114 Chemical Researches upon Diseased Milk, 



mate principles, whose influence in the animal economy is most 

 important. As examples, we name casemn, fibrine, and the 

 albumen which is united to a sulphurous compound, and with 

 whose nature we are entirely ignorant. We may even add, 

 that the direct quantitive analysis of milk has not advanced 

 progressively with the experiments which have demonstrated 

 that its hutyrin is very complex, as it contains, in the milk of 

 cows at least, besides the stearin and the elain (oleine), a sub- 

 stance wliich is much more soluble in alcohol than these latter, 

 and which is probably formed of three different substances, 

 butyrin, caproin, and caprine. 



The effect of this state of matters will at once be seen by 

 those who are at all acquainted with chemistry, namely, that 

 without the direct analysis of the parts in health, and of pre- 

 cise formulse whereby to execute them, when at any given 

 time it is necessary to compare a diseased organic substance 

 with a corresponding healthy one, we are destitute of the princi- 

 pal data, and of the very terms of comparison; and this difficulty 

 of arriving at a satisfactory result is much increased by the 

 small quantity of matter which is supplied to the chemist, and 

 by the shortness of time during which he can procm'e even 

 this small quantity, since the diseased substances are almost 

 always changing their nature, and hence it may be impos- 

 sible to verify an important induction suggested by the experi- 

 ments made upon the last portion of the substance he had 

 received. 



We shall now advert to the difficulty of the direct normal 

 analyses, and to the methods, the prosecution of which pro- 

 mise the greatest prospect of a favourable termination. 



Were we to propose to an able chemist experimentally to 

 vmdertake to establish the normal analysis of an animal li- 

 quid, such as the blood, or milk, we believe he would com- 

 mence with the condition of maintaining the existence of 

 every substance which he isolated, as he would do were he 

 perating upon metals formiag an alloy, or upon oxygenous 

 compounds forming a stoney mass. We shall demonstrate 

 this proposition by incontestible facts. 



Previous to the time when the various bodies which 

 form the chief mass of the fatty substances most com- 



