54 



We must not however go farther afield in noticing these products 

 of the transmutation of nitrogen. II taut que nous revenons a nos 

 moutons ; wc must return to our mutton or rather to the substances 

 which make our mutton, for it must not be forgotten that proteids are 

 also to be found in the grassy plants. This has been fully shown by 

 Mr. Shutt in his reports and he has even proved that "the percentage 

 of albuminoids is higher in a grass before flowering or when in flower 

 than when the seed is fully formed." He tells us that, " as the seed 

 matures there is a migration of the albuminoids of the leaf and stalk 

 into the seed," a very interesting fact and only less wonderful than the 

 first formation of these important substances. 



Valuable and important substances they are indeed, for the 

 researches of Liebig went to prove, nearly fifty years ago, that these 

 albuminous compounds are formed in the vegetable kingdom alone ; 

 that the animal body possesses only the power of appropriating them 

 and converting the one into the other. Animals are entirely dependant 

 on vegetables for a supply of the substances out of which first blood, 

 and then from that fluid all the solids of the body are produced. For 

 this reason the food of animals must contnin these albumenoids ready 

 formed. 



This is not the first time you have been told that " All flesh is 

 grass," but that has been to you for the most part a figurative expression. 

 It is, however, true in a very literal sense. Flesh, that is to say, the 

 fibrin of the muscles, the insoluble albuminoid of the animal kingdom 

 is derived from the albuminoids of grass, vegetables, cereals, and 

 leguminous plants. With these we follow the fortunes of Nitrogen 

 from the vegetable into the animal kingdom. The great mass of the 

 dry organic constituents of the animal tissues consists of these amor- 

 phous, nitrogenous, complicated substances of high molecular weight, 

 and it is very well worthy of remark, that although the carbo-hydrates, 

 starch, sugar, and even cellulose, play a most important part in animal 

 nutrition and economy, they do not form part of what may be called 

 the permanent constituents of the bodies of animals. Take for instance 

 the body of a man of 11 stone or 154 lbs. ; it has been estimated that 



