This is owing to the adaptive property of the cells, in the course of their enormous accumulation, to different functions, which, again, depends upon the varied arrangement of the constituent elements. These elements all find lodgement in the blood, and are carried by it in necessary quantities to the points where they are needed to assist the organs in replacing consumed matter. The difficulty found in grasping this idea of _unity_ has led to the most momentous errors in modern medical science. One result has been the undue attention paid to the study of anatomy, insomuch that the different organs are regarded as wholly distinct groups of cells. This is convenient from a descriptive standpoint, but it tends too much to draw attention away from the source of life, and of health. Only by noting the common characteristics of the cell accumulations termed organs, are we enabled to supply the necessary elements that may be lacking. And thus we arrive at the subject of _the chemical analysis of the human body_ and its various organs, a subject that has been badly neglected throughout the centuries. It has been determined that the entire human body consists of a certain number of chemical elements, appearing in different aggregations in different parts. These aggregations repeating themselves in the various organs. Twelve principal aggregations of chemical elements have been established and designated by the term _tissues_. This fact led to the discovery of the truth that in the process of healing attention must be given, not to the various organs, but to the various tissues. These tissues are dependent directly upon the condition and contents of the blood, whose office it is to nourish them and which exhibits the wonderful property of conveying to each tissue its selective regenerative materials, _provided of course, that these elements are present at the time in the blood_. Sixteen definite elements have been established--and a seventeenth will probably soon be added thereto--which, in their various combinations and aggregations, form the different tissues of which the organs in the human body are composed. The prevalence of one or several of these elements in a certain tissue forms the main or governing feature of that tissue. Thus, the prevalence of potassium phosphate characterizes muscle tissue, the prevalence of ammonium phosphate (lecithin) nerve tissue. Each one of the various tissues consists of certain of these elements, and each tissue at every point where it occurs is affected by the lack of any of its elements. One of the greatest physiological chemists, Justus von Liebig, maintains that, if one of the necessary elements in a chemical composition is missing, the rest cannot fulfill their duties and the respective cells must become diseased and degenerate. This discovery, known as "the law of the minimum," has thrown additional light upon the tasks before the new school of medicine.