On the importance of chemistry to medicine : an introductory address to the medical classes of King's College, delivered October 1, 1845 : with an inaugural lecture at King's College, given October 6, 1845 / by W. A. Miller.
- Miller, William Allen, 1817-1870.
- Date:
- 1845
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: On the importance of chemistry to medicine : an introductory address to the medical classes of King's College, delivered October 1, 1845 : with an inaugural lecture at King's College, given October 6, 1845 / by W. A. Miller. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.
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![parts of the body; and upon Chemistry, which tells us all we know of the composition of those different parts, scrutinizes the various products of those structures, and traces the successive changes which they undergo in the proper performance of the vital functions, as well as during their morbid aberrations and their return to a state of healthy activity. Within the last few years the advances made both in Ana- tomy and Chemistry has'e been extraordinarily rapid: their influence on the progress of Physiology has been proportionahly felt, and through Physiology they are gradually working an im- portant change in the whole science of Medicine. Interesting and useful as it might be to trace the steps by which those advances have been made, and admirably as it might illustrate some parts of the present subject, such a course would lead us into far too wide a field, and one which is in itself well worthy of separate consideration. It will be sufficient for us here to say, that this progress is mainly attributable to the right use of the microscope and the balance, two instruments which have in the present day attained a nicety in their construction, and a facility m their application, unsurpassed by any of the inventions of Imman ingenuity. Ever since the systematic a])plicatiou of the balance by the celebrated but unfortunate Lavoisier, Chemistry, which then first assumed the form and accurac}', as well as the character and dig- nity of a science, has been intimately connected with the study of life; and in proportion as our knowledge of each has become more exact, the more distinctly has the indissoluble nature of the tie that unites them been manifested. Tn considering this connection, let us trace first the relations of Chemistry to Physiology; by this means we shall further per- ceive its importance to Pathology, and in conclusion we will briefly notice the powerful aid it can lend us in the prevention and cure of disease. The more important functions whose immediate dependence upon chemical principles has been distinctly traced are, digestion, or tlie process which effects the reduction of the food into a state capable of being absorbed into the system; nutrition, or the reparation of the frame ; and respiration, or the changes which the atmosphere produces upon the blood and constituents of the body in general, including as its consequence the production of animal heat; and we shall find further that we are not without indications of an intimate chemical connection between these changes and nervous influence, and through it, with volition. The complete solution of our inquiries respecting the essential nature of life, is an attainment which will probably for ever be beyond our reach as nwrtals, just as the attempt to ascertain the](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21472865_0005.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
