Virginia Medical Journal Author:Unknown Author Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: SELECTIONS, Chemical Final Causes—as illustrated by the presence of Phosphorus, Nitrogen and Iron in the higher Sentient Organisms. By George Wilson, M. D., F... more ». R. S. E., Regius Professor of Technology in the University of Edinburgh.—From Edinburgh Essays. (Continued.) II.—Phosphorus in the Human Organism. If the imperfect description which has been given of the human organism is in any respect faithful, it is manifest that the chemical elements which enter into its composition must exhibit the contrasted stability and mobility which so strikingly characterize itself. Suppose, then, our physiologist's pupil, guided by this rule, to study the chemist's elementary bodies, with a view to discover which of them are most suited to the living frame. Is it likely that among the sixty he would select only seventeen? that he would select the actual seventeen which are found ? that he would even prefer nonmetallic to metallic matter? or assign any place to abundant constituents, such as the metal of lime, or to never failing unabundant ones, as fluorine? He would probably select air and water, but beyond these I feel quite unable to surmise how far his Frankenstein would agree in composition with the homo sapiens of Linnaeus. At all events, the chances are very great that he would pass over entirely that remarkable group of elements, in which two of the most characteristic ingredients of all animal organisms are included. This group contains four bodies, phosphorus, arsenic, antimony, nitrogen, with an outlying fifth one, bismuth, which I do not at present consider; and, in the whole category of elements, no four at first sight seem more unfitted for organismal constituents than they. Phosphorus has been known for two centuries as a dangerous combustible, and most deadly poison, wh...« less