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THE HARVEIAN ORATION, 1903

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further investigation of the intimate cell structure, and that the histologist in point of fact was apparently at the limit of his range of observation, should turn to the physico-chemical sciences for the satisfaction of his quest?

The attempts, however, from the chemical side to explain the constitution of living matter, due no doubt to the extreme complexity of the subject, cannot be said as yet to have led to any very definite result, although several very suggestive hypotheses have been put forward. Inasmuch as no empirical formula has up to the present been constructed for any one of the typical proteids, a rational or structural formula for the constitution of the undoubtedly large molecules of which these substances are composed is scarcely to be expected; and this, although necessary, is but only the first stage in the inquiry. Analysis of proteid bodies gives rise to numerous products; the end substances such as carbonic acid, water and urea we are familiar with, but the intermediate ones “ fall into two principal groups, the fatty compounds (generally containing an amidogen radicle) and the aromatic compounds or derivatives of benzene.” 1 Accurate as further work in this direction may become however, it still of neces-

1 Prof. Halliburton, M.D., F.R.S., in Prof. Schafer’s Text Book of Physiology, Vol. I., p. 35.

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