Morning journal and courier., 1892-01-27

almost certain result of concentration of | the trouble upon some specially sensitive | part of the system. If it is upon the mu- i cous membrane of the air passages the re-
 suit is a simple cold. If it is upon the lung the result is pneumonia The partic- | ulars of this view will fall to be consid- | cred later and it will be seen that they l throw a flood oS light on a very wide range | of animal complaints, all of which turn | upon some disturbance of the eliminating
 activity of the system. and some local con-
 centrstion of the poison which thus fails
 to be cast out.
 For due precautions against taking cold
 and means of controlling cold, we need to understand the physics of the breath of life, of the oxygen of respiration, | which is also the oxygen of combustion; | how the thrush of oxygen by way of the capillary gates of the lungs, and the cor puscles of the blood, to the tissue cells of | all parts of the system, carries a ceaseless | volume of vital energy; how this anims- ting and life-maintaining energy is noth- ing less than electricity of absolute dy- mamie strength and sureness-every breath, according to its size, a definite quantity of vitaliziDg, heating and sustaining energy; and how the stir of this energy, in. all parts of the body, by proper exercise, and the increase of its thrush by long breath practice, may fight of chill, drive out & cold if taken soon enough, and prevent grip or pneumouis from getting hold. The knowledge from which I speak is not yet recognized, because it is new, and belongs to @ new system of nature SO com prehensive as to require for its demonstrs- tion a survey for which the present teach -L .lf the most eminent of them I have spent some thirteen years on the research, to bring into one view the facts of chemis- try, of physics, of electricity and msgne- tism, of zoology, anatomy, physiology and botany, and of medicine and surgery, which fall into the demonstration that life is not, as the system now in vogue has it, "a mysterious potency, always associated with particular form of matter called protoplasm;" and which ESQ far know, has always resided, as it does to- day, in little masses of protoplasm, called cells" Or. T. Mitchell Prudden); but is the definite direct effect of a stream of cleo trical energy blown into the protoplasm by the oxygen of respiration; and in view of the whole history of science, from Aristo- tie and Hippocrates to Darwin and Koch. in view of the long roll of demonstrated facts and of the theories that have held on in the struggle of systems for existence, I declare with the utmost confidence that the electrical function of the oxygen of respiration in all living things, animal and plant, and the electrical character of vi tality in both animals and plants, is by far the surest and best demonstrated, as it is also by far the greatest and most compre- hensive discovery the human mind has ever msde,-even if we take no note of the demonstration, which the system em- braces, that all matter is electrically ani- mated, however motionless it seems; that all atoms receive their character from the electrical charge which they carry; that all active properties ana functions are electri cally established, and that whatever mo- tion exists anywhere in the material uni verse, from invisible particle to planet wheeling on its vast orbit in space, is due to electrical agency.
 Nor does this discovery and demonstra- ton of the electrical function of the oxy- gen of respiration, and the electrical char acter of vitality, stand alone. It leads to two others, which may perhaps stand a. greater still and of grsnder import to hu- man welfare:-
 CD The creation of all the functions of the living system. and of the correspond ing structures, through the natural play of electrical and magnetic force in electrical ly animated matter and the electrical ope ration of all parts of the living system. and electrical working of all organs and functions, through the energy introduced by the oxygen of respiration; and @ the origin of variations. the true origin of spe cies, aud the evolutionary ascrnt of the creation, not according 10 the Darwinian conception of natural selection, sexual se lection, struggle for existence, and survi- val of the Attest, bnt by means of crea- tive percentage, especially creative mother hood or the influence of the environment, through the parent forms, upon electrical ly conditioned reproductive germs or em- brynnic fOrms,-the truth abOut sp-ci-s being that reproductive germs are el-ctri- csliy, though not by set and fixed form, patterns; that each germ, male as we'll H- female, acts as a reproductive Htructur~; all animals and all plants (with some very low -xceprions) being two woven into one. the explanation of vast range of facis which Darwinism has put in a wrong light; that the distinction of sex resulis from electrical opposition of positive and negative; and that the fundamental law of energetic accelerated, ascending evolution, is that of the creative operation of enyi- ronment acting through parent organism on the reproductive g-rms of plant or ant nal. on the animal embryo, electrically conditioned and thus responsive to every efficient influence or pressure, in ways in fnitriy productive of variation, of sPeetf ic change, aud of the evolution and ascent of the creation; giving thereby the mira cle of man pushed up to the height of in- telligent mind, marvellous brain and form. genius and thought and eternal hope, from an animal below the human level, with none of the difficulty, the delay, and the enormously doubtful means of the Oar winian system.
 Professor Henri Hertz, the great physi cist at Bonn. who ranks with Faraday. and Maxwell and Hrlmholtz, has lately said in his communication to the Sixty second congress of German naturalists and physi- cians at Heidelberg:
 eve shall hereafter see electricity in & thousand conditions in which we did not before suspect it. Every blaze, every lu- minous atom, becomes an electrical phe- nomenon. Even if body does not cast light, it is a center of electrical action if it radiates heat The domain. of electricity is therefore extended over all nature, and even possesses us; for is not the eye in fact an electrical organF
 The recognition here of the part played by electricity is but one item of very large body of evidence, in demonstrated facts and authoritative opinion, which has been coming into the history of science during the half century since Joule, of Manchester, England, showed ''the cleo tric origin of the heat of combustion" Faraday's work in science, not only by marvelously fruitful experiments, but by sagacious thinking far outside the realm of experiment., gave results which ought long since to have enabled research to reach the goal of perfectly clear comprehension of the electrical function of oxygen in com bustion and in respiration; the electrical origin of all fire, all light, all heat, all mo- tion and change in matter; and the elect l. cal character of the vital state, vital mo- tions and vital energy. But science here has been exceeding slow, not to say stupid. When Helmholtz. the greatest of German physicists, gave the Fsradsy lecture to the Chemical society in London Reported in Nature, April :, 1881, PIP. 536-540, he said with regard to "the important and renowned discoveries" in electricity made by Faraday:-
 .'The facts which he has found are uni yersally known. Nevertheless, the funds- mental conceptions by which Faraday has been led to these much admired discover ies have not b-en received with much con- siderarion.r Fsraday's great conclusion, as stated by Helmholtz, that Fall the phe- nomena of electro-static, magnetic, cleo tro-magnetic attraction, repulsion and in duction, could all be explained, without ,oorrr;ng at all to forces acting dirctly at