
 
 work, that is, in overcoming the pressure of the 
 atmosphere. In the second case, both the combus- 
 tible and the supporter of combustion are in the 
 solid condition, whilst a considerable proportion of 
 the products of combustion are gases. The genera- 
 tion of the latter cannot take place without the per- 
 formance of external work, for every cubic inch pro- 
 duced must obviously, in overcoming atmospheric 
 pressure, perform an amount of work equivalent, in 
 round numbers, to the lifting of a weight of 15 Ibs. 
 to the height of one inch. In performing this work 
 the gases are cooled, and consequently less heat is 
 communicated to the water of the calorimeter. 
 Nevertheless, the loss of heat due to this cause is 
 but small. Under the actual conditions of the 
 experiments detailed below, its amount would only 
 have increased the temperature of the water in the 
 calorimeter by 0'07 C. Even this slight error is 
 entirely eliminated by the final correction which we 
 have now to consider. 
 
 It is well known that the decomposition of 
 chlorate of potash into chloride of potassium and 
 free oxygen is attended with the evolution of heat. 
 If a few grains of peroxide of manganese, or better, 
 of peroxide of iron, be dropped into an ounce or two 
 of fused chlorate of potash which is slowly disen- 
 gaging oxygen, the evolution of gas immediately 
 proceeds with great violence, and the mixture be- 
 comes visibly red hot, although the external applica- 
 tion of heat be discontinued from the moment when 
 the metallic peroxide is added. The latter remains 
 unaltered at the close of the operation. It is thus 
 
 L 
 
146 APPENDIX II. 
 
 obvious that chlorate of potash, on being decomposed, 
 furnishes considerably more heat than that which is 
 necessary to gasify the oxygen which it evolves. It 
 was therefore necessary to determine the amount of 
 heat thus evolved by the quantity of chlorate of 
 potash (9'75 grams) mixed with one gram of the 
 substance burnt in each of the following determina- 
 tions. This was effected by the use of two copper 
 tubes, the one placed within the other. The interior 
 tube was charged with a known weight of the same 
 mixture of chlorate of potash and peroxide of manga- 
 nese as that used for the subsequent experiments, 
 whilst the annular space between the two tubes was 
 filled with a combustible mixture of chlorate and sper- 
 maceti, the calorific value of which had been previously 
 ascertained. The latter mixture was ignited in the 
 calorimeter as before, and the heat generated during 
 its combustion effected the complete decomposition 
 of the chlorate in the interior cylinder, as was 
 proved by a subsequent examination of the liquid in 
 the calorimeter, which contained no traces of unde- 
 composed chlorate. The following are the results 
 of five experiments thus made, expressed in units of 
 heat, the unit being equal to 1 gram of water raised 
 through 1 C. of temperature : 
 
 Units of Heat. 
 
 1st experiment 340 
 
 2nd 300 
 
 3rd 375 
 
 4th , 438 
 
 5th 438 
 
 5)1891 
 Mean 378 
 
APPENDIX II. 147 
 
 This result was confirmed by the following ex- 
 periments : 
 
 1. Starch was burnt, firstly, in a current of oxygen 
 gas, and secondly, by admixture with chlorate of 
 potash and peroxide of manganese. 
 
 Heat units furnished by one gram of starch burnt 
 with 9'75 grams chlorate of potash . . 4290 
 
 Heat units furnished by the same weight of starch 
 
 burnt in a stream of oxygen gas .... 3964 
 
 Difference ..... 326 
 
 2nd. Phenylic alcohol was burnt with chlorate of 
 potash, and the result compared with the calorific 
 value of this substance as determined by Favre and 
 Silbermann. 
 
 Heat units furnished by one gram of phenylic al- 
 cohol burnt with 9'75 grams chlorate of potash 8183 
 
 Heat units furnished by one gram of phenylic 
 alcohol when burnt with gaseous oxygen (Favre 
 and Silbermann) 7842 
 
 Difference ...... 341 
 
 These three determinations of the heat evolved by 
 the decomposition of 9 '75 grams of chlorate of pot- 
 ash, furnishing the numbers 378, 326, and 341, 
 agree as closely as could be expected, when it is 
 considered that all experimental errors are neces- 
 sarily thrown upon the calorific value of the chlorate 
 of potash. 
 
 The mean of the above five experimental numbers 
 was, in all cases, deducted from the actual values 
 read off in the following determinations. 
 
 It was ascertained by numerous trials that all 
 
148 
 
 APPENDIX TI. 
 
 the chlorate of potash was decomposed in the defla- 
 grations, and that but mere traces of carbonic oxide 
 were produced. 
 
 Joule's mechanical equivalent of heat was em- 
 ployed, viz., 1 kilogram of water raised 1 C. = 423 
 metrekilograms of force, or one unit of heat. 
 
 The following results were obtained : 
 
 Actual energy developed lyone gram of each substance when 
 "burnt in oxygen. 
 
 Name of Sub- 
 stance dried at 
 100 C. 
 
 HEAT UNITS. 
 
 Metre- 
 kilograms 
 offeree 
 Qlean.)* 
 
 1st Ex- 2nd Ex- 3rd Ex- 
 periment periment periment 
 
 4th Ex- 
 periment 
 
 Mean. 
 
 Beef Muscle puri-] 
 fied by repeated 1 
 washing with [ 
 ether . .) 
 
 5174 
 
 5062 
 
 5195 
 
 5088 
 
 5103 
 
 2161 
 
 Purified Albumen 
 
 5009 
 
 4987 
 
 
 .. 
 
 4998 
 
 2117 
 
 Beef Fat . . . 
 
 9069 
 
 
 
 
 9069 
 
 3841 
 
 Hippuric Acid . 
 
 5330 
 
 5437 
 
 .. 
 
 
 5383 
 
 2280 
 
 Uric Acid . . 
 
 2645 
 
 2585 
 
 .. 
 
 .. 
 
 2615 
 
 1108 
 
 Ureaf . . . 
 
 2121 
 
 2302 
 
 2207 
 
 2197 
 
 2206 
 
 934 
 
 It is evident that the above determination of the 
 actual energy developed by the combustion of muscle 
 in oxygen represents more than the amount of 
 actual energy produced by the oxidation of muscle 
 within the body, because, when muscle burns in 
 oxygen its carbon is converted into carbonic acid, 
 and its hydrogen into water ; the nitrogen being, to 
 a great extent, evolved in the elementary state ; 
 
 * Got by multiplying units of heat by -423. 
 f The speaker showed the combustibility of urea by 
 burning it upon asbestos in a jar of oxygen gas. 
 
APPENDIX II. 149 
 
 whereas, when muscle is most completely consumed 
 in the body, the products are carbonic acid, water 
 and urea ; the whole of the nitrogen passes out of 
 the body as urea a substance which still retains a 
 considerable amount of potential energy. Dry 
 muscle and pure albumen yield, under these circum- 
 stances, almost exactly one-third of their weight of 
 urea, and this fact, together with the above determi- 
 nation of the actual energy developed on the com- 
 bustion of urea, enables us to deduce with certainty 
 the amount of actual energy developed by muscle 
 and albumen respectively when consumed in the 
 human body. It is as follows : 
 
 Actual energy developed "by one gram, of each substance token 
 consumed in the body. 
 
 Name of substance dried at 100 C. 
 
 Heat units 
 (Mean.) 
 
 Metrekilograms 
 of force. 
 (Mean.) 
 
 Beef Muscle purified by ether . . 
 Purified Albumen . . 
 
 4368 
 4263 
 
 1848 
 1803 
 
 
 
 
 2ndly. We have thus ascertained the first of our 
 three data, viz., the amount of force or actual energy 
 generated by the oxidation of a given amount of muscle 
 in the body ; and we now proceed to ascertain the 
 second, viz., the amount of mechanical force exerted 
 by the muscles of the body during a given time. 
 For this purpose we have only to avail ourselves of 
 the details of Tick and Wislicenus's conclusive 
 experiment already referred to, and which consisted 
 in the ascent of the Faulhorn in Switzerland from 
 
150 APPENDIX II. 
 
 the lake of Brienz. This mountain can be ascended 
 by a very steep path from Iseltwald, which was of 
 course favourable for the experiment, and there is 
 an hotel on the summit which allowed the experi- 
 menters to pass the following night under tolerably 
 normal circumstances. The following is their own 
 description and estimate of the amount of work per- 
 formed in the ascent.* 
 
 " Let us now inquire how much work was really 
 really done by our muscles. One item necessary 
 for the reply is already at hand, viz., the height of 
 the summit of the Faulhorn above the level of the 
 lake of Brienz multiplied by the weight of the 
 body ; the former reckoned in metres, the latter in 
 kilograms. The weight of the body with the equip- 
 ments (hat, clothes, stick) amounted to 66 kilo- 
 grams in Fick's case, and 76 in Wislicenus's. The 
 height of the Faulhorn above the level of the lake 
 of Brienz is, according to trigonometric measure- 
 ments, exactly 1956 metres. Therefore Fick per- 
 formed 129,096 (1956 x 66) and Wislicenus 
 148,656 (1956x76) metrekilograms of muscular 
 work." 
 
 But in addition to this measurable external work 
 there is another item of force " which can be ex- 
 pressed in units of work; and though its value 
 cannot be quite accurately calculated, yet a tolerable 
 approximation can be made. It consists of the force 
 consumed in respiration and the heart's action. 
 The work performed by the heart has been esti- 
 mated, in a healthy full-grown man, at about 0'64 
 * Phil. Mag., vol. xxxi., p. 496, 1866. 
 

 APPENDIX II. 151 
 
 metrekilogram* for each systole. During the ascent, 
 Fick's pulse was about 120 per minute. That gives 
 for the 5 '5 hours of the ascent an amount of work 
 which may be estimated at 25,344 metrekilograms, 
 entirely employed in the maintenance of the circu- 
 lation. No attempt has yet been made to estimate 
 the labour of respiration. One of us has shown, 
 however, in the second edition of his Medical 
 Physics (p. 206), that Bonders' well-known investi- 
 gations concerning the conditions of pressure in the 
 cavity of the thorax give sufficient data for such an 
 estimate. He has there shown that the amount of 
 work performed in an inspiration of 600 cubic cen- 
 tims. may be rated at about 0'63 metrekilogram. 
 Fick breathed during the ascent at an average rate 
 of about 25 respirations per minute, which gives, 
 according to this estimation, an amount of respira- 
 tory work for the whole ascent of 5,197 metrekilo- 
 grams. If we add this, and the number represent- 
 ing the work of the heart, to the external work per- 
 formed by Fick, we obtain a total of 159,637 metre- 
 kilograms, j If we suppose that Wislicenus's respira- 
 tory and circulatory work bore the same proportion 
 to Fick's as his bodily weight did to Fick's, i.e., 7 : 6, 
 we obtain for Wislicenus's amount of work, as far 
 as it is possible to calculate it, a total of 184,287 
 metrekilograms. J 
 
 * 0-43 is here assigned as the work of the left, and - 21 as 
 that of the right ventricle. 
 
 f 129,096 $ 148,656 
 
 25,344 29,568 
 
 5,197 6,063 
 
 159,637 184,287 
 
152 APPENDIX II. 
 
 " Besides these estimated (and certainly not over- 
 estimated) items, there are several others which 
 cannot be even approximately calculated, but the 
 sum of which, if it could be obtained, would pro- 
 bably exceed even our present large total. We will 
 try to give at least some sort of an account of them. 
 It must first be remembered that in the steepest 
 mountain path there are occasional level portions, or 
 even descents. In traversing such places the 
 muscles of the leg are exerted as they are in ascend- 
 ing, but the whole work performed is transformed 
 back into heat. The same force-producing process, 
 however, must be going on in the muscles as if work 
 were being performed which did not undergo this 
 transformation. In order to make this point yet 
 clearer we may take into consideration that the 
 whole work of the ascent only existed temporarily 
 as work. On the following day the result was re- 
 versed ; our bodies approached the centre of the 
 earth by as much as they had receded from it the 
 day before, and, in consequence, on the second day 
 an amount of heat was liberated equal to the amount 
 of work previously performed. The two parts of 
 the action, which in this case were performed on 
 two separate days, take place in walking on level 
 ground in the space of a footstep. 
 
 " Let us observe, besides, that in an ascent it is 
 not only those muscles of the leg specially devoted 
 to climbing which are exerted ; the arms, head, and 
 trunk are continually in motion. For all these 
 movements force-generating processes are necessary, 
 the result of which cannot, however, figure in our 
 
APPENDIX II. 153 
 
 total of work, but must appear entirely in the form 
 of heat, since all the mechanical effects of these 
 movements are immediately undone again. If we 
 raise an arm, we immediately let it drop again, &c. 
 
 ' k There was besides a large portion of our mus- 
 cular system employed during the ascent, which was 
 performing no external work (not even temporary 
 work, or mechanical effects immediately reversed), 
 but which [cannot be employed without the same 
 force-generating processes which render external 
 work possible. As long as we hold the body in an 
 upright position, individual groups of muscles (as, 
 for instance, the muscles of the back, neck, &c.) 
 must be maintained in a state of continual tetanus 
 in order to prevent the body from collapsing. We 
 may conceive of a tetanized muscle as holding up a 
 weight which would immediately fall if the supply 
 of actual energy were to cease. It is active but it 
 performs no work, and therefore all the force pro- 
 duced is liberated in the form of heat." 
 
 Thus the total amount of measured and estimable 
 work performed in 5*5 hours in the experiments 
 before us was 159,637 metrekilograms for Fick, and 
 184,287 metrekilograms for Wislicenus. This is 
 our second datum. 
 
 3rdly. The third, viz., the amount of muscle oxidized 
 in the body during the performance of this work has 
 been carefully determined by the same experiment- 
 ers, as well as the rate of muscle consumption before 
 and after the ascent. For the details of these de- 
 terminations the speaker referred his hearers to the 
 Philosophical Magazine for 1866, vol. xxxi., page 
 
154 
 
 APPENDIX II. 
 
 488 ; but the following is a condensed summary of 
 the results : 
 
 Ascent of the Faulliorn. 
 
 Fick. Wislicenus. 
 
 Amount of Nitrogen secreted in Urine per hour / 
 before ascent j 
 
 Weight of dry Muscle corresponding to Nitrogen 
 
 Gram. 
 
 4-19 
 
 Gram. 
 61 
 
 4-05 
 
 Amount of Nitrogen secreted per hour during 7 I .., .^ 
 
 ascent f 
 
 Weight of dry Muscle corresponding to Nitrogen 2 70 2-56 
 
 Amount of Nitrogen secreted per hour during") 
 
 40 
 
 40 
 
 Weight of dry Muscle corresponding to Nitrogen 
 
 2-63 
 
 2-63 
 
 Amount of Nitrogen secreted per hour during") 
 the following night 5 
 
 45 
 
 51 
 
 Weight of diy Muscle corresponding to Nitrogen 
 
 3-06 
 
 3-39 
 
 Total amount of Nitrogen secreted during ascent 
 
 3-31 
 
 3-13 
 
 Ditto during 6 hours after ascent 
 
 2-43 
 
 2-42 
 
 5-74 
 
 20-98 
 
 Weight of dry Muscle cor- (During ascent . 
 responding to Nitrogen < During 6 hours 7 1R . 1Q 
 
 secreted 
 
 . after ascent . 
 
