150 SEVENTH REPORT—1837. 
obvious, and which has deservedly stamped him as one of the 
most ingenious observers in the medical profession. 
I think it is hardly too much to hope that, could we procure 
a sufficient number of experiments on the proportion of water 
only in various glands, or in a single gland in any one disease 
as compared with the healthy condition, we might be able to 
arrive at some valuable information in the history of such affec- 
tion. 
The great difficulty in the prosecution of this inquiry lies in 
the obstacles that are so frequently occurring to the performance 
of post-mortem examinations, and the time which is allowed to 
elapse before the inspection is made; these difficulties, however, 
are lessening every day, and at most public hospitals we have 
ample opportunities for research. 
The analysis of the blood and the secretion of glands has been 
a subject of interest and attention to the chemical world, and I 
have long wondered how it has happened that the methods of 
analysis applied to such matters have never been used to inves- 
tigate the chemical nature of the solid parts of animals. It is 
this which I would propose, viz. the adaptation of those rules 
of analysis used for the examination of the blood to the investi- 
gation of the chemical nature of the glands of the human body. 
When we look to the analyses of animal fluids, as performed by 
the best chemists, we perceive that the constituents of such 
matters (at least those which are purely animal) are considered 
as determined by their solubility or insolubility in certain men- 
strua ; the principal of these being water, alcohol, and ether. 
Thus we havea principle, considered as a distinct component of 
the blood, which is sometimes called osmazome; this is noted 
by quantity in healthy blood, and the result used for comparison ; 
but let us consider its right to the character of a distinct prin- 
ciple, and we shall at once be constrained to allow that such 
character is entirely the result of a single property, viz. its so- 
lubility or insolubility in certain menstrua, these being used to 
separate any one of the components of the fluid from the rest. 
That any of these component parts may be compounded in 
themselves is very easily credible and as easily proved ; thus the 
extractive matter of urine, frequently estimated as though it were 
a proximate element, is divisible, when subjected to further che- 
mical reactions, into three separate forms of extractive. I merely 
quote this instance to show how impossible it is (in most cases) 
to look upon animal analysis in any other light than as a means 
of performing comparative experiments. There is one very 
important step needed, however, before we can proceed to ex- 
amine the glands of the body on the same system that is used 
