In science, vital energy was a type of energy said to exist in plant life and animal life capable of being transformed when needed into heat or muscular motive power. [1] This form of energy was associated, in some cases, with the theory of vitalism. The term seems to have been dominate between the 1860s and the 1920s, where after, with the rise of chemical thermodynamics, it fell into disuse.
References
1. Murphy, Joseph J. (1879). Habit and Intelligence in their Connexion with the Law of Matter and Force (section: Vital Energy, and pg. 25). Oxford University Press.
