Volume 1

An elementary system of physiology / By John Bostock.

  • Bostock, John, 1773-1846.
Date:
1828
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: An elementary system of physiology / By John Bostock. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by University of Bristol Library. The original may be consulted at University of Bristol Library.

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    latter by the principles of mechanics. It is not ne- cessary in the present day, to enlarge upon the waste of genius and the misapplication of experimental re- search, which originated from this fatal error; it may be sufficient to remark, that although important facts were occasionally brought to light, and many elaborate investigations were instituted, from which some valu- able information may be deduced, yet that not one single hypothesis was proved, nor one single principle estabhshed, of all those upon which so much labour and learning were bestowed. While the chemical and mechanical sects w^ere thus dividing the opinions of the most learned men of the age, a new doctrine was gradually rising up^ which, although in the first instance it was equally remote from the principles of true science, yet after- having received a number of successive purifications,, it at length appeared in a more correct form, and occasioned the complete overthrow of both the con- tending parties. For this revolution we are indebted principally to Stahl. This distinguished character was brought up in the school of the chemists; but being possessed of a powerful understanding, he soon deserted the tenets of his preceptors, from a full con- viction of their futility. He was forcibly impressed with the difference between the changes which the components of the body experience during life, and what would take place in the same substances under other circumstances. Hence he concluded that when they form a part of the living system, they must be possessed of some additional principle, that counter- acts the effects that would otherwise be produced^