13(> C(jnversio7i of Animal Matter into new Suhstcmces. 



complete solution was effected, and the whole became a red li- 

 quid, and ceased to give out sulphurous acid: it then deposited 

 a sediment, which on further examination was easily burnt to 

 ashes, and proved lo be sulphate oi lime, with a fat bituminous' 

 matter, an animal substance, and a very little silex. 



The acid solution, diluted with water, was boiled for nine 

 hours, then was saturated with chalk, and evaporated to the con- 

 sistence of an extract, which was yellowish, and had a taste like 

 the extractive matter of broth, giving the same appearances when 

 burnt, and yielding ammonia by trituration with potash. 



This extract was treated with weak boiling alcohol, in succes- 

 sive portions, which dissolved out of it a small quantity of leu- 

 cine, and a substance a little animalised. As to the portion 

 insoluble in this weak spirit, which was the most considerable, 

 it had the same taste of broth, and all the other juoperties which 

 were found in the analogous substance produced from fibrine. 



Wishing to knov\' in what state the wool existed immediately 

 after its conversion into mucilage, I moistened eight grannne'? 

 of it with sixteen grammes of sulphuric acid, diluted with four 

 grammes of water; and after some minutes digestion in a boiling- 

 water heat, and subsequent shaking, there resulted a thick red 

 mucilage, which totally dissolved in water, except a little whitish 

 matter, which was only a portion of the wool, but little changed. 

 The acid liquid was saturated with chalk, and gave by evapora- 

 tion a substance having exactly the appearance of common glue, 

 but with Httle cohesion, not deliquescent, and easily reducible 

 to powder. Its taste was disagreeable. In the fire it puffed up 

 and burnt with a smell like scorched wool, but less fetid, but 

 without giving out any sulphurous acid: the coal burnt to ashes 

 as easily as vegetable coal. This substance gave out ammonia 

 when rubbed v.'ith potash. Infusion of galls poured into the so- 

 lution of this substance decomposes it entirely: the precipitate is 

 white, flocculent. and does not collect into an elastic cohesive 

 mass like that which forms in the solution of gelatine, Acetite 

 of lead hardly troubles it; but on adding nitric acid there forms 

 a small insoluble deposit of sulphate of lead. Nitrate of mercury 

 and sub-acetite of lead produce copious white precipitates. Per- 

 sulphate of iron acts on this as it does on solution of gelatine, 

 it coagulates it entirely into an orange-red mass. Boiling alco- 

 hol hardly touches it. 



It appears, therefore, that the principal facts contained in this 

 Memoir are the following : 



1. That animal substances mav be changed by the action of 

 sulphuric acid into substances containing a much less proportion 

 of azote. 



2, Tliat this change is brought about by a subtraction of hy- 



drogen 



i 



