Life and the equivalence of force / by J. Drysdale.

  • Drysdale, John James, 1817-1892.
Date:
[between 1870 and 1879]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Life and the equivalence of force / by J. Drysdale. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    But this work, besides presupposing too much prelimi- nary knowledge in the reader, contains, we think, erroneous views on some very important points, to contest which would require reference to much information not contained in it, and the sources of which may not be open to the reader. Tlierefore, I think that whilst this subject, and the difficulties felt by a medical man on approaching it, are still fresh in my mind, a short historical and explanatory article, drawn from the study of the under-mentioned* works may be acceptable to medical readers. I have found, however, that the treatment of the subject has expanded greatly beyond my original intentions, and has taken rather the form of a treatise on the relation of physics in general, and more especially of the doctrine in question, to physiologj'^, in which the attempt will be made to show that the doctrines of Fletcher respecting the nature of life must occupy a most important position if we are to bring the facts and laws of physiology into harmony with those of physics and chemistry. For, while on the one hand he was a consistent opponent of the doctrine which attributes vitality to the addition of any immaterial essence or entity to ordinary matter, such as the so-called vital principle, yet, on the other hand, he was a strict and consistent vitalist, denying that any merely chemical change ever did or could take place in the living matter properly so called. On his principles it will also, I * Die Mechanic der Wdrme, by J. E. Mayer. Stuttgai-dt, 1867. (Con- tains a collection of all the works of this author.) Ahhandlungen uher die Meehanische Wdrmetheorie, von R. Clausius. Two vols., 1864 to 1867. Arnott's Phjsics, 1864. Miller's Chemical Physics, 4th ed. Odling's Manual of Chemistry. Tyndall on Heat, 3rd edit. Phil. Mag., 1840 to 1870, con- taining papers by W. Thomson, Joule, Rankine, Regnault, Helmholtz, Faraday, Waterston, Tait, Verdet, Colding, Akin, Bohn, Beaton, MaxweU, Challis, &c. Carpenter on The Correlation of Physicid and Vital Forces, Qiiart. Joum. of Science, 1864. Bence Jones, Croonian Lectures on Matter and Force.. Williamson on The Atomic Theory. C. Brooke, Natural Philosophy, 1867. Fownes's Chemistry, 10th ed., 1868. Pick, Die Naturkrafte, 1869. Renais- sance de la Physique Cartesienne, par Bertrand, Journal des Savants, 1869 L'esprit de la Physique Moderne, par A. Laugel, Sea. des deux Mondes, Sept., 1858. Sketch of Thermodynamics, by Professor Tait, 1868. Ganot's Physics, by Atkinson, 1868. Orme, On Meat. Helmboltz's Lectures, Med. Times, 1864, &c., &c.