 37-17 
 
 37-00 
 
 The results of these determinations add a new 
 link to the chain of experimental evidence, that 
 muscular exertion does not necessarily increase the 
 excretion of nitrogen through the urine. From mid- 
 day before the ascent (August 29th, 1865) to the 
 following evening at seven o'clock (August 30th) 
 
APPENDIX II. 155 
 
 both gentlemen abstained from all nitrogenous food. 
 During these thirty-one hours they had nothing in 
 the way of solid food except starch, fat, and sugar. 
 The two former were taken in the form of cakes. 
 Starch was made up with water into a thin paste, 
 which was then made into small cakes and fried 
 with plenty of fat. The sugar was taken dissolved 
 in tea. In addition to this there was the sugar con- 
 tained in the beer and wine, which were taken in quan- 
 tities usual in mountain excursions. It was doubtless 
 owing to this absence from food containing nitrogen 
 that the amount of this element secreted through 
 the urine declined tolerably regularly from the 
 29th of August till the evening of the 30th. Even 
 in the night of the 30th to the 31st, in spite of the 
 plentiful meal of albuminous food on the evening of 
 the 30th, the secretion of nitrogen was less than on 
 the preceding night. The reason of this is probably 
 to be sought for in the circumstance that during the 
 period of abstinence the secretion of nitrogen was 
 carried on at the expense of tissues, and now these 
 tissues required reparation. 
 
 It is perhaps scarcely worthy of record that 
 during the ascent neither of the experimenters per- 
 spired perceptibly, since it has been proved by 
 Ranke that no appreciable amount of nitrogen leaves 
 the system in the matter of perspiration ; and as 
 Thiry has also shown that no nitrogen is got rid of 
 by respiration, it follows that, in addition to the 
 nitrogen contained in the urine, the only other mode 
 of exit for this element is through the faeces. Now 
 the proportion secreted through the faeces has 
 
156 APPENDIX II. 
 
 been estimated by Kanke at about one-twelfth of 
 that in the urine ; but inasmuch as all experi- 
 ments on the subject tend to show that this alvine 
 nitrogen is, as voided, a constitutent of un-oxi- 
 dized compounds, that is, of compounds that have 
 not yielded up their force, it has no claim upon our 
 attention. 
 
 4thly. There is still another circumstance which 
 requires to be taken into consideration before we 
 proceed to apply our three data to the solution of 
 the problem before us. It is this : Is it possible 
 that at the termination of the ascent of the Faulhorn 
 there might be a considerable quantity of the nitro- 
 genous products of decomposition retained in the 
 body ? Considering the physiological effect of the 
 retention of urea in the system, as exemplified 
 whenever the secretion of urine is interrupted, it is 
 difficult to imagine the possibility of any consider- 
 able quantity of urea being retained in the system 
 of a healthy man. It is, however, otherwise with 
 creatin, another of the products of the metamorpho- 
 sis of tissue ; for it has been repeatedly shown that 
 a muscle which has been hard worked contains 
 more creatin than one that has been at rest. Thus 
 the quantity of creatin contained in the heart of an 
 ox was found to be '14 per cent. (Gregory), and that 
 in other ox-flesh only *06 per cent. (Staedeler). Now 
 the muscles which extend the leg in walking, and 
 which do the essential work in ascending, have been 
 estimated by Weber to weigh in both legs 5*8 kilo- 
 grams, and if we assume that before the ascent these 
 muscles contained -06 per cent, of creatin, whilst 
 
APPENDIX II. 157 
 
 after the ascent the percentage had increased to *14 
 per cent., then the amount of creatin thus exception- 
 ally retained would amount to 4*64: grams, which 
 would be derived from 8 '4 grams of muscle. 
 
 The speaker had been unable to determine the 
 calorific effect of creatin, and consequently the 
 actual energy developed by the transformation of 
 muscle into creatin ; for, although he was kindly 
 furnished with an ample supply of this material by 
 Dr. Dittmar, yet all attempts to burn it in the calo- 
 rimeter were fruitless. Even when mixed in very 
 small proportions with chlorate of potash and other 
 combustibles of known value, the mixture invariably 
 exploded violently on ignition. Although actual 
 determination thus fails us, there can be no doubt 
 that the transformation of muscle into creatin and 
 other non-nitrogenous products must be attended by 
 the liberation of far less actual energy than its 
 transformation into urea, carbonic acid, and water. 
 To be convinced of this, it is only necessary to com- 
 pare (under equal nitrogen value) the formulae of 
 muscle, creatin, and urea, remembering at the same 
 time that the nitrogen probably possesses no thermal 
 value, and that each atom of oxygen destroys 
 approximately the thermal effect of two atoms of 
 hydrogen: 
 
 Comparable Powerful or 
 
 formulas. unburnt matter. 
 
 Muscle . . . C 24 H 37 N 6 O 7 C 24 H 23 
 
 Creatin . . . 0, H 18 N 6 O 4 C 8 H 10 
 
 Urea . . . C 8 H 12 N 6 O 3 C 3 H 6 
 
 Thus it is evident that the amount of creatin 
 
158 APPENDIX II. 
 
 exceptionally retained in the system could not 
 greatly affect the result of the experiment as regards 
 the possible amount of actual energy derivable from 
 the metamorphosed tissues during the ascent ; firstly, 
 on account of the small quantity of creatin so re- 
 tained, and, secondly, because creatin still contains 
 about one- third of the potential energy of the muscle 
 from which it is derived. But as this point cannot 
 be experimentally demonstrated, the speaker followed 
 the example of Fick and Wislicenus, and made a 
 very liberal allowance on this score. He allowed, 
 as they had done, that the whole of the nitrogen 
 secreted during the six hours after the ascent was 
 exceptionally retained in the system as urea during 
 the ascent. This is equivalent to an admission that 
 the muscles of the legs contained at the end of the 
 ascent eleven times as much creatin as was present 
 in them before the ascent. In the above tabular 
 statement of results provision has been made for this 
 allowance by adding together, on the one hand, the 
 amounts of nitrogen secreted during the ascent and 
 six hours after it, and, on the other, the weights of 
 dry muscle corresponding to these two amounts of 
 nitrogen. 
 
 5thly. Having thus far cleared the ground, let us 
 now compare the amount of measured and calculated 
 work performed by each of the experimenters 
 during the ascent of the Faulhorn with the actual 
 energy capable of being developed by the maximum 
 amount of muscle that could have been consumed 
 in their bodies, this amount being represented by 
 the total quantity of nitrogen excreted in each 
 
APPENDIX II. 
 
 159 
 
 case during the ascent and for six hours after- 
 wards : 
 
 
 Fick. 
 
 Wislicenus. 
 
 
 Grams. 
 
 Grams. 
 
 Weight of dry Muscle consumed 
 
 37-17 
 
 37-00 
 
 | Metrekilo- 
 
 Metrekilo- 
 
 Actual energy capable of being produced by the } 
 consumption of 37 17 and 37' 00 grams of dry > 
 Muscle in the body ) 
 
 grams. 
 68,690 
 
 grams. 
 68,376 
 
 i 
 
 
 Measured w^rk performed in the ascent (ex- ) 
 ternal work) j 
 
 129,096 
 
 148,656 
 
 Calculated circulatory and respiratory -work ) 
 performed during the ascent (internal work) j 
 
 30,541 
 
 35,631 
 
 Total ascertainable work performed . 
 
 159-637 
 
 184,287 
 
 
 
 It is thus evident that the muscular power ex- 
 pended by these gentlemen in the ascent of the 
 Faulhorn could not be exclusively derived from the 
 oxidation, either of their muscles, or of other 
 nitrogenous constituents of their bodies, since the 
 maximum of power capable of being derived from 
 this source even under very favourable assumptions 
 is, in both cases, less than one-half of the work 
 actually performed. But the deficiency becomes 
 much greater if we take into consideration the fact, 
 that the actual energy developed by oxidation or 
 combustion cannot be wholly transformed into me- 
 chanical work. In the best-constructed steam- 
 engine, for instance, only -j^th of the actual energy 
 developed by the burning fuel can be obtained in 
 the form of mechanical power ; and in the case of 
 
160 APPENDIX IT. 
 
 man, Helmholtz estimates that not more than ith of 
 the actual energy developed in the body can be 
 made to appear as external work. The experiments 
 of Haidenhain, however, show that, under favourable 
 circumstances, a muscle may be made to yield in 
 the shape of mechanical work as much as one-half 
 of the actual energy developed within it, the re- 
 mainder taking the form of heat. Taking then this 
 highest estimate of the proportion of mechanical 
 work capable of being got out of actual energy, it 
 becomes necessary to multiply by 2 the above 
 numbers representing the ascertainable work per- 
 formed, in order to express the actual energy involved 
 in the production of that work. We then get the 
 following comparison of the actual energy capable 
 of being developed by the amount of muscle con- 
 sumed, with the actual energy necessary for the 
 performance of the work executed in the ascent of 
 the Faulhorn : 
 
 
 Fick. 
 
 Wislicenus. 
 
 Actual energy capable of beiiig produced by ) 
 Muscle metamorphosis 5 
 
 Metrekilo- 
 grams. 
 
 68,690 
 
 Mctrekilo- 
 grams. 
 
 68,376 
 
 Actual energy expended in work performed 
 
 319,274 
 
 368,574 . 
 
 Thus, taking the average of the two experiments, 
 it is evident that scarcely th of the actual energy 
 required for the work performed could be obtained from 
 the amount of muscle consumed. 
 
 Gthly. Interpreted in the same way, previous 
 experiments of a like kind prove the same thing, 
 
APPENDIX II. 
 
 161 
 
 though not quite so conclusively. To illustrate 
 this I will here give a summary of three sets of 
 experiments : the first, made by Dr. E. Smith, upon 
 prisoners engaged in treadmill labour ; the second, 
 by the Eev. Dr. Haughton, upon military prisoners 
 engaged in shot drill ; and the third, adduced by 
 Playfair, and made upon pedestrians, piledrivers, 
 men turning a winch, and other labourers. 
 
 TREADWHBEL EXPERIMENTS. 
 
 A treadwheel is a revolving drum with steps 
 placed at distances of 8 inches, and the prisoners 
 are required to turn the wheel downwards by step- 
 ping upwards. Four prisoners, designated below 
 as A, B, C, and D, were employed in these experi- 
 ments, and each worked upon the wheel in alternate 
 quarters of an hour, resting in a sitting posture 
 during the intervening quarters. The period of 
 actual daily labour was 3^ hours. The total ascent 
 per hour 2160 feet, or per day 1-432 mile. The 
 following are the results : 
 
 Treadwheel Work. (E. Smith.) 
 
 
 
 
 
 External 
 
 
 Weight of 
 
 
 Weight 
 in 
 
 Ascent 
 in 
 
 occupied 
 
 work per- 
 formed in 
 
 Tot 1 
 
 Nitro en 
 
 dry Muscle 
 corre- 
 
 
 Kilograms 
 
 Metres. 
 
 Ascent 
 
 Metrekilo- 
 grams. 
 
 evolved. 
 
 spondingto 
 Nitrogen. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Grams 
 
 Grams. 
 
 A 
 
 47-6 
 
 23,045 
 
 10 
 
 1,096,942 
 
 171-3 
 
 1101-2 
 
 B 
 
 49 
 
 23,045 
 
 10 
 
 1,129,205 
 
 174-5 
 
 1121'7 
 
 C 
 
 55 
 
 20,741 
 
 9 
 
 1,140,755 
 
 168-0 
 
 1080-1 
 
 D 
 
 56 
 
 20,741 
 
 9 
 
 1,161,496 
 
 159-3 
 
 1024-3 
 
162 
 
 APPENDIX II. 
 
 In these experiments the measured work was 
 performed in the short space of 3 J hours, whilst the 
 nitrogen estimated was that voided in the shape of 
 urea in 24 hours. It will, therefore, be necessary 
 to add to the measured work, that calculated for 
 respiration and circulation for the whole period of 
 24 hours. This amount of internal work was com- 
 puted, from the estimates of Helmholtz and Fick, to 
 be as follows : 
 
 Internal Work. (Helmholtz and Fick.) 
 
 
 Work 
 performed. 
 
 Actual energy 
 required. 
 
 
 Metrekilo- 
 
 Metrekilo- 
 
 Circulation of the blood during 24 hours, ~) 
 at 75 pulsations per minute ... 3 
 
 grams. 
 69,120* 
 
 grams. 
 138,240 
 
 Kespira*ion for 24 hours, at 12 respira- ) 
 lions per minute j 
 
 10,886 
 
 21,772 
 
 Statical activity of muscles .... 
 Peristaltic motion 
 
 not determined 
 
 not determined 
 
 
 
 
 
 80,006 
 
 160,012 
 
 Taking this estimate for internal work, the average 
 results of the treadwheel experiments may be thus 
 
 * Since making use of this number, I find that Bonders 
 estimates the work of the heart alone, for 24 hours, at 86,000 
 metrekilograms, a figure which is higher than that above for 
 the combined work of circulation and respiration. 
 
APPENDIX II. 163 
 
 Treadwheel Work. 
 
 Average external work per man per day . 119,605 mks. 
 Average nitrogen evolved per man per day 17' 7 grams. 
 
 Weight of dry muscle corresponding to 
 
 average nitrogen evolved per day . . 114 
 
 Actual energy producible by the consump- 
 tion of 114 grams of dry muscle in the 
 
 body 210,672 mks. 
 
 Average actual energy developed in the 
 
 body of each man, viz. 
 External work 119,605 X 2 = 239,210 mks. 
 Circulation 69,120 X 2 = 138,240 
 Eespiration 10,886 X 2 = 21,772 
 
 399,222 |1 
 
 In these experiments the conditions were obviously 
 very unfavourable for the comparison of the amount 
 of actual energy producible from muscle metamor- 
 phosis with the quantity of actual energy expended 
 in the performance of estimable work ; since, during 
 that portion of the twenty-four hours not occupied 
 in the actual experiment, a large amount of un- 
 estimable internal work, such as the statical activity 
 of the muscles, peristaltic motion, &c., was being 
 performed. Nevertheless, these experiments show 
 that the average actual energy developed in pro- 
 ducing work in the body of each man was nearly 
 twice as great as that which could possibly be pro- 
 duced by the whole of the nitrogenous matter 
 oxidized in the body during 24 hours. It must also 
 be remarked that the prisoners were fed upon a 
 nitrogenous diet containing six ounces of cooked 
 meat, without bone ; a diet which, as is well known, 
 would favour the production of urea. 
 
