CHEMICAL SCIENCE. 223 



the bodies which are called aliments or nutrients, in repairing the 

 waste of the system ; or, whether it is absolutely true that the system 

 undergoes eremacausis necessarily in labor, mental or physical. So 

 inquiries may be directed to a supposed class of bodies, which do not 

 furnish nutrient matter, and yet do something in its place. Do 

 they prevent waste, or, in other words, save it from waste ? If so, 

 may they be denominated soterifics, a word coined from the Greek 

 savior. Probably there are many persons who would object to the 

 word saviors, when applied to tea, coffee, porter, spirits, opium, etc. ; 

 still science must make her inquiries without prejudice, and if there is 

 a class of bodies which save the system from waste, they may well be 

 denominated, for aught I see, saviors. We have, without doubt, calori- 

 fics, purely so ; and it is a class of bodies essential to the system, though 

 by no means nutrients, in any sense of the word. We often see the 

 system waste rapidly in diabetis, and observation supplies us with strong 

 facts, which go to show that the system is sustained with a small 

 amount only of the nutrients, and is capable of performing a larger 

 amount of work, when aided in some way or other by certain bever- 

 ages. 



ON THE EXHALATION OF CARBONIC ACID. 



THE following is a summary of Scharling's important experiments 

 on the exhalation of carbonic acid : The carbonic acid was estimated 

 by a very perfectly contrived apparatus. A man of thirty years old was 

 found to exhale, when remaining quiet, 12.06 grammes of carbon per 

 hour. The same man, wielding violently a heavy iron rod, perspiring 

 profusely, exhaled as much as 42.2 grammes of carbon per hour. An 

 immense increased development of carbonic acid occurs, therefore, 

 during exercise. In two experiments with tipplers, who had taken 

 brandy just before, the quantity of carbon was 7.045 and 10.83 

 grammes. In the last case, however, the individual was in exercise. 

 Scharling also found (with Dulong and others) a greater consumption of 

 oxygen than was accounted for by the carbonic acid, viz., over a fourth 

 part. Caustatfs Jahres-Bcricht. 



COOKED AND UNCOOKED FOOD. 



IN a communication from the society of Shakers, at Lebanon, N. Y., 

 in the Patent Office Report, we find the following upon the relative 

 value of ground and unground, cooked and uncooked, corn for feeding 

 cattle, &c. " The experience of more than thirty years leads us to 

 estimate ground corn at one third higher than unground, as food for 

 cattle, and especially for fatting pork ; hence, it has been the practice 

 of our society for more than a quarter of a century to grind all our prov- 

 ender. The same experience induces us to put a higher value on 

 cooked than upon raw meal, and for fatting animals, swine particularly, 

 we consider three of cooked equal to four bushels of raw meal. Until 

 within the last three or four years, our society fattened annually, for 



