The versatile Bouchut, of Paris, has recently published a theory,--the so-called "Seminalism,"--for which the claim is made that he grants nothing to hypothesis, and everything to observation; its characteristic is that this new theory is also vitalistic,--in fact, the French have scarcely ever brought forth any other than vitalistic theories. Borden and Barthez, during the previous century, created the first French theory, which was followed out by Bichat, and later by Bouchut, who, as a matter of fact, owes much to Bichat. Bouchut teaches that beasts have an intelligence of instinct, and men one of abstraction; no beast oversteps the limits of animal thought, which is separated by an abyss from the productive thought of men; there is a proper kingdom of man, in accordance with his special nature; also, that the vital forces of men and of beasts are entirely different from each other, and that the principle of physical identity remains in the bodies of each, since the constantly renewed mass is formed in exact accordance with the original plans; in all the changes of his elements man is identical with man; all internal and external causes of disease modify, more or less, the vital force and its impressibility in the fluids or at some point in the economy, either increasing it or diminishing it. This theory, published in. 1873, claimed "in the abstraction of its promise and completeness of its conclusions to yield to none of its predecessors." Yet, even in France, the task of transforming medicine into a natural and exact science is far from being a _fait accompli_.