The Hunterian Oration : delivered in the theatre of the Royal College of Surgeons ... 1823 / [Sir William Blizard].

  • William Blizard
Date:
1823
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The Hunterian Oration : delivered in the theatre of the Royal College of Surgeons ... 1823 / [Sir William Blizard]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    [37] be phosphate of lime,—and the occurrence of albumen, where carbonate of lime forms the hardening material.— These general coincidences seem to indicate some intimate connection between those animal and mineral products; but chymical knowledge is not yet equal to show the origin of any of the earths,—or to demonstrate the conversion of albumen into gelatine, or vice versa,—events, which seem to be readily effected by organic elaborations. The immense beds of calcareous corals in the Pacific Ocean cannot have derived their lime from the sea-water under it’s present composition,—and there is no reason for considering the coral 'polyps less active now than at any former time. During the incubation of the eggs of birds much of the albumen disappears, and gelatine, in proportions not before existing, is to be found in the chick; it also seems, that the sulphur, so abundant in the original albumen of the egg, is changed into phosphoric acid by the organic processes, during incubation. Perhaps Physiologists have proceeded in error, when they sought for the explanation of those seeming transmutations, by tracing the minute vessels of glands; and again, more recently, in ascribing them to electrical agencies; since the chymical powers of electricity have been discovered, and since electrical batteries have been found in the nervous systems of the Torpedo and Gymnotus; but the latter hypo- thesis fails, when we consider the chymical elaborations of vegetables to be entirely free from brain or nerves. Much logical confusion prevails in the language of Medi- cal Physiology, from a slovenly use of terms: Anatomists
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