Vermont phÅ“nix. [volume] (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1834-1955, 1880-07-09

ng; the movement of the little globules
rends the covering and they emerge into life.
These organisms without organs" are be-
lieved to be spontaneously generated from
dead or inorganic matter aud the evidence
is so strong circumstantially, that they will
be believed by the progressive scientist to be
first, or among the first germs of animal life
upon the globe.
Involved in this hypothesis is the pertinent
question, How is it possible for a living or
gansm to be evolved from inorganic matter ?
1t must be remembered that nature is capa-
bic of great and wonderful achievements,
many Of which man cannot comprehend !;
also that first causes are generally involved in
mystery. Nobody understands how the same
food, in one part of the body forms bone in
another, flesh in another hair nor, indeed
how il can be convertedFAo brain and nerves,
producing thought, motion and sensibility.
Where lie the lifeforces, and of what do they
consist There are many problems in biolo-
gy MS difficult to solve as the ono above but
the facts exist and are so common that they
fail to excite our wonder. When new hy-
pothesis is formed TO explain natural phe-
nomenR, that comes in conflict with long
cherished belief, there is disposition in
mankind to reject it though the phenomena
nre best explained by the new method.
Leaving the doctrine of spontaneous gen
Grafton, it comes within the scope of the sub
ject, and will be interesting to observe brief
ly, the conversion of matter as food into the
tissues of the body, so far us it can be traced
through the process of digestion, made plain
er than ever before in 1922 and afterwards
in the remarkable case of Alexis st. Martin
This appears to be double-sction process
chemical and a mechanical process. The
stomach has a contractile and an expansive
power by which the food is kept in motion
and mixed into homogeneous mass-this is
its mechanical process. At the same time the
gastric juice is thrown OF by tho mucous
coat mingling with the food and changing its
nature entirely-this is its chemical process.
The food is thus converted into chyme, fine
pulp, grayish, sweetish and insipid having
the appearance and nearly the same chemical
elements whether the diet be flesh yegeta-
bles, or "A combination of both In carnivor-
Gus and herbvorous quadrupeds the products
Of digestion are identical. Passing into the
duodenum, the chyme is divided into the
Cuylesh muky Nhlte uulu containing the nu-
tritive part of the food now prepared to enter
the blood and the waste to be expelled through
the different excretory channels. Matter,
lifeless and inert, has been converted into the
vital fluid that now Wits every organ and
tissue of the body, carrying and depositing
new atoms in place of the old ones worn out
and rejected through the process Of change
and decay indeed, it has been cemcnted in
to living tissue and etherealized into thought
similar conversion is going on in the veg
etable kingdom. Nothing is more dissimilar
than tree and the food it has converted into
its own substance. The tree is solid, homo
geneous matter, with a vascular system and
circulatory organs and its dense foliage af-
fords refuge from the solar heat for man
and beast. Among the substances converted
are potash, lime oxide Of iron silica, csrbo-
naceous matter, water, gases bearing no re-
scmblance to the new organization in form,
comclinoss or utility, chemical analysis alone
revealing any similarity between them.
Wilmington, VT SEC.