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XXI—Observations on the Principle of Vital Affinity, as illustrated by recent discoveries in Organic Chemistry
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 17 January 2013
Extract
It may be remembered that, in the paper formerly laid before this Society on this subject, I endeavoured to establish the principle still disputed by some physiologists, that the laws which regulate the chemical relations, as well as those which regulate the visible movements of the particles of matter, undergo a certain determinate modification or change in living bodies, which is essential to the commencement and to the maintenance of the organization of those bodies; and farther, that I undertook the task of attempting to deduce, from the numerous but somewhat discordant experiments and observations lately made on the subject, certain inferences which appear to be well ascertained, although not generally admitted, as to the essential nature of this change, i. e., as to laws which regulate those chemical actions which are peculiar to the state of life, and essential to the maintenance of organization, both in vegetables and animals.
- Type
- Research Article
- Information
- Earth and Environmental Science Transactions of The Royal Society of Edinburgh , Volume 16 , Issue 3 , 1847 , pp. 305 - 344
- Copyright
- Copyright © Royal Society of Edinburgh 1847
References
page 308 note * It need hardly be said, that all these numbers are given, not as indicating the exact changes which take place when the organic compounds are formed, but only as illustrating their general nature.
page 311 note * It is no objection to this statement, that oily matters may, in different cases besides that of adipocere already noticed, be formed from organic compounds in the dead state, i. e., by simply chemical affinities. To establish that the affinity by which it is formed in a living structure is vital, it is not necessary to shew that oil cannot be formed, under any circumstances, by simply chemical laws, but only to assure ourselves, that it cannot be formed by those laws from the substances, and in the circumstances, in which it is continually formed in certain living cells.
page 311 note † Balance of Organic Nature, p. 77.
page 312 note * This may be shortly stated thus
page 315 note * See Golding Bird on Urinary Deposits, p. 104.
page 315 note † See Du Long, quoted by Dumas (Organic Nature, p. 106)
page 316 note * Liebig's Animal Chemistry, pp. 113–4.
page 316 note † Mulder, p. 149, et seq.
note page 317* Animal Chemistry, pp. 110–1.
page 321 note * See Budd on Scurvy, in the Library of Medicine.
page 324 note * See Holford's Second Vindication, &c. &c, pp. 4, 5, 10.
page 329 note * See Carpenter's Physiology, 3d edition, p. 685. This principle is probably of great importance in the pathology, both of hectic and typhoid fever, aud of that form of dysentery which seems to result, as a specific inflammation, from certain putrescent miasmata.
page 330 note * This is shewn thus—
page 330 note † Liebig, taking for granted that it is the non-azotised portion of the ingesta only, that is united with oxygen from the air in the course of the circulation, thought the use of vegetable food improper in this state of the body, as absorbing the oxygen, and causing, therefore, imperfect oxidation of the azotised matter absorbed from the textures, and about to form urea and uric acid. But the observations of Magendie and others, shewing that both in health and disease the proportion of uric acid formed is generally less under a vegetable diet than an animal, particularly when taken in connection with the facts stated above as to urea, must be regarded as proving, that the idea of non-azotised food having that exclusive tendency to unite immediately with oxygen in the blood, must be erroneous.—See Carpenter's Physiology, § 849, 850.
page 332 note * See Animal Chemistry, p, 136 and 152. This conclusion, however, is not to be regarded as established, various fallacies being connected with it. In fact, it seems to me only certain that the carbon and nitrogen are in the same proportions in the excretions as in the blood.
page 332 note † Animal Chemistry, p. 139.
page 336 note * “ Sur les Phenomenes de la Fermentation,” &c. Annales de Chimie, t. lxxi., p. 19, 193.
page 336 note † See the Review of Prout's 4th edition, in British and Foreign Review.
page 337 note * See Paget's Report in Forbes's Journal, April 1846, pp. 561 and 562.