164 APPENDIX II. 
 
 SHOT-DRILL EXPERIMENTS. 
 
 7thly. The men employed for these experiments 
 were fed exclusively upon vegetable diet, and they 
 consequently secreted a considerably smaller amount 
 of nitrogen than the flesh-eaters engaged in the 
 tread wheel work. The other conditions were, how- 
 ever, equally unfavourable for showing the excess 
 of work performed, over the amount derivable from 
 muscle metamorphosis. 
 
 In shot-drill, each man lifts a 32-lb. shot from a 
 tressel to his breast, a height of 3 feet ; he then 
 carries it a distance of 9 feet, and lays it down on a 
 similar support, returning unloaded. Six of these 
 double journeys occupy one minute. The men 
 were daily engaged with 
 
 Shot drill .... 3 hours. 
 Ordinary drill . . 1J 
 Oakum picking . . 3| 
 
 The total average daily external work was esti- 
 mated by Haughton at 96,316 metrekilograms per 
 man. 
 
 The following is a condensed summary of the 
 results of these experiments : 
 
 Military Vegetarian Prisoners at Shot Drill (Haughton.) 
 
 Average external work per man per day . 96,316 mks. 
 
 Average nitrogen evolved per man per day 12 1 grams. 
 
 Weight of dry muscle corresponding to 
 
 average nitrogen evolved per day . . 77.9 
 
 Actual energy producible by the consump- 
 tion of 77 ' 9 grams of dry muscle in the 
 body 143,950 mks. 
 
APPENDIX II. 165 
 
 Military Vegetarian Prisoners at Shot Drill continued. 
 
 Average actual energy de- 
 veloped daily in the body 
 of each man, viz., Exter- 
 nal work, 96,316 X 2 = 192,632 mks. 
 
 Internal work .... 160,012 
 
 352,644 mks. 
 
 Owing chiefly to the vegetable diet of these 
 prisoners, the result is more conclusive than that 
 obtained upon the tread wheel, the amount of work 
 actually performed being considerably more than 
 twice as great as that which could possibly be 
 obtained through the muscle metamorphosis occur- 
 ring in the bodies of the prisoners. 
 
 PLAYFAIR'S DETERMINATIONS. 
 
 Sthly. In these determinations the number 109,496 
 metrekilograms was obtained as the average amount 
 of daily work performed by pedestrians, pile-drivers, 
 porters, paviours, &c. ; but, as the amount, of muscle 
 consumption is calculated from the nitrogen taken 
 in the food, the conditions are as unfavourable as 
 possible with regard to the point the speaker was 
 seeking to establish; for it is here assumed, not 
 only that all the nitrogen taken in the food enters 
 the blood, but also that it is converted into muscle, 
 and is afterwards oxidized to carbonic acid, water, 
 and urea. 
 
166 
 
 APPENDIX II. 
 
 The following are the results expressed as in the 
 previous cases : 
 
 Hard-worked Labourer. (Playfair.) 
 
 
 Work 
 performed. 
 
 Actual energy 
 required. 
 
 Daily labour (external work; .... 
 Internal work ....'.... 
 
 109,496 mks. 
 80,006 
 
 218,992 mks. 
 160,012 
 
 
 189,502 mks. 
 
 379,004 mks. 
 
 Actual energy capable of being produced 
 from 5'5 oz. (155 '92 grms.) of flesh- 
 formers contained in the daily food of 
 the labourer 
 
 
 288,140 mks. 
 
 
 
 
 Thus, even under the extremely unfavourable con- 
 ditions of these determinations, the actual work 
 performed exceeded that which could possibly be 
 produced through the oxidation of the nitrogenous 
 constituents of the daily food by more than 30 per 
 cent. 
 
 9thly. We have seen, therefore, in the above four 
 sets of experiments, interpreted by the data afforded 
 by the combustion of muscle and urea in oxygen, that 
 the transformation of tissue alone cannot account for 
 more than a small fraction of the muscular power 
 developed by animals; in fact, this transformation 
 goes on at a rate almost entirely independent of the 
 amount of muscular power developed. If the me- 
 chanical work of an animal be doubled or trebled 
 there is no corresponding increase of nitrogen in 
 the secretions ; whilst it was proved on the other 
 hand by Lawes and Gilbert, as early as the year 
 1854, that animals, under the same conditions as re- 
 
APPENDIX II. 167 
 
 garded exercise, had the amount of nitrogen in their 
 secretions increased twofold by merely doubling 
 the amount of nitrogen in their food. Whence 
 then comes the muscular power of animals ? What 
 are the substances which, by their oxidation in the 
 body, furnish the actual energy, v/hereof a part is 
 converted into muscular work ? In the light of the 
 experimental results detailed above, can it be doubted 
 that a large proportion of the muscular power de- 
 veloped in the bodies of animals has its origin in 
 the oxidation of non-nitrogenous substances ? For 
 whilst the secretion of nitrogen remains nearly 
 stationary under widely different degrees of muscu- 
 lar exertion, the production of carbonic acid increases 
 most markedly with every augmentation of muscular 
 work, as is shown by the following tabulated results 
 of E. Smith's highly important experiments regard- 
 ing the amount of carbonic acid evolved from his 
 own lungs under different circumstances.* 
 
 Excretion of carbonic acid during rest and mus- 
 cular exertion : 
 
 Carbonic acid 
 per hour. 
 
 During sleep 19'0 grams. 
 
 Lying down and sleep approaching . 23 - 
 
 In a sitting posture 29'0 
 
 Walking at rate of 2 miles per hour . 70*5 
 
 3 . 100-6 
 
 On the treadwheel, ascending at the 
 
 rate of 28'65 feet per minute . . 189 '6 
 
 * Phil Trans, for 1859, p. 709. (Pettenh offer's experi- 
 ments on the different amounts of carbonic acid thrown out 
 during the day and during the night do not affect the three 
 last numbers in this table.) 
 
168 APPENDIX II. 
 
 It has been already stated as a proposition upon 
 which all are agreed, that food, and food alone, is 
 the ultimate source from which muscular power is 
 derived ; but the above determinations and conside- 
 rations, the speaker believed, prove conclusively, 
 firstly, that the non-nitrogenous constituents of the 
 food, such as starch, fat, &c., are the chief sources 
 of the actual energy, which becomes partially trans- 
 formed into muscular work ; and secondly, that the 
 food does not require to become organized tissue 
 before its metamorphosis can be rendered available 
 for muscular power; its digestion and assimilation 
 into the circulating fluid the blood being all 
 that is necessary for this purpose. It is, however, 
 by no means the non-nitrogenous portions of food 
 alone that are capable of being so employed, the 
 nitrogenous also, inasmuch as they are combustible, 
 and consequently capable of furnishing actual energy, 
 might be expected to be available for the same pur- 
 pose ; and such an expectation is confirmed by the 
 experiments of Savory upon rats,* in which it is 
 proved that these animals can live for weeks in 
 good health upon food consisting almost exclusively 
 of muscular fibre. Even supposing these rats to 
 have performed no external work, nearly the whole 
 of their internal muscular work must have had its 
 source in the actual energy developed by the oxida- 
 tion of their strictly nitrogenous food. 
 
 It can scarcely be doubted, however, that the 
 chief use of the nitrogenous constituents of food is 
 for the renewal of muscular tissue ; the latter, like 
 * The Lancet, 1863, pages 381 and 412. 
 
APPENDIX II. 169 
 
 every other part of the body, requiring a continuous 
 change of substance, whilst the chief function of the 
 non-nitrogenous is to furnish by their oxidation the 
 actual energy which is in part transmuted into mus- 
 cular force. 
 
 The combustible food and oxygen coexist in the 
 blood which courses through the muscle, but when 
 the muscle is at rest there is no chemical action 
 between them. A command is sent from the brain 
 to the muscle ; the nervous agent determines oxida- 
 tion. The potential energy becomes active energy, 
 one portion assuming the form of motion, another 
 appearing as heat. Sere is tlie source of animal 7ieat } 
 here the origin of muscular power ! Like the piston 
 and cylinder of a steam-engine, the muscle itself is 
 only a machine for the transformation of heat into 
 motion ; both are subject to wear and tear and 
 require renewal, but neither contributes in any 
 important degree by its own oxidation to the actual 
 production of the mechanical power which it exerts. 
 
 lOthly. From this point of view it is interesting to 
 examine the various articles of food in common use, 
 as to their capabilities for the production of muscu- 
 lar power. The speaker had therefore made careful 
 estimations of the calorific value of different ma- 
 terials used as food, by the same apparatus and in 
 the same manner as described above for the determi- 
 nation of the actual energy in muscle, urea, uric 
 acid, and hippuric acid. 
 
 The results are embodied in the following series 
 of tables, but it must be borne in mind that it is 
 only on the condition that the food is digested and 
 
170 
 
 APPENDIX II. 
 
 passes into the blood that the results given in 
 these tables are realized. If, for instance, sawdust 
 or paraffin oil had been experimented upon, numbers 
 would have been obtained for these substances, the 
 one about equal to that assigned to starch, and the 
 other surpassing that of any article in the table ; 
 but these numbers would obviously have been 
 utterly fallacious, inasmuch as neither sawdust nor 
 paraffin oil is, to any appreciable extent, digested in 
 the alimentary canal. Whilst the force values 
 experimentally obtained for the different articles 
 in these tables must therefore be understood as the 
 maxima assignable to the substances to which they 
 belong, yet it must not be forgotten that a large 
 majority of these substances appear to be completely 
 digestible under normal circumstances. 
 
 Actual Energy developed by One Gram of various Articles of 
 Food when burnt in Oxygen. 
 
 NAME OP FOOD. 
 
 Heat Units. 
 
 Metrekilograms 
 of I 1 orce. 
 
 Per 
 cent, of 
 Water. 
 
 Dry. 
 
 Natuial 
 Con- 
 dition. 
 
 Dry. 
 
 Natural 
 Con- 
 dition. 
 
 Cheese (Cheshire) . . . 
 Potatoes . ... 
 
 6114 
 3752 
 3669 
 
 3984 
 
 4647 
 1013 
 660 
 4004 
 3941 
 3936 
 3813 
 3912 
 2231 
 4459 
 
 2589 
 1589 
 1554 
 
 1687 
 
 1969 
 429 
 280 
 1696 
 1669 
 1667 
 1615 
 1657 
 945 
 1888 
 
 24-0 
 73-0 
 82-0 
 
 44-0 
 
 
 Oatmeal 
 
 Flour . ... 
 
 Pea-meal 
 
 
 
 Bread Crumb .... 
 Ditto Crust .... 
 
APPENDIX II. 
 
 171 
 
 Actual Energy 
 
 y One Gram of various Articles of 
 Food, (fee. continued. 
 
 NAME OF FOOD. 
 
 Heat Units. 
 
 Metrekilograms 
 of Force. 
 
 Per 
 cent, of 
 Water. 
 
 Dry. 
 
 Natural 
 Con- 
 dition. 
 
 Dry. 
 
 Natural 
 Con- 
 dition. 
 
 Beef (lean) 
 
 5313 
 
 1567 
 
 2250 
 
 664 
 
 70-5 
 
 Veal 
 
 4514 
 
 1314 
 
 1912 
 
 556 
 
 70-9 
 
 Ham 
 
 4343 
 
 1980 
 
 1839 
 
 839 
 
 54-4 
 
 Mackerel 
 
 6064 
 
 1789 
 
 2568 
 
 758 
 
 70-5 
 
 Whiting 
 
 4520 
 
 904 
 
 1914 
 
 383 
 
 80-0 
 
 White of Egg .... 
 
 4896 
 
 671 
 
 2074 
 
 284 
 
 86-3 
 
 Hard-boiled Egg . . . 
 
 6321 
 
 . 2383 
 
 2677 
 
 1009 
 
 62-3 
 
 Yolk of Egg 
 Gelatin 
 
 6460 
 4520 
 5093 
 3767 
 3776 
 
 9069 
 
 3423 
 
 662 
 527 
 434 
 6873 
 
 7264 
 9107 
 3348 
 
 2737 
 1914 
 2157 
 1595 
 1599 
 
 3841 
 
 1449 
 
 280 
 223 
 184 
 2911 
 
 3077 
 3857 
 1418 
 
 47-0 
 
 87-0 
 86-0 
 
 88-5 
 
 Milk . .... 
 
 Carrots 
 
 Cabbage 
 
 Cocoa Nibs 
 
 Beef Fat 
 Butter . . ... 
 
 Cod-liver Oil 
 
 Lump Sugar 
 
 Commercial Grape Sugar . 
 
 
 3277 
 
 
 1388 
 
 
 Bass's Ale (alcohol reckoned) 
 
 3776 
 
 775 
 
 - 1599 
 
 328 
 
 88-4 
 
 Guinness's Stout . . . 
 
 6348 
 
 1076 
 
 26S8 
 
 445 
 
 88-4 
 
172 
 
 APPENDIX II. 
 
 Actual Energy developed by One Gram (15'43grs.) of various 
 Articles of Food when oxidized in the Body. The quantity 
 of Carbon and Hydrogen in Urea (indicated by the Nitro- 
 gen) being deducted from the total Carbon and Hydrogen 
 of the substance. 
 
 
 NAME OF FOOD. 
 
 Metrekilograms of 
 Force. 
 
 
 D Natural 
 IJry - Condition. 
 
 Butter 
 Beef Fat 
 
 3841 
 
 3857 
 
 2-129 
 
 2641 
 
 2562 
 1625 
 1559 
 1550 
 2315 
 2047 
 1704 
 2688 
 1563 
 1675 
 1559 
 1516 
 2046 
 1781 
 1574 
 1543 
 
 3077 = 1000 
 
 2902 = 943 
 1846 = 599 
 1665 = 541 
 1657 = 538 
 1627 =: 522 
 1598 = 519 
 1591 = 517 
 1418 = 460 
 1400 = 455 
 1388 = 450 
 966 = 313 
 910 = 295 
 711 = 231 
 
 683 = 221 
 604 = 196 
 496 = 161 
 455 = 147 
 422 = 137 
 335 = 109 
 328 = 106 
 273 = 88 
 266 = 86 
 244 = 79 
 220 = 71 
 178 = 58 
 
 Cod-liver Oil 
 
 Cocoa Nibs 
 
 Cheshire Cheese .... 
 Oatmeal 
 
 Arrowroot 
 Flour . . . 
 
 Pea- meal .... 
 
 
 
 Yolk of Egg 
 Commercial Grape Sugar . . 
 Hard-bjiled Egg .... 
 Bread Crumb 
 
 Lean of Ham, boiled . . . 
 Gelatin . 
 
 Mackerel 
 
 Lean of Beef 
 
 Ditto Veal 
 Guinness's Stout .... 
 Potatoes . .... 
 
 Whiting 
 Bass's Ale, bottled . . . 
 
 Milk 
 
 White of Egg 
 Carrots 
 
 Cabbage .... 
 
 
APPENDIX II. 
 
