Inquiry into the nature and cause of miasmata, more particularly illustrated in the former and present state of the Campagna di Roma / P. Murphy.

  • Murphy, Patrick, 1782-1847.
Date:
1825
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Inquiry into the nature and cause of miasmata, more particularly illustrated in the former and present state of the Campagna di Roma / P. Murphy. 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.

    35/186 (page 13)
    water. Modern research has exploded this hypo- thesis, without, however, substituting a better in its stead. This hypothesis has resulted from the discovery that these substances that were formerly called elements, are subdivisible into fifty-two 'ponderable and four imponderable substances ; and these latter are indebted for the term pri- mary substances solely to the circumstance that science has not been able as yet to decompose or subdivide any of them, which should it be able at any future time to accomplish, this number may possibly be increased tenfold. And were the case other than it is now found to be, with what were conceived to be the original elements, viz., that they were composed of a num^ ber of elastic decomposable substances, held in various states of combination by particular laws, and in this state assuming these determinate forms called elements, how were it possible that the elas- tic part of these elementary bodies could be made susceptible of changing into each other? on which principle of circulation their regeneration appears to be founded. On this subject I think it right to give the fol- lowing sensible passage from the introduction to Dr. lire's valuable Dictionary of Chemistry. It is possible that the elements of nature are very dissimilar, it is probable that they are altogether unknown, and that they are so recondite as for ever to elude the sagacity of human research.