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    708 ®ft* ft caber. [Sattoday,

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    I BOOKS ON OUR TABLE. Tlic Omit Kxliibit...

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    Ljicnig's Chkmical I.Kttkhs. Familiar Le...

    new products . " If this be so , what is there unreasonable in the supposition that trituration may develope new forces in the medicines ? . Our stupendous ignorance of chemical action—especially of organic chemistry—renders it imperative on us to be cautious ere we front a fact with any denial derived from our philosophy . The homceopathist proclaims his fact ; examine if it be true , if the fact be so ; but do not reject it because monstrous in academic eyes . Our readers know that we have given no pledge to homoeopathy : we only desire

    that it may be treated with the same respect as other tentatives to get at a solution of the mystery . Our purpose in commenting on Liebig's assault was , however , ulterior in its aim . We wished to exemplify how , from the want of real philosophy , a man could sneer at an opinion which his scientific experience tended to support . In Chemistry he was familiar enough with the importance attributable to mere change of position ; but in Medicine he stuck to the old routine , and laughed at the idea of trituration and dilution producing any new effects !

    But enough of controversy ! Liebig ' s work is not controversial , and we but ill convey an idea of it by touching on these points . It is substantially what the title imports—a Familiar Exposition of Chemistry , setting forth with very great clearness all the leading principles accepted by men of science ,. and illustrating them with abundance of detail , much of it very curious , and drawn from the most recent discoveries . The book is too compact to admit of analysis in any space that we could afford it ; but to the passages already quoted we shall add two , as samples of his exposition : —

    KOSMOS . " Until very recently it was supposed that the physical qualities of bodies , —i . e ., hardness , colour , density , transparency , & c , must depend upon the nature of their elements or upon their composition . No one could imagine to himself one and the same body in two different states , and it was tacitly received as a principle that two- bodies containing the same elements in the same proportion must of necessity possess the same properties . Plow could it be possible , otherwise , for the most ingenious

    philosophers to regard chemical combination as an mterpenetration of the particles of different kinds of matter , and matter as susceptible of infinite division r There never was a greater error . If matter were infinitely divisible in this sense , its particles mu ^ t be imponderable , and billions of such molecules could hot weigh more than an infinitely small one . But even the particle * of that imponderable matter , which , stiiking upon the retina , produce that sensation which , when it has reached the inner consciousness , is recognized as light , are not , in a mathematical tense , infinitely small .

    " Inter-penetration of elements in the production of a chemical compound supposes two distinct bodies , A and 11 , to occupy one and the Fame space at the same time . If this were so , different properties could not consist with identity of composition . " That hypothesis , however , lias shared the fate of all the views of natural phenomena entertained by the philosophers of past , times . It has fallen , like them , without any one taking the trouble to maintain it . The force of truth , dependent upon observation , in irresistible . A great many substances have been discovered amongst organic bodies , composed of the

    flame elements in the same relative proportions , and yet exhibiting physical and chemical properties perfectly distinct one from another . To such substances the term Isomeric ( from iaOq equal , and i ^ epoq part ) is applied . A great class of bodies , known as the volatile oils—oil of turpentine , essence ; of lemon * , oil of balsam of copaiba , oil of rosemary , oil of juniper , and many others , differing widely from each Mher in their odour , in their medicinal efforts , in their boiling point , in their specific gravity , & c , contain the same elements , carbon nnd hydrogen , in the Bftine proportions . No one of them eontains more of cither clement than the others do .

    " How admiral . ly simple does the chemistry ol organic nature present itself l <> us from this point , of View ! An extraordinary variety of the most remurkahlc compound bodies is produced with equal weights o ( two elements—and how wide their < liis-• imliaritv ! The e ^ stallized part of the oil of roses , the delicious fragrance of which is so well known , a solid in ordinary temperatures , although readily volatile , i « a compound body , containing exactly the name elenii-jil . f and in tin ; same proportions hh the gas Wo employ for lighting our streets ; and , in slant , the suine . elements , in the seme relative quantities , are found in a dozen cither compounds , all differing e . stientinllv in their physical and chemical properlii h .

