of Organic Bodies. 9 



stances. Peas, rape and wheat, are therefore meroxidic sub- 

 stances. I have never met with perfectly anoxidic substances^ 



either in the examination of vejjetable or animal substances. 



1 • • • 

 It is probable that if the proteine compounds existing m me- 

 roxidic substances were isolated as completely as possible, 

 they would constitute perfectly anoxidic substances, which 

 after carbonization would not yield any soluble salts to the 

 solvents, until these had been produced by complete incine- 

 ration. 



Inorganic Constituents of Animals. 



Animals derive the inorganic constituents which the various 

 parts of their body contain, from the food. This is, however, 

 assimilated by them in a totally different manner to that in 

 plants; whilst in the latter, in general, a process of deoxida- 

 tion occurs, to which the inorganic substances derived from 

 the soil are subjected, in animals the nutritive substances 

 undergo oxidation by the oxygen inspired. They are first 

 converted into blood, and this is conveyed to all parts of the 

 body, where reparation must occur. By the oxidation of the 

 nutritive substances, or rather of the matters produced from 

 them, the elevated temperature of the animal body is produced; 

 and as this is tolerably uniform, the oxidation also must go 

 on equally uniform in the various parts of the body. It is 

 not, however, merely those parts of the body which consist of 

 carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen and oxygen only, that take part 

 in the oxidation, but undoubtedly also those compounds of 

 the hypothetical phosphuretted radicals with metals, which 

 such animals as are not carnivorous derive from the meroxidic 

 substances of vegetable nutritive matters. That portion of 

 them which is not applied to the repair of the body becomes 

 oxidized ; the same also occurs with those parts of the body 

 which are repaired. Whilst the carbonic acid of these com- 

 pounds is expired in the form of carbonic acid, and the nitrogen 

 is converted into ammonia, the phosphorus is oxidized to form 

 phosphoric acid, and the metals combined with the radicals, 

 so as to form oxides. The longer these substances have been 

 exposed to oxidation, the more perfectly are phosphates of the 

 metallic oxides formed. 



It must follow from this conclusion, that the matter first 

 formed by the nutritive substances, the blood, from which the 

 other parts of the body are repaired, may contain completely 

 oxidized salts, since it is generated from meroxidic substances, 

 but must still contain a large amount of the combinations of 

 the hypothetical radicals with metals. Somewhat the same 

 must occur with flesh, the composition of which is the same 