 173 
 
 Weight and Cost of various Articles of Food required to be 
 oxidized in the Body in order to raise 140 Ibs. (10 stone*) 
 tolthe height of 10,000 ft. (1'89 mile} 
 
 External work = 1th actual energy. 
 
 NAME OF FOOD. 
 
 Weight in 
 Ibs. 
 required. 
 
 Price per Ib. 
 
 Cost. 
 
 Cheshire Cheese 
 
 1*156 
 
 s. d. 
 10 
 
 s. d. 
 114- 
 
 Potatoes . 
 
 5*068 
 
 1 
 
 
 Apples 
 
 7 '815 
 
 14- 
 
 llf 
 
 Oatmeal 
 
 1-281 
 
 2f 
 
 034- 
 
 Flour 
 
 1*311 
 
 023- 
 
 
 Pea-meal 
 Ground Rice . 
 
 1*335 
 1*341 
 
 3 
 4 
 
 4* 
 
 OKI 
 
 Arrowroot 
 
 1*287 
 
 1 
 
 1 34- 
 
 Bread 
 
 2*345 
 
 2 
 
 044 
 
 Lean Beef . . 
 
 3*532 
 
 1 
 
 3 64- 
 
 Veal .... 
 
 4*300 
 
 1 
 
 401 
 
 Ham, boiled . . .... 
 Mackerel 
 
 3*001 
 3*124 
 
 1 6 
 8 
 
 4 6 
 
 Whiting . . 
 
 6*369 
 
 1 4 
 
 9 4 
 
 White of Egg 
 
 8* 745 
 
 6 
 
 4 44- 
 
 Hard-boiled Egg 
 
 2 209 
 
 G.l- 
 
 1 24- 
 
 Isinglass 
 
 1*377 
 
 16 
 
 
 Milk .... 
 
 8*021 
 
 
 
 Carrots .... 
 
 9*685 
 
 14- 
 
 1 24- 
 
 Cabbage . 
 Cocoa-nibs 
 
 12*020 
 0*735 
 
 1 
 1 6 
 
 1 
 
 1 li 
 
 Butter . . . 
 
 0*693 
 
 1 6 
 
 1 04- 
 
 Beef Fat . . . . 
 
 0*555 
 
 10 
 
 OKI 
 
 Cod-liver Oil 
 
 0*553 
 
 3 6 
 
 1 Hi 
 
 Lump Sugar . 
 
 1*505 
 
 6 
 
 
 Commercial Grape Sugar . . . 
 Bass's Pale Ale (bottled) . . . 
 Guinness's Stout 
 
 1*537 
 
 9 bottles 
 61 , 
 
 3i 
 10 
 10 
 
 5* 
 7 6 
 5 74- 
 
 
 
 
 
174 
 
 APPENDIX II. 
 
 Weight of various Articles of Food required to sustain Respi- 
 ration and Circulation in the Body of an average Man 
 during 24 'hours.*' 
 
 NAMK OF FOOD. 
 
 Weight 
 in oz. 
 437* grs. 
 
 NAME OF FOOD. 
 
 Weight 
 in oz. 
 437* grs. 
 
 Cheshire Cheese 
 
 3-0 
 
 Whiting 
 
 16'8 
 
 Potatoes 
 Apples . 
 
 13-4 
 
 20-7 
 
 AVhite ot Egg .... 
 Hard-boiled Egg . . 
 
 23-1 
 5'8 
 
 Oatmeal 
 
 3'4 
 
 Gelatin 
 
 3-6 
 
 Flour 
 
 3'5 
 
 Milk . . 
 
 21'2 
 
 Peameal . . . 
 
 3-5 
 
 Carrots 
 
 25*6 
 
 Ground Rice .... 
 Arrowroot . 
 
 3-6 
 3-4 
 
 Cabbage 
 Cocoa-nibs 
 
 31 8 
 1-9 
 
 Bread . . ." 
 
 6'4 
 
 Butter 
 
 1*8 
 
 Lean Beef 
 Veal 
 
 9-3 
 11'4 
 
 Cod-liver Oil .... 
 
 1-5 
 3-9 
 
 Ham, boiled . . . 
 Mackerel 
 
 7-9 
 
 8-3 
 
 Commercial Grape Sugar 
 
 4'0 
 
 These results are in many instances fully borne 
 out by experience. The food of the agricultural 
 labourers in Lancashire contains a large proportion 
 of fat. Besides the very fat bacon which constitutes 
 their animal food proper, they consume large quan- 
 tities of so-called apple dumplings, the chief portion 
 of which consists of paste in which dripping and 
 suet are large ingredients ; in fact these dumplings 
 frequently contain no fruit at all. Egg and bacon 
 
 * P. 162. On Helmholtz and Fisk's supposition, actual 
 energy required equals 160,012 metrekilograms for internal 
 work for twenty-four hours, and by page 172 one gram ( = 15-43 
 grs.) of different substances give in natural condition so many 
 metrekilograms of force. 
 
APPENDIX II. 175 
 
 pies and potatoe pies are also very common pieces 
 de resistance during harvest-time, and whenever very 
 hard work is required from the men. The speaker 
 well remembers being profoundly impressed with 
 the dinners of the navigators employed in the con- 
 struction of the Lancaster and Preston Railway : 
 they consisted of thick slices of bread surmounted 
 with massive blocks of bacon, in which mere streaks 
 of lean were visible. Dr. Piccard states that the 
 chamois hunters of Western Switzerland are ac- 
 customed, when starting on long and fatiguing 
 expeditions, to take with them, as provisions, no- 
 thing but bacon-fat and sugar, because, as they say, 
 these substances are more nourishing than meat. 
 They doubtless find that in fat and sugar they can 
 most conveniently carry with them a store of force- 
 producing matter. The above tables affirm the 
 same thing. They show that *55 Ib. of fat will per- 
 form the work of 1*15 Ib. cheese, 5 Ibs. potatoes, 
 1*3 Ib. of flour or peameal, or of 3 J Ibs. of lean beef.* 
 Bonders, in his admirable pamphlet On the Con- 
 stituents of Food and their Relation to Muscular 
 Work and Animal Heat, mentions the observations 
 of Dr. M. C. Verloren on the food of insects. The 
 latter remarks : " Many insects use during a period 
 in which very little muscular work is performed 
 food containing chiefly albuminous matter ; on the 
 contrary, at a time when the muscular work is very 
 considerable, they live exclusively, or almost exclu- 
 sively, on food free from nitrogen." He also mentions 
 
 * 10 parts fat = 115 parts cheese = 900 parts potatoes 
 = 114 parts flour = 804 parts lean beef. 
 
176 APPENDIX II. 
 
 bees and butterflies as instances of insects performing 
 enormous muscular work, and subsisting upon a diet 
 containing but the merest traces of nitrogen. 
 
 CONCLUSION. 
 
 llthly. We thus arrive at the following conclu- 
 sions : 
 
 1. The muscle is a machine for the conversion of 
 potential energy into mechanical force. 
 
 2. The mechanical force of the muscles is derived 
 chiefly, if not entirely, from the oxidation of matters 
 contained in the blood, and not from the oxidation 
 of the muscles themselves. 
 
 3. In man the chief materials used for the pro- 
 duction of muscular power are non-nitrogenous ; but 
 nitrogenous matters can also be employed for the 
 same purpose, and hence the greatly increased 
 evolution of nitrogen under the influence of a flesh 
 diet, even with no greater muscular exertion. 
 
 4. Like every other part of the body, the muscles 
 are constantly being renewed ; but this renewal is 
 not perceptibly more rapid during great muscular 
 activity than during comparative quiescence. 
 
 5. After the supply of sufficient albuminized 
 matters in the food of man to provide for the neces- 
 sary renewal of the tissues, the best materials for 
 the production, both of internal and external work, 
 are non-nitrogenous matters, such as oil, fat, sugar, 
 starch, gum, &c. 
 
 6. The non-nitrogenous matters of food, which 
 find their way into the blood, yield up all their 
 potential energy as actual energy ; the nitrogenous 
 
APPENDIX II. 177 
 
 P 
 
 natters, on the other hand, leave the body with a 
 portion (amount in urea one-seventh) of their poten- 
 tial energy unexpended. 
 
 7. The transformation of potential energy into 
 muscular power is necessarily accompanied by the 
 production of heat within the body, even when the 
 muscular power is exerted externally. This is, 
 doubtless, the chief and, probably, the only source 
 of animal heat. 
 
APPENDIX III. 
 
 ON THE RATE OF PASSAGE OF CRYSTALLOIDS INTO 
 
 AND OUT OF THE VASCULAR AND NON- VASCULAR 
 
 TEXTURES OF THE BODY. 
 
 BY HENKY BENCE JONES, A.M., M.D., F.R.S. 
 
 From the PROCEEDINGS OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY, June 15, 1865. 
 
 IT occurred to me that possibly, by means of the 
 spectrum, I might trace the rate of passage of 
 medicines into the vascular and n on -vascular tex- 
 tures, and prove their presence, and determine the 
 time during which they remain in action in some 
 of the tissues, far more accurately than had yet 
 been done. 
 
 I was fortunate enough to obtain the assistance 
 of Dr. A. Dupre, who had already published a 
 paper in the Philosophical Magazine on the pre- 
 sence of lithium and strontium in the waters of 
 London ; and I am greatly indebted to him for 
 carrying out all the suggestions which I thought 
 requisite for proving how soon the salts of lithia 
 pass into the different vascular and non-vascular 
 textures of animals and of man, and how quickly 
 
APPENDIX III. 179 
 
 these salts again pass out and cease to be detectable 
 in the different parts of the body. 
 
 I shall divide this paper into five sections : 
 
 1. On the method of analysis, and its delicacy. 
 
 2. Experiments on animals to which salts of 
 lithium were given, upon the rate of their passage 
 into the textures. 
 
 3. On the rate of the passage of lithia-salts out of 
 the textures. 
 
 4. On experiments on healthy persons, and on 
 cases of cataract. 
 
 5. On the presence of lithium in liquid and 
 solid food. 
 
 1. On the Method of Analysis, and its Delicacy. 
 
 Three methods of preparing the substance to be 
 analyzed were followed, according as much or little 
 lithia was present. 
 
 When plenty of lithia was present, it was im- 
 mediately detected in the spectrum by simply touch- 
 ing the substance containing lithia with a red-hot 
 platinum wire. In the case of liquids, a portion of 
 a drop was taken up on the end of the wire, and it 
 was then put into the gas-flame. 
 
 If no lithia was thus detectable, a larger or 
 smaller portion of the substance was extracted by 
 distilled water twice or thrice, and the liquid was 
 evaporated to dryness, and the residue was then 
 tested. 
 
 If very little lithia was present, it was necessary 
 to incinerate a larger or smaller portion of the 
 
180 APPENDIX III. 
 
 substance, and to treat the ash. with sulphuric acid, 
 to exhaust the resulting sulphates with absolute 
 alcohol and evaporate the alcohol extract to diyness, 
 and to test the residue for lithia. 
 
 Kirchhoff and Bunsen state that less than liUO ,' J;000 of 
 a milligramme of carbonate of lithia = to about ^,^. co 
 of a grain can be detected by the spectrum analysis. 
 
 To .determine the delicacy of the test for the 
 chloride of lithium, the following experiment was 
 made : One grain of chloride of lithium was dis- 
 solved in one litre of water. Of this solution 
 100 cub. centims. were taken and again diluted to 
 one litre, this latter solution containing O'l grain of 
 chloride of lithium to the litre. 
 
 When further diluted to five times its bulk, the 
 lithium reaction was still seen faintly on a wire 
 taking up 0*06 grain of solution. The line is most 
 distinctly visible in the evening, in a somewhat 
 dark room. 
 
 This dilution is equal to 0*1 grain of chloride of 
 lithium in 5 litres of water, or 1 grain in 50 litres. 
 One litre = 15,440 grains, or 50 litres = 772,000 
 grains. In 0'06 grain of this solution there are 
 therefore 0-00000008 grain chloride of lithium, or 
 about i 2i(J oo,uooth of a grain of chloride of lithium. 
 This contains only - part of lithium, so that the 
 72,ooo,oooth of a grain of metallic lithium, when pure, 
 gives the spectrum reaction. 
 
 When the chloride of lithium was dissolved in 
 urine, the test was from twice to six times less 
 delicate than in distilled water. 
 
APPENDIX III. 181 
 
 2. Experiments on Animals to which Salts of Lithium 
 were given, upon the Hate of the Passage into the 
 Textures. 
 
 Experiment 1. Two guinea-pigs were fed for 
 several days on the same food. One was killed, and 
 the urine, the nails, hair, blood, bones, muscles, 
 nerves, cornea, and crystalline lens were examined 
 by the spectrum, and no trace of lithium was found 
 anywhere. The other was given half a grain of 
 chloride of lithium for seven days, and for two days 
 one grain. It was then killed, and the lithium was 
 found everywhere, even in the cornea, crystalline 
 lens, hair, and toe-nails. In these it was more 
 distinctly present than anywhere else, so that it 
 probably came from the urine. 
 
 Experiment 2. Another guinea-pig, fed on the 
 same food as the first two, was given only half a 
 grain of chloride of lithium for three days. The 
 third morning the lithium was detectable, by 
 analysis, in the hair ; the fourth day it was killed, 
 and the lithium was found everywhere, as in the 
 last instance. 
 
 Experiment 3. Another, after the hair and nails 
 had been examined for four days and no lithium 
 found, was given three grains of chloride of lithium. 
 In two hours and a half lithium was detected in the 
 hair of the belly, though in six hours none was 
 found in the hair of the back ; much more was then 
 in the hair of the belly. In twenty-six hours it 
 was killed. Lithium was found everywhere both 
 in the outer and inner part of the lens very dis- 
 
182 APPENDIX III. 
 
 tinctly, and in the cartilage of hip- and knee-joints. 
 The spleen and liver seemed to have less lithium 
 than the vitreous and aqueous humour and the lens. 
 
 Experiment 4. A guinea-pig was given three 
 grains of chloride of lithium, and in twenty-four 
 hours it was killed. Lithium was found in the 
 cartilage of the hip- and knee-joints, in the centre of 
 the lens, in the nails, and in the outer moisture of 
 the eye. 
 
 Experiment 5. To another, the hair of which 
 gave no trace of lithium, were given three grains of 
 chloride of lithium, and it was killed in eight hours ; 
 as usual, lithium was found in all the organs by 
 far the most in the kidneys. Little was found in 
 the blood. It was quite evident in the cartilage of 
 the hip-joint, and very distinct in the outer layer of 
 the crystalline lens, but none at all could be found 
 in the centre of the lens. Both lenses were 
 examined more than six different times with the 
 same result. 
 
 Experiment 6. In a guinea-pig, much younger 
 than the last, which was killed eight hours after 
 three grains of chloride of lithium, the whole lens 
 was penetrated the smallest particle, even one- 
 twentieth the size of a pin's-head, taken from each 
 part of the lens, showing the lithium distinctly. 
 The whole lens of another pig that had taken no 
 lithium was burnt, and did not show the slightest 
 trace of lithium. 
 
