An attempt to show that light, heat, electricity, and magnetism are effects of the law of gravitation.

  • Wallace, William Clay.
Date:
1854
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: An attempt to show that light, heat, electricity, and magnetism are effects of the law of gravitation. 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.)

    16/24
    ** ZOONIC BATTERIES. Many of the effects which are usually attributed to inorganio chemistry, are in reality produced by vital functions; thus vinous fermentation is effected by a minute fungus which, growing with great rapidity, evolves carbonic acid and converts a portion of the saccharine fluid into alcohol. By fungi of one description certain fluids may be converted into vinegar, and by those of another they may become putrid. Thus decay is not effected by any immediate alteration of chemical composition, but by myriads of minute batteries evolving gases at their tiny poles, and restoring the body to its origi- nal elements. Diseases, both of plants and animals, are for the most part caused by vegetable or animal parasites ; thus the ergot of rye is a vegetable, and the curculk) of wheat an animal. The muscardine of the silk- worm is produced by a cryptogamic plant which grows on stones, yet grows also in the intestinal canal, and by causing it to rot, the animal dies. The aphthse of children are fungi, a portion of which taken from the mouth of one child may be propagated on the surface of milk in a vessel, and afterwards communicated to another child. Most eruptive diseases run a certain course and reproduce their own species, according to the laws of organic life. The viscera of the body are not exempt from foreign ravages, as tubercles, cancers, &c. may infect the lungs, the brain, or the liver. As most fungi thrive best in the dark and die when exposed to the sun, so morbific parasites are often found in animals, which, created for exposure, are kept in the shade; thus stall-fed oxen are seldom free from diseases of the lungs, whereas those which roam in the fields are generally healthy. Among those who dwell on the shady side of the Alps, scrofula and mental imbecility occur in the worst forms, yet the indi- viduals who dwell on the other side of the mountains are the healthiest of the human race. Although it is apparent that consumption is most frequent among those who are kept within doors, the thoughtlessness of those who submit their children to the modern system of educa- tion, by which they are confined for hours during the choicest part of the day, is remarkable. A potato or other plant growing in a room through which there may be a current of the purest air, is pale and easily broken; but let it be brought to the light and it becomes strong and of a natural color. If children were regarded as plants, and when old enough judiciously exposed to a moderately bright sky, they would acquire firmer constitutions. Zoonic Batteries.—Many years ago we published an account of the resemblance of the brain to a Faraday's battery, and of some of the fibres proceeding from the inner plate to poles passing through