Introductory lecture to the course of anatomy and physiology, in Rutger's Medical College, New York, delivered, November 11, 1826 / by John D. Godman.

Date:
1827
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Introductory lecture to the course of anatomy and physiology, in Rutger's Medical College, New York, delivered, November 11, 1826 / by John D. Godman. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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    of advanced life, which Erasmus, a learned and pious christian, says he could not, at any time, read without having his eyes to overflow with tears of pleasure. It is not from man alone that nature exacts this tribute of decay. If we extend our obser- vation throughout the universe, we shall discover analogous changes going on in all animate and inanimate matter. There is in all things belong- ing to our globe, a perpetual tendency to change of form, without the destruction or annihilation of any one principle. Whenever animation is finally suspended, the chemical affinities of the mass come into operation—the forms which lately withstood all external changes, become affected by the slightest vicissitudes of heat and moisture, and speedily putrefy. The co-operation of vast numbers of insects hastens the disintegration— the aqueous and aerial particles exhale, while the solid and more earthy portions go to aid in the composition of a richer soil, for the benefit of other forms of animated bodies. Thus, all things must change, according to their nature, from the granite mountains to the mushroom on the dunghill. It is the attribute of God alone to