 Experiment 7. Another guinea-pig was given 
 three grains of chloride of lithium, and it was killed 
 in four hours. Lithium was found in the fibrin, 
 
APPENDIX III. 183 
 
 serum, and corpuscles of the blood, in the cartilage 
 of the hip-joint, and in the lens, even in its most 
 central part. There was scarcely any difference 
 between the inner and outer part. The vitreous 
 and aqueous humours showed much more evidence 
 of lithium than the lens itself did. 
 
 Experiment 8. A guinea-pig, the urine of which 
 gave no trace of lithium, had three grains of chloride 
 of lithium, and was killed in two and a half hours. 
 The lithium was found in the cartilage of the hip- 
 joint distinctly but faintly. The blood showed the 
 lithium very distinctly, much more so than in any 
 of the previous experiments. The outer portion of 
 the lens showed lithium, though but slightly. The 
 inner portions of the lens showed more. The 
 vitreous and aqueous humours showed lithium very 
 distinctly. 
 
 Experiment 9. A large guinea-pig was given 
 three grains of chloride of lithium, and it was killed 
 in an hour. Lithium was found in the blood, urine, 
 and nails very distinctly ; in the cartilage of the 
 hip- and knee-joints very faintly ; in the vitreous 
 and aqueous humours of the eye very distinctly. 
 No lithium was found in the lens, not even when 
 half the lens was taken for a single experiment. 
 The stomach contained food. 
 
 Experiment 10. Another guinea-pig was killed 
 an hour after the same dose. The lithium was 
 found strongly in the blood, bile, liver, and kidney. 
 Traces occurred in the brain and in the cartilage of 
 the hip-joint. It was present distinctly in the 
 humours of the eye and in the lens. The difference 
 
184 APPENDIX III. 
 
 between the inner and outer part of the lens was 
 very marked. The second eye was not examined 
 for more than fourteen hours after the first eye. 
 After this time the centre of the lens contained 
 as much lithium as the outer part did. The stomach 
 contained water. 
 
 Experiment 11. A young guinea-pig, fasting, 
 was given three grains of chloride of lithium, and 
 thirty-two minutes afterwards it was killed. Lithium 
 showed faintly in the cartilage of the hip-joint; 
 very distinctly in the humours of the eye; dis- 
 tinctly in the outer part of the lens, very faintly 
 in the inner part; nearly the whole of the inner 
 part had to be burnt to give the appearance. 
 Lithium was very distinct in the blood, and remark- 
 ably so in the nails. 
 
 Experiment 12. Another young guinea-pig, fed 
 in the same way, and bought at the same place as 
 the two former, was killed without taking any lithia. 
 No lithium was found anywhere. The whole of the 
 spleen, one kidney, and one lens were incinerated, 
 and each ash was used for a single experiment, and 
 in no instance was lithium found. There was no 
 lithium in the cartilage of the hip-joint, nor in the 
 blood, nor in the nails. 
 
 Experiment 13. A very young and small guinea- 
 pig that had been kept fasting for thirty-six hours, 
 was given three grains of chloride of lithium, and it 
 was killed in half an hour, the urine having been 
 previously examined, and no lithium found in it. 
 Very much lithium was found in the blood and in 
 the urine ; very slight traces in the cartilage and in 
 
APPENDIX III. 185 
 
 the brain. The lens showed no lithium when incin- 
 erated entire, but the aqueous extract of the lens 
 showed minute traces of lithium. 
 
 Experiment 14. An old guinea-pig, also fasting 
 for about thirty-six hours, was given the same 
 quantity of chloride of lithium, and was also killed 
 in half an hour. No lithium could be detected 
 before the dose, in the urine, nor in the toe-nail of 
 one leg. After taking the lithium, the animal was 
 wrapped up in a cloth, the leg only being left out to 
 prevent it from licking the toe ; after death, the 
 nails of this leg showed that some lithium was there. 
 The sciatic nerve showed traces of lithium. The 
 cartilage of the hip-joint, when touched with red- 
 hot wire, showed no lithium, but scrapings from the 
 surface showed traces of lithium. The humours of 
 the eye showed traces of lithium, but the lens 
 showed no lithium even 'in the watery extract. The 
 brain showed only exceedingly faint traces of 
 lithium. The stomach was almost completely 
 empty. 
 
 Experiment 15. A guinea-pig was kept fasting 
 for twenty-four hours ; it was then given three 
 grains of chloride of lithium, and it was killed in a 
 quarter of an hour. Lithium was found in the bile, 
 liver, kidney, and blood, very distinctly ; very 
 faintly in the brain and in the cartilage of the hip- 
 joint, and in the humours of the eye. None was 
 found in the lens. The stomach contained only 
 some water, no solid food. 
 
 Experiment 16. Three fresh guinea-pigs were 
 taken ; one was killed without taking any lithium. 
 
186 APPENDIX III. 
 
 The urine showed no lithium in one drop, but the 
 ash of the urine showed traces of lithium. No 
 lithium could be detected in any of the organs, not 
 even by treating the ash of the kidney with sulphuric 
 acid and alcohol. 
 
 The two remaining animals were each given one 
 quarter of a grain of chloride of lithium. 
 
 The first was killed in five and a quarter hours 
 afterwards. All the organs, except the lens of the 
 eye, showed lithium by simply touching them with 
 the red-hot wire. The urine and the bile showed 
 the lithium very distinctly. The blood showed 
 lithium faintly. The vitreous and aqueous humours 
 showed traces of lithium. An aqueous extract of 
 the lens showed no lithium. The animal was a 
 large and old one, and the stomach was nearly 
 empty. 
 
 The second was killed twenty-four hours after 
 one quarter of a grain. 
 
 None of the organs showed any lithium by simply 
 touching them with a red-hot wire. The ash of the 
 kidney showed traces of lithium, and so did the ash 
 of part of the liver. No lithium could be detected 
 either in the vitreous and aqueous humour, or in the 
 lens ; the urine and the bile showed lithium in one 
 drop, but only faintly. Possibly the lithium had 
 not been absorbed in this case. The state of the 
 stomach, as regards food, was not recorded. 
 
 It follows from these experiments, that when no 
 lithium is taken no lithium can be found in the 
 different textures, but that even in a quarter of an 
 hour three grains of chloride of lithium given on an 
 
APPENDIX III. 187 
 
 empty stomach may diffuse into the cartilage of the 
 hip-joint and into the aqueous humour of the eye. 
 In very young and very small guinea-pigs the same 
 quantity of lithium in thirty or thirty-two minutes 
 may give traces of lithium in the lens ; but in an 
 old animal in this time it will have got no further 
 than the aqueous humour. If the stomach be empty, 
 in an hour the lithium may be very evident in the 
 outer part of the lens, and very faintly in the inner 
 part ; but if the stomach be full of food, the lithium 
 does not in an hour reach the lens. Even in two 
 hours and a half, lithium may be more marked in 
 the outer than in the inner part of the lens. In 
 four hours the lithium may be in every part of the 
 lens, but less evidence of its presence will be ob- 
 tained there than from the humours of the eye. In 
 eight hours even, the centre of the lens may show 
 less than the outer part. In twenty-six hours the 
 diffusion had taken place equally through every 
 part of the lens. Even one quarter of a grain in 
 twenty ^our hours showed lithium everywhere except 
 in the lens. 
 
 Experiment 17. To endeavour to determine the 
 different rate of absorption and excretion in young 
 and old animals, four guinea-pigs were taken ; two 
 were young, and two were old. The four, after 
 fasting for fifteen hours, were each given two grains 
 of chloride of lithium. Two of them, one young 
 and one old, were killed in six hours. 
 
 The young animal showed lithium distinctly in 
 the outer and inner part of the lens, and also in the 
 cartilage of the hip-joint, when touched with a 
 
188 APPENDIX III, 
 
 red-hot wire. The stomach was about half full 
 of food. 
 
 The old one showed lithium distinctly in the 
 outer part of the lens, but scarcely the faintest trace 
 in the inner part. The cartilage of the hip-joint 
 showed lithium quite as distinctly as the cartilage 
 of the young pig. 
 
 The other two guinea-pigs were kept. After 
 forty-eight hours, the urine of both showed lithium 
 very distinctly in one drop. Six days afterwards, 
 the urine of the young animal still showed lithium 
 faintly in each drop. The urine of the old one 
 found in the bladder after its death showed lithium 
 faintly in each drop. 
 
 Both were killed on the sixth day, and no lithium 
 could be detected in the alcoholic extracts of the 
 kidneys, livers, or lenses of either. 
 
 A short series of experiments were made with the 
 view of determining the rate at which the salts of 
 lithium diffuse into the textures when the lithium 
 is injected into the skin instead of passing through 
 the stomach. 
 
 Three grains of chloride of lithium in solution 
 were injected into the skin of the back of the neck 
 of a guinea-pig, and the animal was killed in 
 twenty-four minutes. 
 
 The urine, bile, kidney, and liver showed lithium 
 very distinctly. The cartilage of the hip-joint 
 showed lithium distinctly when touched with a red- 
 hot wire. The aqueous humour showed lithium 
 very distinctly, but the lens, when washed, showed 
 only a very minute trace of lithium when the 
 
APPENDIX III. 189 
 
 entire lens was taken at one time on the wire. The 
 toe-nails showed lithium very distinctly. 
 
 Another had three grains injected under the skin 
 of the neck, and it was killed in ten minutes. 
 
 The humours of the eye showed lithium distinctly, 
 but the aqueous humour showed decidedly more 
 than the vitreous humour. The incinerated aqueous 
 extract of the lenses showed lithium very faintly. 
 The large nerves of the leg also showed lithium 
 very faintly. 
 
 Another guinea-pig had a grain and a half of 
 chloride of lithium injected under the skin of the 
 neck, and in five minutes it was killed. The aque- 
 ous humour showed lithium distinctly. The vitreous 
 humour showed none. The blood and bile showed 
 lithium very distinctly. The kidney and urine 
 showed lithium faintly, and the liver very faintly. 
 
 In another pig three grains of chloride of lithium 
 were injected into the skin of the neck, and the 
 animal was killed in four minutes. 
 
 The blood and the bile showed lithium very 
 distinctly ; the blood showed it rather more than 
 the bile. The bladder contained only a few .drops 
 of urine, which showed lithium distinctly. The 
 kidney showed lithium fairly well. The liver 
 showed the lithium only very faintly, and in some 
 parts not at all. 
 
 The aqueous humour showed lithium distinctly 
 The vitreous humour showed no lithium. 
 
 So that, when injected under the skin 
 
 3 grains in twenty-four minutes gave lithium in 
 the lens and everywhere. 
 
190 APPENDIX III. 
 
 3 grains in ten minutes gave lithium in the lens 
 
 and everywhere. 
 1J grain in five minutes gave lithium in the 
 
 aqueous humour and in the bile. 
 3 grains in four minutes gave lithium in the 
 
 aqueous humour and in the bile. 
 
 3. Experiments on the Rate of Passage of the Lithium 
 out of the Textures. 
 
 Experiment 18. Five guinea-pigs were given two 
 grains of chloride of lithium each. They were 
 killed at different periods; the first in six hours. 
 The smallest particle of the lens showed the lithium 
 very distinctly ; a decided difference, however, was 
 detectable between the inner and the outer part. 
 The cartilage of the hip-joint showed lithium very 
 distinctly when touched with the red-hot wire. All 
 the organs and the blood showed lithium very 
 abundantly. The stomach contained very little 
 solid food, but was half full of liquid. The second 
 and third were killed in twenty-four hours. The 
 lenses of both showed the lithium very distinctly ; 
 no difference was perceptible between the inner and 
 the outer part. The cartilage of the hip -joint 
 showed no lithium when touched with the red-hot 
 wire ; but a small portion taken off the surface 
 showed lithium distinctly. 
 
 The fourth guinea-pig was killed in forty-eight 
 hours. The lens showed lithium very distinctly. A 
 small piece taken from the cartilage of the hip-joint 
 showed only traces of lithium. 
 
APPENDIX III. 101 
 
 The fifth was killed in ninety-six hours. The 
 lens showed no lithium even when a considerable 
 proportion of it was taken for one experiment. The 
 aqueous extract of half one lens showed no lithium. 
 A small portion of the cartilage of the hip-joint 
 showed no lithium. The urine showed lithium very 
 distinctly even in one drop. 
 
 Experiment 19. Six fresh guinea-pigs were taken. 
 The first was killed and examined, having had no 
 lithium. The two lenses, incinerated and treated 
 with sulphuric acid and alcohol, showed no lithium. 
 The ash of the kidney showed no lithium directly, 
 but when treated with sulphuric acid and alcohol, 
 showed a distinct trace of lithium. 
 
 The five others were given each one grain of 
 chloride of lithium. 
 
 The first was killed five and a half hours after the 
 dose. The cartilage of the hip-joint showed lithium 
 faintly when merely touched with a red-hot wire. 
 The lens showed lithium distinctly in the outer 
 part, scarcely a trace in the inner part. The 
 vitreous and aqueous humours showed lithium very 
 distinctly. The stomach was quite full. 
 
 The second was killed twenty-four and a half 
 hours after the lithium was taken. The cartilage 
 of the hip-joint showed no lithium even in a small 
 particle scraped off the surface. The lens still 
 showed lithium distinctly, though less so than in 
 the first ; no difference was perceptible between the 
 inner and the outer portion. 
 
 The third was killed in forty-eight hours. The 
 lens showed no lithium in a small particle taken on 
 
192 APPENDIX III. 
 
 a loop of the wire. The aqueous extract of the lens 
 showed only faint traces of lithium. The urine 
 showed lithium very distinctly in a single drop. 
 
 The fourth was killed in seventy-two and a half 
 hours. The lens showed no lithium when the ash 
 was treated with sulphuric acid and alcohol. The 
 ash of the kidney showed no lithium directly, but 
 when treated with sulphuric acid and alcohol, 
 showed traces of lithium. The urine still showed 
 lithium distinctly in one drop. 
 
 The fifth guinea-pig: on the seventh day after 
 the dose, the urine showed lithium in one drop ; 
 ninth day, still faint traces of lithium in the urine 5 
 eleventh day, urine directly shows no lithium, but 
 the ash still shows faint traces ; thirteenth day, ash 
 of urine shows no lithium, but alcoholic extract 
 shows lithium distinctly ; fourteenth day the same ; 
 sixteenth day the same; thirty-sixth day, when 
 killed, no lithium could be detected in the bones, 
 nerves, lens, or vitreous or aqueous humours, nor in 
 the urine, kidney, or liver. 
 
 Experiment 20. Two guinea-pigs, in the urine 
 of which no lithium could be detected, were given 
 each half a grain of chloride of lithium. 
 
