Other aid it was supposed to
lend, by stimulating the function of nutrition to renewed energy. Later
investigations have proved that it exercises a yet more important
influence as an arrester of metamorphosis. It was on arriving at this
conclusion, that Dr. Boecker was led to institute a series of careful
experiments to determine the influence of water on the physical
economy, and the real value of salt, sugar, coffee, tea, and other
condiments, as articles of food. "The experimenter appears to have used
the utmost precision, and details so conscientiously the mode adopted
of making his estimates, that additional knowledge may perhaps alter
the conclusions drawn, but can never diminish the value of the
experiments." They are not open to the objections of mistaken
sensations, and honest, though ludicrous, misapprehension of fallible
symptoms, to which the testing of drugs homeopathically is liable, and
of which another instance has just occurred in London, in the "proving"
of the new medicinal agent, gonoine. They rather resemble in accuracy a
quantitative, as well as a qualitative, analysis. We will cite first
the experiments on tea, and quote from the interesting narrative of Dr.
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