The Express.
London, England, 1861-03-19 00:00:00

UNIVERSITY COLLEGE, LONDON.

John Marshall, Esq., F. R. S. , has been appointed
by the council of this college to deliver, within its walls,
course of lectures on animal physiology, for ladies exam.
sively. The prospectus tells us that ' the coarse will be
adapted to the requirements of ladies engaged in education.
district visiting, or like pursuits ; and also for those ladies
who desire to add to the usual branches of education an so.
quaintanoe with the elements of physiology and their air
plication to the preservation of individual and pub is
heath." We are informed that among those who hazz
plied for ticket, for the course of lectures are forty
mamma' and teachers.

The introductory lecture was delivered on Saturday last„
Mr. Marshall commenced by stating that it was impossible
for him not to allude to the peculiar circumstances under
which these lectures were delivered, and that he must con.
gratulate those present on the commencement of a move.
ment which would, be believed, spread throughout society,
a benefit to all cleans. The intention of the coarse
he stated to be to give solid instruction • to
give a knowledge of the conditions ofeexit,
without which we cannot live well ; that is, in
harmony with the laws governing us. The great truth
that we are all of the world, as well as in the world, a
fully
realised, it as to our corporeal nature, is, he aid, when once f-ully
realised, rufficient to interest us, not only in the living
world, but in the world of dead inorganic matter. Our re-
lation to nature is threefold :—to'the forces of nature, to the
matter of Datum and to all living objects, whether animal
or vegetable. The force of gravitation acts on the body
through life and after death. Heat must be maintained in
us or we die ; there is a certain range of degrees of heat
above and below which animal life becomes dormant or ex.
tinct. Then, again, electricity, including galvanic forceand
magnetism, affects us. A bash of lightning, as we know,
will kill • man ; but electricity also keeps us alive ; and
there are electric currents in the muscles and in the nerves
which do not cease until the muscle or the nerve is dead.
We are constructed also in harmony with light, whether ig
be force or matter ; the colour of the blood depend" on it,
and the eye receives all the information it conveys to the
mind by means of light. Force in nature produces some
phenomena, produces motion ; and motion of all kinds
affects us, as the motion of the air which, being set in vi-
bration, produces waves of sound. Then again we are con-
structed out of the matter of the world. When the human
body is decomposed or destroyed by fire, its ultimate
constituents are found to be the simple elementary
bodies of the world around us, as oxygeo, hydrogen,
nitrogen, phosphorus, and others. Whilst the proximate
constituents of the body, or those into which it PR
be immediately separated without being destroyed,
water,. fat, fibrin, and others, can be agaisdecomposed into
the primary elements, as fat into carba, hydrogen, sad
oxygen. When an animal is created there is, therefore, •
change in the arrangement of the elements, but no creation
of new elements, and no change in the conditions to which
they are subject. Mr. Marshall proceeded to give a defini.
tion of the terms organic and inorganic, and to explain the
' relation of mankind to living things, whether vegetable or
animal. The vegetative functions of absorption, unman.
tau°, respiration, and secretion, are also animal functions;
but to them are superadded in animals the functions at
motion and sensation, and sensation, high in the scale of
animal life, is developed into consciousness, emotion, sad
thought. Man is therefore constructed in harmo with
the living kingdom's well as with the world of dead, inert
matter, and in harmony too, as geology teaches us with
laws established anterior to his own creation. This our
threefold dependence on external nature, forces us to the
inevitable conclusion that we must consider the conditicen
of existence before we can live well—that is, before we cal
have the healthy mind in the healthy body. Mr.
Marshall concluded by defining the limits for his treat,
meat of so large a subject. Leaving altogether the inor-
ganic world, and of the organic putting aside the whole
vegetable kingdom, be purposes to devote his time chiefly
to an explanation of the essential facia and principles of
animal physiology—more especially to the structure aid
functions of the human body.