 In three hours and fifty minutes afterwards one 
 was killed. The cartilage of the hip -joint showed 
 no lithium when simply touched with a red-hot 
 wire. Scrapings from the surface of the cartilage 
 showed faint traces of lithium. The sciatic nerve, 
 humours of the eye, and the brain showed faint 
 traces. The muscles of the thigh showed the lithium 
 much more distinctly than the sciatic nerve. The 
 
APPENDIX III. 193 
 
 lens showed lithium very distinctly in the aqueous 
 extract, but not otherwise. The blood and bile were 
 very rich in lithium. The stomach was moderately 
 full of food. 
 
 The other animal, which was given half a grain, 
 was kept until the lithium ceased to appear in the 
 urine. 
 
 Fourth day. Lithium distinctly in the urine. 
 
 Tenth day. Urine showed exceedingly minute 
 traces of lithium. 
 
 Eleventh day. Still traces. 
 
 Thirteenth day. Urine shows no lithium in the 
 quantity adhering to the wire. 
 
 Fourteenth day. Still lithium in the alcoholic 
 extract. 
 
 Twenty-seventh day. Still traces of lithium. 
 
 Thirtieth day. The animal was found dead. 
 
 The ash of the urine found in the bladder (about 
 a quarter of an ounce) showed no lithium. The 
 alcoholic extract of the ash showed lithium faintly. 
 The alcoholic extract of the ash of one kidney 
 showed no lithium. And the alcoholic extract of 
 the two lenses showed no lithium. 
 
 Experiment 21. Two guinea-pigs, the urine of 
 which contained no lithium, were each given one 
 quarter of a grain of chloride of lithium. 
 
 One was killed in four hours and thirty-five 
 minutes. Lithium was found very faintly in the 
 spleen, very distinctly in the blood, in the urine, 
 and in the bile. Faintly in the sciatic nerve and in 
 the brain. Very faintly in the scrapings of the 
 cartilage. Pretty distinctly in the vitreous and 
 
 o 
 
194 APPENDIX III. 
 
 aqueous humours, but very faintly in the aqueous ex- 
 tract of the lens. The stomach was moderately full. 
 
 The other was kept until the lithium ceased to 
 appear in the urine. 
 
 Second day. Lithium very distinctly. 
 
 Fourth day. Minute traces of lithium. 
 
 Sixth day. A drop or two of urine shows no 
 lithium, but on evaporating and incinerating one- 
 twelfth of an ounce, the ash shows lithium very 
 distinctly. 
 
 Seventh day. Lithium still distinct in the ash. 
 
 Eighth day. Still in the ash. 
 
 Tenth day. Ash of urine shows only the merest 
 trace. 
 
 Eleventh day. Ash of urine shows no lithium ; 
 but when treated with sulphuric acid and alcohol, 
 lithium is still distinct. 
 
 Thirteenth day. Still lithium in one quarter of 
 an ounce. 
 
 Fourteenth day. Alcoholic extract from one- 
 eighth of an ounce shows no lithium. 
 
 Sixteenth day. The animal was killed. The 
 fluids and organs were incinerated, the ash treated 
 with sulphuric acid, excess of acid driven off and 
 the dry residue extracted with absolute alcohol, 
 alcoholic extract evaporated, and dry residue tested. 
 The two lenses gave extremely feeble traces of 
 lithium. One-eighth of an ounce of urine and bile 
 gave traces of lithium. Ninety grains of liver gave 
 traces. One quarter of an ounce of blood gave no 
 lithium. An entire kidney, weighing ninety grains, 
 distinctly contained lithium. 
 
APPENDIX III. 195 
 
 Experiment 22. Two guinea-pigs, the hair and 
 nails of which showed no lithium, were given each 
 three grains of chloride of lithium. 
 
 In the first, in two hours no lithium was in the 
 hair. In four hours lithium was in the hair of the 
 belly, but scarcely perceptible in the hair of the 
 head. In twenty-four hours it was very distinct in 
 the hair of the belly and the head, and in the nails. 
 For five days it was detected in each drop of the 
 urine. Ten days afterwards the urine showed 
 lithium very distinctly ; only after thirty-two days 
 was lithium absent from a few drops of the urine. 
 The thirty-third day after the dose the animal was 
 killed. No lithium was found in the bile, liver, 
 blood, lens, kidneys, spleen, or other parts, by 
 simply taking a small piece of the organ on a red- 
 hot wire. The evaporated aqueous extract of the 
 two lenses showed no trace of lithium ; when, how- 
 ever, the two kidneys were incinerated, the ash 
 treated with sulphuric acid, the resulting sulphates 
 exhausted with absolute alcohol and the alcoholic 
 extract evaporated to dryness, lithium was easily 
 detected in the residue. A portion of the liver, 
 treated in the same manner, also yielded lithium. 
 
 The second guinea-pig gave traces of lithium in 
 the urine when one-eighth of an ounce was evapo- 
 rated and treated with sulphuric acid and alcohol, 
 thirty-nine days after the lithium was taken. 
 
 It follows from these experiments on the rate of 
 passage of lithium into and out of the body, that 
 
 With three grains of chloride of lithium, a young 
 guinea-pig in half an hour had lithium in the watery 
 
196 APPENDIX III. 
 
 extract of the lens. An old guinea-pig in the same 
 time had no lithium in the lens. 
 
 With two grains, a young guinea-pig in six hours 
 had lithium distinctly in all parts of the lens. An 
 old guinea-pig had in the same time scarcely any 
 lithium in the inner part, but some in the outer 
 part of the lens. . 
 
 With the same quantity, in six days neither a 
 young nor an old guinea-pig gave any trace of 
 lithium in the alcoholic extract of the kidney, liver, 
 or lenses. 
 
 When two grains of chloride of lithium were 
 taken, after six hours the lithium was more distinct 
 in the outer than in the inner part of the lens. In 
 twenty-four hours no difference in the different parts 
 of the lens was detectable. In forty-eight hours 
 still no difference was observed. In ninety-six hours 
 (four days) no lithium was detectable in the lens or 
 in a cartilage of a joint; still the urine showed 
 lithium very distinctly even in one drop. 
 
 After one grain of chloride of lithium, in five 
 hours and a half the lithium was more distinct in 
 the outer than in the inner part of the lens. In 
 twenty-four hours and a half there was no difference 
 throughout the lens. In forty-eight hours the 
 watery extract of the lens showed faint traces of 
 lithium. In seventy-two hours and a half (three 
 days) the alcoholic extract of the lens showed no 
 lithium. The urine still showed lithium distinctly 
 in one drop, and continued to do so for seventeen 
 days in the alcoholic extract. 
 
 After a quarter of a grain, in five hours and thirty- 
 
APPENDIX III. 197 
 
 five minutes lithium was distinct in the vitreous and 
 aqueous humours, and very faintly in the lens. 
 After sixteen days, the minutest traces of lithium 
 were detected in the lens, the liver, and the kidneys, 
 but no trace could be found in the blood. (This 
 animal had perhaps somehow eaten the minutest 
 quantity of lithia in the food.)* 
 
 After half a grain of chloride of lithium, in three 
 hours and fifty minutes traces of lithium could be 
 found in the lens, and for thirty-seven or thirty-eight 
 days traces of lithium could be found in the urine. 
 
 After three grains of chloride of lithium, in four 
 hours lithium was in the hair of the belly, and for 
 thirty- two days the urine showed lithium very 
 distinctly. The thirty-third day after the lithium 
 the lens was found to contain minute traces of 
 lithium, and after thirty-nine days the lithium was 
 in the alcoholic extract of the urine. 
 
 4. Experiments on the Bate of Passage of Lithium 
 through the Human Body, and into and out of the 
 Crystalline Lens. 
 
 Experiment 1. A man took ten grains of car- 
 bonate of lithia dissolved in water, four hours after 
 his midday food. 
 
 In five minutes no lithium could be detected in 
 the urine. 
 
 * The skin of guinea-pigs throws off lithium, and it col- 
 lects on the hair and nails, so that it is possible for the 
 animal to redose itself with lithium from its own body, and 
 thus to keep lithium passing in and out of the textures much 
 longer than if a single dose only were taken. 
 
198 APPENDIX III. 
 
 In ten minutes lithium was evident. 
 
 In eighteen hours it was present in the nails of 
 the hands and feet, and in the hair of the beard and 
 body ; apparently most where there was most per- 
 spiration. No lithium could be found in the hair 
 of the head or whiskers. 
 
 In forty-two hours very perceptible. 
 
 In sixty- six hours another dose of ten grains was 
 taken. 
 
 In ninety hours lithium was detectable in the 
 hair of the head. 
 
 For three days after the second dose it was per- 
 ceptible in one drop of the urine, but rather doubtful 
 in the hair and in the nails. 
 
 For six days after the second dose lithium was 
 detectable in the urine. 
 
 For eight days after, no lithium could be detected 
 when the eighth of an ounce of urine was evapo- 
 rated. 
 
 Twelve days afterwards, though no lithium was 
 in the urine or the hair of the head or whiskers, it 
 was detectable in the hair of the body. 
 
 Experiment 2. The same man three hours after 
 breakfast took ten grains of carbonate of lithia. 
 
 In five minutes lithium was just perceptible in 
 the urine. 
 
 In ten minutes extremely distinct in one drop of 
 the urine. 
 
 In twenty-four hours very distinct in the urine. 
 
 Fourth day. Traces of lithium when the urine 
 was concentrated by evaporation. 
 
 Fifth day. Less perceptible in evaporated residue. 
 
APPENDIX III. 199 
 
 Sixth day. No lithium could be detected in eva- 
 porated urine. 
 
 Experiment 3. The same man took ten grains of 
 carbonate of lithia after fasting for seven hours. 
 The urine was passed every second minute after 
 taking the lithia. 
 
 Second, fourth, and sixth minute, no lithium. 
 
 Eighth minute, traces of lithium very slight. 
 
 Tenth minute, lithium distinctly present. 
 
 Third day afterwards lithium very distinct. 
 
 Fourth day. Lithium faintly found in each drop 
 of urine. 
 
 Fifth day. Lithium very faint in each drop. 
 
 Sixth day. Only the merest trace. 
 
 Seventh day. No lithium in the eighth of an 
 ounce evaporated to a few drops. 
 
 Eighteenth day. Two ounces of urine incinerated, 
 and the ash heated with sulphuric acid and alcohol, 
 showed no lithium. 
 
 Twenty-first day. Nails of the hands and feet 
 still show lithium. 
 
 Experiment 4. The same man, two hours and a 
 half after a little food, took ten grains of chloride of 
 lithium : one nail on the hand and one on the foot 
 were varnished before taking the lithium. 
 
 Second and fourth minute afterwards no lithium 
 was in the urine. 
 
 Sixth minute, traces of lithium. 
 
 Eighth minute, distinctly present. 
 
 Tenth minute, very distinctly. 
 
 Twenty-five hours afterwards none of the nails 
 showed any lithium. 
 
200 APPENDIX III. 
 
 Forty-four hours. Scrapings of the unvarnished 
 nails on the hands and feet showed lithium dis- 
 tinctly. The further the scraping was carried the 
 less lithium was found. The scrapings of the 
 varnished nail of the hand shows only traces of 
 lithium. The varnished nail of the foot has no 
 lithium. A small particle of the skin from the 
 hand or foot shows lithium distinctly. Perspiration 
 shows lithium distinctly. The hair of the head or 
 whiskers shows no lithium. 
 
 Third day. Nails the same as yesterday. The 
 unvarnished nails show lithium; the varnished, 
 none. Urine shows lithium most distinctly. 
 
 Fourth day. Urine shows lithium in one drop. 
 
 Fifth day. Urine still shows minute traces of 
 lithium in one drop. 
 
 Sixth day. Urine shows no lithium. Ash of the 
 urine shows faint traces of lithium. 
 
 Seventh day. Ash of urine shows no lithium. 
 Alcoholic extract shows traces. 
 
 Eighth day. Alcoholic extract from one ounce of 
 urine still shows traces of lithium. 
 
 Ninth day. Alcoholic extract from one ounce of 
 urine shows no lithium. 
 
 Experiment 5. A boy, aged sixteen years, took 
 five grains of chloride of lithium, and the urine was 
 passed every second minute. Half an hour pre- 
 viously he had eaten some bread and butter. No 
 lithium could be detected in the urine previous to 
 the taking of the dose. 
 
 Second minute, no lithium in the urine. 
 
 Fifth minute, none. 
 
APPENDIX III. 201 
 
 Ninth minute, none. 
 
 Tenth minute, very faint traces of lithium. 
 
 Thirteenth minute, lithium very distinctly present. 
 
 After twenty-four hours lithium still very dis- 
 tinct. 
 
 Second, third, fourth, and fifth day. Still very 
 distinct. 
 
 Seventh day. No lithium was found in the eva- 
 porated residue. The ash of the residue shows 
 very slight traces. 
 
 Eighth day. The alcoholic extract from one ounce 
 of urine shows no lithium. 
 
 Experiment 6. The same boy had his hair, nails, 
 and urine "examined, and no lithium was found. 
 
 Five grains of carbonate of lithia were then given 
 to him. 
 
 In two minutes, five minutes, ten minutes, no 
 lithium was found in the urine. 
 
 In twenty minutes lithium was distinctly present. 
 
 In eighteen hours the lithium was found in the 
 nails, none in the hair of the head. 
 
 In thirty- two hours, still none in the hair of the 
 head. Very distinctly in the root and tip of the 
 nails. 
 
 Another five grains of carbonate of lithia were 
 then given. 
 
 In nineteen hours lithium was detected in the 
 hair of the head. 
 
 In four days a drop of the urine showed lithium 
 very distinctly, as did the hair and nails. 
 
 In five days the same. 
 
 In seven days one drop of the urine shows no 
 
202 APPENDIX III. 
 
 lithium, but if the urine is slightly concentrated by 
 evaporation, lithium is still perceptible. 
 
 In eight days one-eighth of an ounce evaporated 
 still shows slight traces. 
 
 In nine days no lithium in one-eighth of an 
 ounce of urine. 
 
 Experiment 7. The same boy took five grains 
 of carbonate of lithia, but he omitted previously to 
 empty his bladder. 
 
 In five minutes, lithium not yet detectable in the 
 urine. 
 
 In ten minutes lithium very distinctly present in 
 one drop of the urine. 
 
 Four days afterwards traces of lithium still in 
 the urine. 
 
 Five days afterwards slight traces in one-eighth 
 of an ounce of urine when evaporated. 
 
 In six days afterwards no lithium perceptible in 
 the urine. 
 
 Experiment 8. Twenty-five grains of chloride 
 of lithium were dissolved in one gallon of water, 
 and the feet and ankles of a man were kept in the 
 solution for two hours ; at the end of this time the 
 urine was passed and examined for lithium, and no 
 trace could be found in the aqueous extract of the 
 ash of one quarter of an ounce of urine. 
 
