48 IDENTITY OF ANIMAL WITH 



trated muriatic acid with the same deep j^^r^^le 

 colour, and even in their physical characters, animal 

 fibrine and albumen are in no respect different from 

 vegetable fibrine and albumen. It is especially to 

 be noticed, that by the phrase, identity of composi- 

 tion, we do not here imply mere similarity, but that 

 even in regard to the presence and relative amount 

 of sulphur, phosphorus, and phosphate of lime, no 

 difference can be observed. (8) 



How beautifully and admirably simple, with the 

 aid of these discoveries, appears the process of nu- 

 trition in animals, the formation of their organs, 

 in which vitality chiefly resides ! Those vegetable 

 j^rinciples, which in animals are used to form blood, 

 contain the chief constituents of blood, fibrine and 

 albumen, ready formed, as far as regards their 

 composition. All plants, besides, contain a certain 

 quantity of iron, which re-aj^pears in the colouring 

 matter of the blood. Vegetable fibrine and animal 

 fibrine, vegetable albumen and animal albumen, 

 hardly differ, even in form ; if these principles be 

 wanting in the food, the nutrition of the animal is 

 arrested ; and when they are present, the gramini- 

 vorous animal obtains in its food the very same 

 principles on the presence of which the nutrition of 

 the carnivora entirely de2:)ends. 



Vegetables produce in their organism the blood 

 of all animals, for the carnivora, in consuming the 

 blood and flesh of the graminivora, consume, strictly 

 speaking, only the vegetable principles which have 



