The chemical and physiological balance of organic nature : an essay / by J. Dumas and J.B. Boussingault ; edited by D.P. Gardner.

  • Dumas, J.-B. (Jean-Baptiste), 1800-1884.
Date:
1844
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The chemical and physiological balance of organic nature : an essay / by J. Dumas and J.B. Boussingault ; edited by D.P. Gardner. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

    65/182
    300 grammes (about 9i oz. avoirdupois), of car- bon, or an equivalent quantity of hydrogen. Were a steam-engine employed to carry him thither, it would consume from 1000 to 1200 grammes (21b. 8 oz. to 31b. 2 oz. avoirdupoise) of carbon in the service. Considered as a machine, then, deriving the whole of its power from the carbon it consumes, the body of man is at least three or four times more perfect in its mechanism than the most perfect steam-engine. Our artificers and engineers have, consequently, much still to accomplish; and yet these numbers are of a nature calculated to prove that there is community of principle between the living engine and the other; because, if we take an account of all the losses inevitable in fire-machines, and so carefully and admirably guarded against in the human fabric, the identity of principle in their res- pective forces stands out clear and manifest to the eyes. (27) But we have gone far enough in a course in which your own reflections already take the lead of me, and where your recollections leave me nothing to add. If we recapitulate, we shall see that the primi- 6