 These experiments agree very closely with some 
 which I made many years since on a full-grown 
 German who had an open bladder, admitting the 
 urine to be caught as it came from the kidneys. 
 
 Feb. 24, 1852. At 8.45 A.M. he took two cups of 
 black coffee and nothing else. 
 
APPENDIX III. 203 
 
 9.30 to 9.50. Urine was caught, and it contained 
 no trace of iron. 
 
 9.50. Protosulphate of iron, 6*7 grains, free from 
 persulphate was taken in two ounces of distilled 
 water. 
 
 9.55. Urine caught and contained no iron. 
 
 10. No iron as peroxide. Present as pro- 
 toxide. 
 
 10.5. Slightest trace of peroxide. Protoxide 
 distinct. 
 
 10.10. Slightest trace of peroxide. Protoxide 
 distinct. 
 
 10.20. Slightest trace of peroxide. Protoxide 
 less distinct. 
 
 10.30. Slightest trace of peroxide. Protoxide 
 less distinct. 
 
 10.40. Slightest trace of peroxide. Slightest 
 trace of protoxide. 
 
 11. Slightest trace of peroxide. No trace. 
 11.10. Slightest trace of peroxide. No trace. 
 Feb. 26. The same patient. At 8 A.M. two cups 
 
 of black coffee and nothing else. 
 
 10.20 to 10.30. Urine caught and no trace of 
 iron found. 
 
 10.30 Sulphate of protoxide of iron four grains, 
 given in one ounce of distilled water. 
 
 10.31. No trace of iron in the urine. 
 
 10.34. No trace. 
 
 10.35. No trace. 
 
 10.36. No trace. 
 
 10.37. Slightest trace of protoxide of iron in the 
 urine. No peroxide. 
 
204 APPENDIX III. 
 
 10.39. No trace. 
 
 10.40. No trace. 
 
 March 2nd. The same patient. At 8 A.M. two 
 cups of black coffee and nothing else. 
 
 9.34 to 9.40. Urine collected and no trace of 
 iron found. 
 
 9.40. Sulphate of protoxide given, seven grains 
 in two ounces of distilled water. 
 9.421 None. 
 9.45. None. 
 9.47^. None. 
 9.50J. A trace. 
 9.52J. A trace. 
 9.55. Good. 
 9.57J. Doubtful. 
 10. ' Doubtful. 
 10.5. More distinct. 
 10.10. Doubtful. 
 10.15. Doubtful. 
 
 March 19. At 8 A.M. two cups of black coffee 
 without milk, nothing else taken. 
 
 Urine from 9.50 to 9.56 collected; contained no 
 iodine. One grain of iodide of potassium dissolved 
 in one ounce of water was then taken. 
 
 9.58. No iodine. 
 
 9.59. No iodine. 
 10. None. 
 
 10.1. None. 
 
 10.2. None. 
 
 10.3. None. 
 
 10.4. None. 
 
 10.5. None. 
 
APPENDIX III. 205 
 
 10.6. None. 
 
 10.8. Trace of iodine. 
 
 10.10. Very marked iodine. 
 
 10.15. Very marked. 
 
 So that one grain of iodide of potassium in one 
 ounce of water was detected in the urine in twelve 
 minutes, and was very marked in fourteen minutes. 
 Iron was detected once in seven minutes and twice 
 in ten minutes, and it was very distinct in fifteen 
 minutes. 
 
 Professor Mulder also made many experiments 
 on this patient, but I am unable to find any account 
 of his results. 
 
 In the Medical Gazette for 1845, pp. 363 & 410, 
 Mr. Erichsen gives some experiments he made on a 
 boy of thirteen who had an open bladder. He 
 states that twenty grains of ferrocyanide of potas- 
 sium were detected in one minute in the urine. 
 The stomach was fasting, and the salt was dissolved 
 in three ounces of water. Forty grains taken three 
 quarters of an hour after a full meal were only 
 detected after thirty-nine minutes. 
 
 Forty grains in four ounces of water were twice 
 detected in two minutes, and no trace could be 
 found after twenty- four hours; once in two minutes 
 and a half; once in six minutes and a half ; once in 
 fourteen minutes ; once in twenty-seven minutes ; 
 and once in thirty-nine minutes. 
 
 Twenty grains of ferrocyanide he once detected 
 for twenty-eight hours. 
 
 It follows from these experiments that ten grains 
 of carbonate or chloride of lithium, taken two and 
 
206 APPENDIX III. 
 
 a half, three, or four hours after food by a man, 
 require between five and ten minutes to pass from 
 the stomach to the urine, and this quantity of 
 carbonate or chloride of lithium will continue to 
 produce traces of lithium in the urine from six to 
 seven, or even eight days. 
 
 Five grains of chloride or carbonate of lithia, 
 taken shortly after food by a boy, gives no appear- 
 ance in the urine until from ten to twenty minutes, 
 and this quantity continues to pass out for five, 
 seven, or eight days. 
 
 Experiments made by the ordinary mode of 
 analysis showed that 
 
 Four grains of sulphate of the protoxide of iron, 
 taken almost fasting by a man, gave a trace in the 
 urine in seven minutes. 
 
 Seven grains gave distinct appearance in ten 
 minutes and ten minutes and a half. 
 
 One grain of iodide of potassium, taken by the 
 same man fasting, appeared in the urine in twelve 
 minutes. 
 
 Experiments on the Hate of Passage of Lithium into 
 and out of the Crystalline Lens. 
 
 Through the kindness of Mr. Bowman and Mr. 
 Critchett at the Moorfields Ophthalmic Hospital, 
 lithia water, containing variable quantities of lithia, 
 was given to different patients about to be operated 
 on for cataract. 
 
 Experiment 1. The hard cataracts from two 
 patients who had taken no lithia water were 
 
APPENDIX III. 207 
 
 examined ; no trace of lithium could be found in 
 either lens. 
 
 Experiment 2. The hard cataracts from two other 
 patients who had no lithia water were examined ; an 
 aqueous extract of each lens was made ; one showed 
 the most excessively feeble lithium line ; the other 
 lens did not give the slightest indication. 
 
 Experiment 3. The hard cataracts of two other 
 patients who had taken no lithia water were 
 examined ; the alcoholic extract of the ash, after 
 treatment with sulphuric acid, showed no lithium in 
 either lens. 
 
 The lens of a third patient was examined when 
 no lithia water had been taken, and the alcoholic 
 extract showed no lithium. 
 
 Experiment 4. The lens of a man aged seventy 
 was extracted twenty-five minutes after he had taken 
 twenty grains of carbonate of lithia in water on an 
 empty stomach; no lithium could be detected in 
 the lens. 
 
 Experiment 5. A woman, ast. sixty-four, at 9 A.M. 
 took twenty grains of carbonate of lithia in water ; 
 both lenses were extracted at 11 J A.M. the same 
 day. Neither of the lenses showed any lithium 
 when touched with a red-hot wire, but the aqueous 
 extract of one lens showed lithium faintly, and the 
 aqueous extract of the other lens showed lithium 
 distinctly. 
 
 Experiment 6. An eye was removed three hours 
 after twenty grains of carbonate of lithia had been 
 taken ; the lens was removed half an hour after- 
 wards, and on examination every portion of the lens 
 
208 APPENDIX III. 
 
 contained lithium. The circulation through the 
 eye had been healthy, and the lens itself was 
 clear. 
 
 Experiment 7. The soft lens of a girl aged four- 
 teen was examined after ten grains of carbonate of 
 lithia in water had been taken five hours before the 
 operation, and the same quantity four hours before 
 extraction. 
 
 The smallest fraction of the lens showed the 
 lithium distinctly. 
 
 Experiment 8. Another patient with two soft 
 cataracts took twenty grains of carbonate of lithia 
 seven hours before one operation ; but the capsule 
 of the lens had been previously broken, so as to 
 expose the cataract to the aqueous humour. 
 
 Lithium was found very distinctly even in the 
 smallest particle of the cataract. 
 
 Four days after the first operation the capsule of 
 the other lens was broken, so as to expose the 
 cataract to the aqueous humour; and seven days 
 after the first operation the second operation was 
 performed. 
 
 In this cataract not the slightest trace of lithium 
 could be found. 
 
 A woman with diseased heart drank some lithia 
 water, containing fifteen grains of citrate of lithia, 
 thirty-six hours before her death ; and six hours 
 before death she drank the same quantity. 
 
 After death the crystalline lens, the blood, and 
 the cartilage of one joint were examined for lithium. 
 
 The cartilage showed lithium very distinctly ; the 
 blood showed lithium very faintly ; and when the 
 
APPENDIX III. 209 
 
 entire lens was taken for a single examination, 
 the faintest possible indications of lithium were 
 obtained. 
 
 Another patient five and a half hours before death 
 drank lithia water containing ten grains of carbonate 
 of lithia. 
 
 After death the cartilage of one joint and the 
 crystalline lens were examined. 
 
 The cartilage showed lithium very distinctly. 
 When half the lens was taken for a single analysis, 
 only very faint traces of lithium could be found. 
 
 When no lithia had been taken, seven cataracts 
 were examined most carefully, and one only showed 
 an exceedingly feeble trace of lithium. 
 
 When twenty grains of carbonate of lithia were 
 taken twenty-five minutes before the operation, the 
 lens showed no lithium ; the same quantity taken 
 two and a half hours before, showed lithium in the 
 watery extract ; three and a half hours before, 
 showed lithium in each particle ; between four and 
 five hours before, the same ; seven hours before, the 
 same ; seven days before, not the slightest trace of 
 lithium. 
 
 Thirty grains of carbonate of lithia, taken between 
 six and thirty- six hours before death, showed the 
 faintest indications of lithium in the lens. 
 
 Ten grains of carbonate of lithia, taken five and 
 a half hours before death, gave only faint traces of 
 lithium in the lens. 
 
210 APPENDIX III. 
 
 On the Passage of Solutions of Lithium through the 
 Textures after Death. 
 
 A sheep's eye was examined after death and no 
 lithium could be detected in any part. Two other 
 eyes were placed in a solution of chloride of lithium 
 containing one grain to one litre of water. Twenty- 
 three hours afterwards the lithium was found to 
 have penetrated through the entire eye. There 
 was, however, a perceptible difference between the 
 amount of lithium in the inner and outer part of the 
 lenses. 
 
 Two other sheep's eyes had a small portion of the 
 cornea in front and the sclerotic removed at the 
 back ; they were then placed in a moderately strong 
 solution of chloride of lithium, and the aqueous 
 humour was examined from time to time. 
 
 After eighteen hours the aqueous humour showed 
 lithium distinctly, and when the lens was extracted 
 the lithium was found throughout its substance. 
 
 Two other eyes were placed whole in a solution 
 containing one tenth of a grain of chloride of lithium 
 to one litre of water. 
 
 In twenty-four hours the lithium had penetrated 
 the entire eye. No difference was perceptible in 
 different parts of the lens. 
 
 The rate at which a solution of chloride of lithium 
 diffused through the stomach of a fresh-killed 
 guinea-pig which had taken no lithium was deter- 
 mined. 
 
 A solution of one grain of chloride of lithium in 
 twenty grains of water was put into the stomach, 
 
APPENDIX III. 211 
 
 and it was hung up so that the the solution gravi- 
 tated to the lowest part. The outer side of the 
 stomach opposite the solution was touched from time 
 to time with a loop of platinum wire, which was 
 afterwards tested for lithium. 
 
 In first minute. No lithium came through the 
 stomach. 
 
 In second minute. No lithium. 
 
 In third minute. No lithium. 
 
 In fourth minute. No lithium. 
 
 In fifth minute. No lithium. 
 
 In sixth minute. Traces of lithium. 
 
 In seventh minute. Traces of lithium. 
 
 In eighth minute. Lithium was very distinct. 
 
 The stomach of another guinea-pig was filled 
 with a solution of lithium containing one grain of 
 lithium in about half an ounce of water. The 
 stomach was entirely filled and laid flat on a plate. 
 The ends of the stomach and round the' side showed 
 lithium coming through in four minutes. The 
 upper part of the stomach showed the lithium 
 coming through in fifteen minutes. 
 
 5. On the Presence of Lithium in Solid and Liquid 
 Food. 
 
 An ounce of each substance was taken. It was 
 dried or evaporated, and incinerated carefully at a 
 low red heat in a muffle on a platinum tray. The 
 ash was tested for lithium first by taking a small 
 fraction on a loop of a platinum wire into the flame 
 of the spectroscope. When no lithium was thus 
 
212 
 
 APPENDIX III. 
 
 detected, the ash was treated with sulphuric acid, 
 and heated to expel the excess of acid; the dry 
 residue was extracted with absolute alcohol, the 
 solution filtered, evaporated to dryness, and the 
 residue taken up in a drop of water and tested by 
 the spectroscope. 
 
 In Alcoholic Extract. 
 No lithium. 
 
 Lithium distinctly. 
 No lithium. 
 
 Lithium distinctly. 
 Trace of lithium. 
 
 No lithium. 
 
 Slight traces of lithium. 
 Traces of lithium. 
 Lithium distinctly. 
 
 Lithium shown distinctly. 
 
 Lithium very faintly. 
 Lithium very distinctly. 
 Faintly. 
 
 No lithium. 
 
 Potatoes. 
 
 In Ash direct. 
 
 No. 1. 
 
 No lithium. 
 
 2. 
 
 n 
 
 3. 
 
 
 
 4. 
 
 H 
 
 5. 
 
 
 
 Apples. 
 
 
 No. 1. 
 
 I) 
 
 ' 2. 
 
 
 
 3. 
 
 1 
 
 4. 
 
 ,, 
 
 Carrots. 
 
 
 No. 1. 
 
 
 
 2. 
 
 j> 
 
 Bread. 
 
 
 No. 1. 
 
 
 
 2. 
 
 
 
 3. 
 
 5 
 
 Savoy Cab- 
 bage. 
 
 No. 1. Lithium distinctly. 
 
 2. No lithium. 
 Tea. 
 No. 1. 
 
 2. 
 
 3. 
 
 4. 
 
 5. 
 
 6. 
 
 7. 
 
APPENDIX III. 213 
 
 Tea. 
 
 In Ash direct. 
 
 In Alcoholic Extract. 
 
 No. 8. 
 
 No lithium. 
 
 Faintly. 
 
 9. 
 
 jt 
 
 No lithium. 
 
 10. 
 
 M 
 
 Very distinctly. 
 
 Coffee. 
 
 
 
 No. 1. 
 
 II 
 
 Very faintly. 
 
 2. 
 
 r> 
 
 
 
 3. 
 
 n 
 
 No lithium. 
 
 4. 
 
 
 
 Lithium distinctly. 
 
 5. 
 
 M 
 
 Very distinctly. 
 
 Wines: in almost all cases the ash gave direct 
 evidence of the presence of lithium. 
 
 Port Wines. 
 No. 1. Small traces of lithium. 
 
 2. Faintly. 
 
 3. Very faintly. Lithium exceedingly dis- 
 
 tinct. 
 