    " These remarkable truths , so highly important , in their applications , were not received and admitted jis ufticioiitly established , without Miflicicnt . proofs . Many < xampleH huve long been known where the miuly * Ui of two different bodies fiavi : the Mime comuobiiion ; but buch cabea wort ) isolated observations ,

    homeless in the realms of science ; until , at length , examples were discovered of two or more bodies whose absolute identity of composition , with totally distinct properties , could be demonstrated in a more obvious and conclusive manner than by mere analysis ; that is , they can be converted and reconverted into each other without addition and without

    subtraction . " In cyanuric acid , hydrated cyanic acid , and cyamelide , we have three such isomeric compounds . " Cyanuric acid is crystalline , soluble in water , and capable of forming salts with metallic oxides . " Hydrated cyanic acid is a volatile and highly corrosive fluid , which cannot be brought into contact with water without being instantaneously decomposed . " Cyamelide is a white substance very like porcelain , absolutely insoluble in water .

    " Now , if we place the first , cyanuric acid , in a vessel hermetically sealed , and apply a high degree of heat , it is converted by that influence into hydrated cyanic acid ; and then , if this is kept for some time at the common temperature , it passes into cyamelide , no constituent being separated , nor any body taken up from without . And again , inversely , oyamelide can be converted into cyanuric acid and hydrated cyanic acid .

    " We have three other bodies which pass through similar changes , in aldehyde , metaldehyde , and elaldehyde ; and again two , in urea and cyanate of ammonia . Further , 100 parts of aldehyde , hydrated butyric acid , and acetic ether , contain the same elements in the same proportion . Thus one substance may be converted into another without the separation of any of its elements , and without the introduction of any foreign body .

    " The doctrine that matter is not infinitely divisible , but , on the contrary , consists of atoms incapable of further division , alone furnishes us with a satisfactory explanation of these phenomena . In . chemical combinations , the ultimate atoms of bodies do not penetrate each other , they are only arranged side by fiide in a certain order , and the properties of the compound depend entirely upon this order . If they are made to change their place—their mode of arrangement—by an impulse from without , they combine again in a different manner , and another

    compound is formed with totally different properties . We may suppose that one atom combines with one atom of another element to form a compound atom , while in other bodies two and two , four and four , eight and eight are united ; go that in all such compounds the amount per cent , of the elements is absolutely equal ; and yet their physical and chemical properties must be totally different , the constitution of eacli atom b-ing peculiar , in one body consisting of two , in another of four , in a third of eight , and in a fourth of sixteen ample atoms . "

    PHYSIOLOGY AND CIIEMISTHY . " Through Nature herself , who is a whole , the natural sciences stand in a necessary mutual connection , so that , no one of them can entirely dispense with all the others for its development . The extension of the individual branches of science by researches , has the inevitable result , that ia u certain stage , or at a certain period , two of them , for example , come into contact nt their boundaries . As a general rule , ane w science arises on the debateable land between them , which combines in itself the objects and the modes of viewing the phenomena of both . In order to this interpenetoation , both must have reached a certain

    advanced stage ; the independence of the original territories must be secured , for till this be done , the energies of the philosopher will not be applied to the border province . In these days we look forward to such a fusion of physiology with chemistry , as to one of the most striking results of scientific investigation . Physiology has attained a point at which it can no longer dispense with chemistry in striving after its object , namely , the study of the vital phenomena in their natural succession . Chemistry , the duty of which is to show in what degree the ; vital properties depend on chemical forces , has been prepared , and is now ready , to take up new departments of science , to he independently uttidied .

    " The phenomena presented by animals during their life are among the- most complicated natural appearances ; and the detection of their different causes , and the ascertaining the precise nil are of each in the result , is a task of peculiar difficulty . "It is a rule in natural science to divide every difliculty which is to be examined , into as many parts as possible , and tostudy each of these separately . Accoidmg to this rule-, all physiological phenomena may be divided into two classes , of which each , up to a certain point ., may be studied quite independentl y of the other . . Such a Hcparation , it is obvious , in not found in Nature , where both classes of phenomena me mutually dependent , ho that , indeed , they mutually determine each other .

