118 Chemical Researches upon Diseased Milk, 



2d, That caseum has not been sufficiently studied in rela- 

 tion to the other principles containing nitrogen, such as fibrin, 

 albumen, coagulated albumen, so that, in the analysis of dis- 

 eased milk, it is impossible to express a precise opinion con- 

 cerning the modification which the caseum may have under- 

 gone from the disease. 



3</, Nothing can more strikingly demonstrate how very 

 vague om- real knowledge of healthy milk now is, than the 

 difficulty we have experienced, when we would, in this paper, 

 state its action upon coloured agents. Macquer, in the Diet, 

 de Chimie, informs us that the healthy milk of a frugivorous 

 animal is neither acid nor alkaline, but neuter. M. Bouillon 

 Lagrange in the Ann. de Chimie, torn. 50, states, that milk re- 

 cently drawn reddens turnsol paper. M. Thenard, in the 

 59th volume of the same work, recognised the same property 

 on its issuing from the mammary glands ; and Thomson and 

 Berzelius are of the same opinion. In a journey which Messrs 

 Gay Lussac and Darcet made in Belgium in the year 1826, 

 they found the milk alkaline, when drawn from the cow, in 

 forty diflTerent animals. M. Payen observed the alkaline cha- 

 racter of woman's milk in a number of instances, and its 

 neutral state in the goat. ( Journal de Chimie Medicate 1828.^ 

 M. Lassaigne (lb. 1832J having examined the milk of a 

 Swiss cow two and twenty days before calving, found the 

 milk, or rather the liquid which represented it, alkaline ; but, 

 eleven days after this trial, the milk had become acid, and 

 this character continued after it had calved. Finally, and 

 more recently, M. Piligot and M. Lassaigne have considered 

 acidity as a property of healthy milk. 



We have considered this difi^erence of opinion upon a fact 

 which may easily be determined, was a powerful motive to 

 induce us to add some new observations to those we have 

 just mentioned. One of the members of the Commission ac- 

 cordingly went to the Veterinary School at Alfort, where M. 

 Lassaigne had the kindness to put him in circumstances which 

 enabled him to establish the following facts. The milk be- 

 longing to three English cows, of which one had calved eight 

 months before, and the other ten, when drawn from the udder 

 and applied immediately to paper reddened with turnsol, made 