 4. >j 
 
 5. No lithium. Very faintly. 
 
 6. Very distinctly. 
 
 No. 1. Lithium extremely brightly. 
 
 2. Faintly. 
 
 3. Exceedingly faintly. 
 
 4. Very faintly. 
 
 5. Faintly. 
 
 6. Distinctly. 
 
 French 
 Wines. 
 No. 1. (red). Lithium very distinctly. 
 
 2. (white). Extremely distinctly. 
 
 3. (champagne). Very brightly. 
 
 4. ,, M 
 
 Rhine 
 Wines. 
 
 No. 1 . Lithium exceedingly faintly. 
 2. 
 3. Lithium distinctly. j 
 
214 APPENDIX III. 
 
 Wines. In Ash direct ' In Alcoholic Extract. 
 
 No. 4. Very faintly. 
 
 5. Distinctly. 
 
 6. Faintly. 
 
 7. Distinctly. 
 
 8. Faintly. 
 Ate. 
 
 No. 1. No lithium. . Lithium faintly. 
 
 2. No lithium. 
 
 3. Lithium faintly. 
 Porter. 
 
 No. 1. 
 
 2. No Lithium. 
 
 3. Lithium distinctly. 
 
 In the Philosophical Magazine, vol. xx., Messrs. 
 A. and F. Dupre gave the spectrum analysis of 
 London waters. All the different waters examined 
 gave lithium. The shallow waters appear to be 
 richer in lithium than the deep-well waters. The 
 different waters examined were: Thames water at 
 high and low tide at Westminster Bridge ; the 
 water from Chelsea and Lambeth Water-Com- 
 panies; New Eiver water; Duck Island well, in 
 St. James's Park ; Pump in Lincoln's-Inn. These 
 were above the London clay. 
 
 Burnett's Distillery and Whitbread's Brewery : 
 from the sand above the chalk. 
 
 Guy's Hospital well and Trafalgar Square well : 
 from the chalk. 
 
 In Ash direct. In Alcoholic Extract. 
 
 Entire sheep's kidney. No lithium. Very faint traces. 
 
 One ounce of kidney. No lithium. 
 
 One ounce of mutton. 
 
 One ounce of beef. 
 
APPENDIX III. 215 
 
 It appears from these experiments that 
 Potatoes showed lithium once in five trials. 
 Apples twice in four trials. 
 Carrots no lithium in two trials. 
 Bread lithium thrice in three trials. 
 
 Cabbage , twice in two trials. 
 
 eight times in ten trials, 
 four times in five trials, 
 six times in six trials. 
 six times in six trials, 
 four times in four trials, 
 eight times in eight trials. 
 
 Tea 
 
 Cotfee 
 
 Port wine 
 
 Sherry 
 
 French wine,, 
 
 Ehine wine 
 
 Ale twice in three trials (traces). 
 
 Porter twice in three trials (traces). 
 
 Mutton, beef, and sheep's kidney showed no 
 lithium : one kidney had a slight trace of lithium. 
 
 I hope in a future paper, with the help of Dr. 
 Dupre, to show that Thallium, Eubidium, and 
 Cassium, by spectrum analysis, can be traced even 
 into the crystalline lens, and to determine the rate 
 at which they pass in, if not out of, the textures ; 
 and by other means we shall endeavour to trace 
 the passage of other crystalloids throughout the 
 textures. 
 
 CONCLUSIONS. 
 
 I. On the Eate of Passage of Solutions of Lithium 
 into the Textures of Animals. 
 
 In guinea-pigs, even in a quarter of an hour after 
 three grains of chloride of lithium are taken into 
 the stomach, the lithium may be found not only in 
 all the vascular textures, but even in the cartilage 
 of the hip-joint, and in the humours of the eye. *If 
 
216 APPENDIX III. 
 
 the same quantity is injected into the skin, in ten 
 minutes it can be detected in the lens and every- 
 where ; and even in four minutes the lithium may 
 be detected everywhere except in the lens. 
 
 In half an hour after the same quantity is taken 
 into the stomach, lithium may be found in the 
 crystalline lens. 
 
 After it has been taken eight hours, it may not have 
 passed completely into the inner part of the lens. 
 
 In twenty-six hours it will be found in every part 
 of the lens. 
 
 When half a grain only of chloride of lithium 
 was taken, in less than four hours traces were found 
 in the lens. And even when only a quarter of a 
 grain was taken, faint traces of lithium were found 
 in five and a half hours. 
 
 2. On the Bate of Passage of Solutions of Lithium 
 out of the Textures of Animals. 
 
 After two grains of chloride of lithium, in six 
 days neither a young nor an old guinea-pig gave 
 any lithium in the kidney, liver, or lenses. 
 
 After two grains, in four days no lithium could 
 be found in the lens, nor in the cartilage of a joint. 
 
 After one grain, in three days the alcoholic 
 extract of the lens showed no lithium. 
 
 After a quarter of a grain of chloride of lithium, 
 in sixteen days the minutest traces of lithium were 
 detected in the liver, kidneys, and lens. 
 
 After half a grain, for thirty-seven or thirty-eight 
 days traces of lithium could be found in the urine. 
 
APPENDIX III. 217 
 
 After three grains, traces were found in the lens 
 for thirty-three days, and for thirty-nine days the 
 smallest quantity could be found in urine. 
 
 The skin of guinea-pigs throws off lithium, and it 
 collects on the hair and nails ; so that it is possible 
 for the animal to redose itself with lithia from its 
 own body, and thus to keep lithia passing in and 
 out of the textures much longer than if a single dose 
 only were taken. 
 
 3. On the Rate of Passage of Solutions of Lithium in 
 and out of the Human Body. 
 
 In ten-grain doses, lithium may be found in the 
 urine in from five to ten minutes, and continue to 
 pass out for six or seven days. 
 
 In five-grain doses it may be in the urine in from 
 ten to twenty minutes, and continue to pass out even 
 for eight days. 
 
 In twenty-grain doses, it may be found in small 
 quantity in the crystalline lens in two and a half 
 hours, and be present in every particle of the lens in 
 three and a half, five, and seven hours ; and no 
 trace of lithium may be detectable in the lens after 
 seven days, when twenty grains of the carbonate of 
 lithia had been taken. 
 
 4. Results of the Examination of Solid and Liquid 
 Food. 
 
 Although almost every kind of vegetable food, 
 and almost every fluid which we drink, contains 
 infinitesimal quantities of lithia, yet rarely, if ever, 
 
218 APPENDIX III. 
 
 can lithium be detected in any patf of the body of 
 man or animals, unless some larger quantity is taken 
 than ordinarily occurs in the food or drink. 
 
 APPENDIX. Received July 8, 1865. 
 
 On the Passage of Chloride of Rubidium into the 
 Textures. 
 
 A guinea-pig was given three grains of chloride 
 of rubidium at 11 A.M. At 6.30 P.M. it was killed. 
 Rubidium was not detectable anywhere ; not even 
 satisfactorily in the urine. 
 
 Another guinea-pig was given ten grains of 
 chloride of rubidium at 11.20 A.M. At 3 P.M. 
 scarcely any rubidium could be detected in the 
 urine. The following day, at 11 A.M., it was given 
 five grains more. At 2 P.M. rubidium was just 
 detectable in the urine. The next day, at 2 P.M., it 
 was again given five grains, the rubidium being just 
 perceptible in the urine. Twenty-five hours after- 
 wards it was killed. 
 
 Extremely minute traces of rubidium were found 
 in the kidney and in the blood ; somewhat more, 
 but still very faint traces, in the liver. In the 
 cartilages no rubidium could be found, nor in the 
 aqueous humour of the eye. When the whole lens 
 was incinerated at once the smallest possible trace 
 of rubidium was found. The urine showed traces of 
 rubidium. 
 
 An elderly man took nineteen grains of chloride 
 of rubidium four hours before he was operated on 
 
APPENDIX III. 219 
 
 for cataract. The most careful search could not 
 find any rubidium in the lens after its removal. 
 
 Another patient, with a double cataract, was 
 given twenty grains of chloride of rubidium. One 
 lens was extracted ten hours afterwards, and the 
 other seven days afterwards, but in neither could 
 traces of rubidium be found. 
 
 It was found by experiment that T ^oiy ^ a 
 grain of chloride of rubidium in water was detect- 
 able by the spectrum analysis, ao^o ^ a g ra i n i n 
 urine could be distinctly observed. 
 
 On the Passage of Chloride of Ccesium into the 
 Textures. 
 
 Delicacy of the reaction for Ccesium. One grain of 
 chloride of caesium in 400 cub. centims. of water 
 just gives the blue caesium lines in a quantity of 
 solution that can adhere to the loop of a platinum 
 wire which took up 0.05 of solution. The T25 1 007 
 part of a grain of chloride of caesium in water can 
 be detected. If potassium is present in the same 
 solution the test is much less delicate. 
 
 In urine, one grain of chloride of caesium in 200 
 cub. centims. is the limit of the reaction for a 
 quantity remaining on the loop of the same wire as 
 was previously used. Hence ^i^o of a grain of 
 chloride of caesium in urine can be detected. 
 
 A guinea-pig was given three grains of chloride 
 of caesium, and twenty hours afterwards another 
 three grains. Twenty hours after the second 
 quantity it was killed. The ash of the urine 
 
220 APPENDIX III. 
 
 showed caesium slightly. No caesium could be 
 detected in the two lenses taken for one examination ; 
 nor in the liquid humours of the eyes. A small 
 portion of the ash of the kidneys and liver showed 
 no csesium, but aqueous extracts, after concentration, 
 showed csesium faintly. No csesium could be 
 detected in the blood, nor in the bile. 
 
 A guinea-pig was given six grains of chloride of 
 caesium, and six grains more nineteen hours after- 
 wards; twenty- four hours after the second dose it 
 was killed. No csesium could be found in the 
 lenses, nerves, aqueous humour, blood, or bile. 
 Urine, kidney, and liver showed caesium slightly in 
 the aqueous extract of the ash. 
 
 A guinea-pig was given ten grains of chloride of 
 caesium, and twenty hours afterwards ten grains 
 more. Twenty-seven hours after the second dose it 
 was killed. 
 
 The evaporated and incinerated extract of the two 
 lenses showed the' caesium only faintly. The 
 aqueous humour of the eye showed caesium faintly. 
 The evaporated and incinerated extract of the two 
 large nerves of the legs showed caesium pretty 
 distinctly. 
 
 On the Passage of Sulphate of Thallium into the 
 Textures. 
 
 A rabbit was given one grain of sulphate of 
 thallium. The urine, passed two hours after the 
 first dose, gave the reaction very clearly. 
 
 Another rabbit was given three grains of sulphate 
 
APPENDIX III. 221 
 
 of thallium, and it was killed twenty-one hours and 
 a half afterwards. This rabbit took no food after 
 the dose of thallium, but the stomach was found 
 completely full of dry food. Thallium was found 
 in the kidneys, liver, and spleen, by simply touching 
 with a red-hot wire and bringing the small quantity 
 of substance adhering to the wire into the flame. 
 The blood, lens and cartilage showed none in this 
 manner. The aqueous extract, however, of the 
 coagulated blood and lens showed thallium dis- 
 tinctly. The cartilage of the hip could not be thus 
 examined, owing to the small quantity to be got. 
 
 Another rabbit was given three grains of sulphate 
 of thallium, and it was killed in six hours and a 
 half. The aqueous extract of the lens showed 
 thallium distinctly. 
 
 A guinea-pig was given two grains of sulphate of 
 thallium, and twenty hours afterwards it took two 
 grains more; twenty-two hours after the second 
 dose it was killed. The urine showed thallium 
 only after concentration. Small pieces of the liver, 
 kidney, cartilage of the short ribs, and large nerve 
 of the leg showed thallium distinctly. Humours of 
 the eye showed thallium distinctly. Aqueous 
 extract of the lenses together showed it distinctly. 
 The blood showed no thallium directly, but the 
 aqueous extract of a small quantity of coagulated 
 blood showed the thallium very faintly. The 
 brain showed the thallium also very faintly. The 
 toe-nails showed the thallium very distinctly ; and 
 the hair of the belly also showed it very distinctly. 
 
 Another guinea-pig was given two grains of 
 
222 APPENDIX III. 
 
 sulphate of thallium, and it was killed in six hours. 
 The aqueous extract of the lens showed thallium 
 faintly. The urine showed the thallium distinctly. 
 The aqueous extract of the two large nerves showed 
 no thallium. 
 
 On the Passage of Sulphate of Silver into the Textures. 
 
 A guinea-pig was given one-eighth of a grain of 
 sulphate of silver. Twenty-three hours afterwards 
 it was given another eighth of a grain. Twenty- 
 seven hours afterwards a third eighth of a grain was 
 given; and the same dose on the third, fourth, 
 fifth, sixth, seventh, ninth, and tenth days ; on the 
 eleventh day the animal died. One grain and a 
 quarter of sulphate of silver in twelve days was 
 taken. The ashes of the liver, kidney, and stomach 
 showed silver fairly, by means of galvanic precipita- 
 tion of silver or copper. The ash of the bile showed 
 silver rather less distinctly. The ash of the urine 
 showed the silver only very slightly. The ash of 
 the lenses showed only very slight traces of silver, 
 and the ash of the brain showed none. 
 
 On the Passage of Chloride of Strontium into the 
 Textures. 
 
 Two guinea-pigs, which had been given no stron- 
 tium, had the whole kidney, liver, and lenses 
 examined for strontium, but no trace of it dould be 
 found. 
 
 A guinea-pig was given four grains of chloride 
 of strontium ; in seven hours it was killed. The 
 
APPENDIX III. 223 
 
 urine showed strontium distinctly in a single drop. 
 No strontium could be detected in the kidney, liver, 
 or lens, though a whole lens was taken for the 
 examination by the spectrum analysis. 
 
 Another guinea-pig was given ten grains of 
 chloride of strontium ; in fourteen hours and a half 
 it was killed. A small quantity of urine showed no 
 strontium, and no strontium was found in the ashes 
 of the kidney or liver. 
 
 To a third guinea-pig half a grain of chloride of 
 strontium was given. Nineteen hours afterwards 
 the urine showed traces of strontium, and then half 
 a grain more was given. Twenty-four hours and a 
 half afterwards another grain was given; and 
 twenty -four hours after this half a grain more. 
 Twenty-seven hours afterwards another half-grain 
 of chloride of strontium was given. At this time 
 the urine showed strontium very distinctly. On 
 the sixth day another half- grain, and again on the 
 seventh, eighth, ninth, tenth, and eleventh days, 
 until five grains and a half were taken. The twelfth 
 day it was killed. The urine showed strontium 
 distinctly. No strontium could be detected in the 
 lens, humours, or blood ; and minute traces only in 
 the ash of the kidneys and liver. 
 
 THE END. 
 
LONDON: 
 
 PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, STAMFORD SfRKET AND 
 CHABING CROSS. 
 
237578