    1 he procesHenof impregnation , development , and growth in animals , the mutual relitions of their organs , and the : agencies peculiar to these , the lavVH of their motion , and of that of the Hindu of the lH ) , ] y — the anatomical and other peculiarities of nervous and of muse ular fibres ; all them : ( striking and

    interesting phenomena may be ascertained without regard to the nature of the substances which form the parts in which these properties reside . But physiology has to do with other phenomena , not less important . Digestion , sanguification , nutrition , respiration , and secretion depend on a change of form and quality of the substances introduced from without into the system , or on certain solid or liquid constituents of the organism ; and it is in the study of these processes ,

    as far as they can be regarded apart from structure , that chemistry must come to the aid of physiology . It is evident that physiology has two foundations , and that by the fusion of physiological physics , the foundation of which is anatomy , with physiological chemistry , which rests on animal chemistry , a new science must arise , a true physiology , which will stand in the same relation to the physiology of the present day , as modern chemistry does to that of the eighteenth century .

    " In order to form a just idea of the interpenetration of physiology and chemistry , we must call to mind similar occurrences in the history of science . Thus the character of modern chemistry has been essentially determined by the circumstance that it has absorbed into itself entire branches of physics , which now no longer belong to that science . The density of bodies in the gaseous state , forty years ago , was regarded as a purely physical character ; but since we have learned that this property depends on

    the composition in a fixed relation , the study of this property belongs to chemistry . Similar relations have been discovered between the specific heat , the boiling point , and the crystalline form of bodies , on the one hand , and their composition on the other ; and it is now chemistry which especially occupies itself with the exact determination of these properties . The doctrine of electricity , so far as it is the result of a change in form and quality , of a chemical change , has now almost entirely passed into the domain of chemistry .

    " Exactly in the same way , the more accurate knowledge of vital phenomena will establish the conviction that a number of physiological properties depend on chemical composition ; and physiology , when it shall have takeu up animal chemistry , as a part of itself , will possess the means of investigating this relation of dependence ; it will then be enabled to find a juster expression for physiological

    phenomena . " Men have often tried to explain vital phenomena exclusively on chemical principles , and to make physiology a part of chemistry . This was done centuries ago , at a time when the chemical changes in the body were better known than the organism itself . But when men had learned to know the admirable structure , the form and quality of the organs , and their combined action by a more exact study of anatomy , they imagined that they had found the key in certain principles of mechanics . All such attempts have entirely failed ; and their failure gave rise to h

    pysiology as an independent science . Mineralogy wan in a similar relation to chemistry ; forty years ago , many considered it a part of chemistry , and compound minerals were classed with the salts . Mineralogy conquered her independence , not by rejecting the doctrines of chemistry , but by taking into her own domain the determination of the composition of minerals . Since mineral analysis has become a part of mineralogy , it is from mineralogists that we have obtained , and daily obtain , the most valuable results in regard to the relation which exists between the chemical composition of minerals and their crystalline form and other physical properties . "

    708 ®Ft* Ft Caber. [Sattoday,

    708 ® ft * ft caber . [ Sattoday ,

    I Books On Our Table. Tlic Omit Kxliibit...

    I BOOKS ON OUR TABLE . Tlic Omit Kxliibition 1 ' rize Nasay . Jly the lleverend J C Whieh , M . A . Longman and ' Co . The Reverend W . Emerton , of Ilnnwell , having offered a prize of £ 105 for the best essay on " The Respect in which the Exhibition was calculated to further the Moral and Religious Welfare o f Mankind and the Glory of God , " it was ultimately awarded to the Reverend Mr . Whitih . The performance is a sort of sermon , marked by much feeble good nature . The author ' s point of view being the pulpit , he delineates chiefly the spiritual aspect of the question ; but had he also taken the workshop and the cottage , a « his points of view , the object of the lleverend donor might have been more efficiently answered . K « y to tlie Great Inhibition , 1851 . ]{ y K . Heine .

    Ackerinann and Co . The plan is clever and interesting , the sheet representing in itrt linen and colours the various divisions of the Crystal Palace . The avenues are represented by a white ground , the compnrtmenta by a green , and the galleries by a pink shading . A list of the chief objects of interest is also printed in each compartment , so that at a glance the visitor may discover Iuh way through the building , and to its chief points of attraction . It will soon appear in several languages * . Mihh Miutinefui un < l her Mimtcr . Hy J . Htevenson liuahnaii , ft 1 I > - John Churchill .

    I he tone of thin work is so extremel y objectionable -ho unbecoming ( he gravity of philosophic discua » ion and tins eourtesieH of literature—that wo cannot Buffer it to puna without calling Dr . JBu » hnan

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), July 26, 1851, page 16, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_26071851/page/16/