Читать книгу The Body at Work: A Treatise on the Principles of Physiology онлайн

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NH₄C₃H₅O₃C₅H₄N₄O₃

Vital chemistry and mineral chemistry are so widely different in their methods that one is tempted to think of them as different in kind. We find it very difficult to look at both from the same point of view. Men’s minds are preoccupied with the things that they have to do for themselves. The chemistry of the laboratory is seen as a science circumscribed by the laboratory walls. If it were possible to stand outside, it would be evident that it is only a part of the science of molecular change. Matter changes its state under the influence of force. Many rearrangements are effected by the chemist which do not occur in nature. He has an almost infinite range of action. Yet many of the rearrangements of matter and force which are occurring in the dandelion on his window-sill (if the fumes of sulphuretted hydrogen have not killed it) he is unable to reproduce. It is largely a question of waste. Nature works with greater precision than the chemist; but the chemist could do all that Nature does if he had but the same control of force.