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skill of tlie most scieutifio specialists of America and Europe. As long, 

 therefore, as scientific men are unacquaiated with any of the constit- 

 uents of animals and vegef.ables, so long will they be unable to treat 

 animal or vegetable maladies upon strictly scientific principles. Not 

 only should we endeavor to discover all the constituents of their organs, 

 and their relations to each other, but should also take into account those 

 of the ever-active elements which surround them, as the temperature 

 and humidity of the atmosphere, the effects of light and shade, climate, 

 altitude, and geographical condition — as these are of the utmost impor- 

 tance in the investigation of every form of organic disease. If it can 

 be shown that cellulose exists in all the important organs of the higher 

 animals, the necessity of a more careful examination of its uses will be- 

 come apparent; and such examinations may result in the discovery of new 

 relations between animal and vegetable structure, while it may also 

 necessitate a revisipn of received opinions as to the boundary-line 

 between animal and vegetable life. 



In consideration of the foregoing views, I have made a series of 

 investigations with animal substances, commencing with the eggs 

 of insects, the eggs of fowls, milk, cerumen, (ear-wax,) the flesh 

 and blood of various animals, including man, and have found in them 

 in every instance cellulose and animal starch, and in some cases cap- 

 illary vessels, of a translucent red color, containing liquid starch, col- 

 ored blue from the iodine used during my experiments. The following 

 statement embraces the results of some of these experiments. 



If about a cubic inch of liver, spleen, heart, brain, or muscle of the 

 higher animals be immersed in two fluid ounces of caustic potash about 

 twenty-four hours, at a temperature of about 80^ Fahrenheit, it will dissolve 

 completely. On the addition of acetic acid in excess, the potash will 

 be neutralized, and a flocculeut precipitate will fall, which, by ordinary 

 filtration, may be separated from the liquid. Eemove the filtrant by 

 means of a sable-hair pencil, taking care not to remove any of the fiber 

 of the paper with the animal matter. Place a small portion of the fil- 

 trant on a capsule, and add to it a drop of concentrated sulphuric acid, 

 followed by one of the tincture of iodine. Then place a portion of the 

 composition on a microscopic slide, covering it with a disk in the usual 

 manner, and examine it with a power of about 100 diameters. Under these 

 conditions blue granules of animal starch and structural cellulose will 

 sometimes be seen, combined with amber-colored albuminous matter. 

 Frequently starch and cellulose, although present, are not seen, but by 

 subjecting the composition to friction, and adding a little more sulphuric 

 acid and iodine, well-defined blue-colored structural forms become ap- 

 parent. 



The structure and chemical behavior of animal-starch granules dif- 

 fer in some respects from those of potato starch ; the latter are at once 

 dissolved by caustic potash and concentrated nitric and sulphuric acids, 

 but animal starch is not so easily dissolved. As a general rule the lat- 

 ter resists for a considerable time the solvent action of these powerful 

 chemicals. In form, animal starch frequently resembles potato starch. 

 The granules of the former are found, however, to be sometimes as 

 large as the .OOith of an inch in their shorter diameter, by about 

 .007th of an inch in their longer, while many of them are as small as 

 the thousandth of an inch in their longest diameter, or even less. Animal- 

 starch granules when compressed will frequently burst, and the liquid 

 contents coagulate at once in the presence of sulphuric acid. I have 

 found, during my investigations, hoUow starch-granules intensely blue, 

 from which their liquid starch had been expelled by pressure. Blue- 



