Research in physiological chemistry, has so far determined that there
are sixteen definite and discernible elements--and a seventeenth is now
in course of determination--which, in their various combinations and
aggregations, form the different tissues of which the various organs of
the human body are constructed.
The preponderance of one or more of these elements in a certain tissue
forms the main or governing feature, or tissue of any organ. Thus the
prevalence of potassium phosphate forms the muscle tissue, the
prevalence of ammonium phosphate (lecithin) forms the nerve tissue.
For the purpose of general explanation it is sufficient to know that
each of the various tissues consist of some of these elements, and that
each of the tissues, at whatever part of the body it exists, is affected
by the lack of any one of these elements.
The greatest chemist of the age, Justus von Liebig, maintains that if
one of the necessary elements in a chemical composition is missing, the
rest cannot fulfil their duties, and the consequence of such deficiency
is that the cell in question must become diseased and degenerate.
This discovery, known as "the law of the minimum," has thrown an
additional reassuring light upon the practice of the new school of
medicine.
_To bring to the tissue the lacking constituent element or elements by
way of the blood is the only means of regenerating that tissue, that is,
of healing its diseased cells._