50 USES OF THE STARCH, 



there is no blank, no interruption. The first sub- 

 stance capable of affording nutriment to animals is 

 the last product of the creative energy of vege- 

 tables. 



The substance of cellular tissue and of mem- 

 branes, of the brain and nerves, these the vegetable 

 cannot produce. 



The seemingly miraculous in the productive 

 agency of vegetables disappears in a great degree, 

 when ^ye reflect that the production of the consti- 

 tuents of blood cannot appear more surprising than 

 the occurrence of the fat of beef and mutton in 

 cocoa beans, of human fat in olive oil, of the prin- 

 cipal ingredient of butter in palm oil, and of horse 

 fat and train oil in certain oily seeds. 



X. While the preceding considerations leave lit- 

 tle or no doubt as to the way in which the increase 

 of mass in an animal, that is, its growth, is carried 

 on, there is yet to be resolved a most important 

 question, namely, that of the function performed in 

 the animal system by substances containing no nitro- 

 gen, such as sugar, starch, gum, pectine, &c. 



The most extensive class of animals, the grami- 

 nivora, cannot live without these substances ; their 

 food must contain a certain amount of one or more 

 of them, and if these compounds are not supplied, 

 death quickly ensues. 



This important inquiry extends also to the consti- 

 tuents of the food of carnivorous animals in the ear- 



