On some new Researches in Animal Chemistry. 41 3 



of creatin. It becomes now soluble in water, and forms with 

 bichloride of platinum a fine crystaUized double salt. 



I have, finally, discovered two other new bodies in the 

 same fluids, of which the one crystallizes in needles, the other 

 in plates of the lustre of mother-of-pearl. Unfortunately I 

 have obtained scarcely sufficient for two analyses from 40 lbs. 

 of the flesh of oxen and 20 of that of fowls. 



I see a boundless field before me, and doubt not that for 

 every quality of the animal body, something which can be 

 estimated quantitatively, will also be discovered to which it is 

 indebted for its properties. 



I have also satisfied myself as to the part which common 

 salt plays in the bodies of animals, I have found that the 

 fluids without the blood and lymphatic vessels contain only 

 potash-salts, viz. chloride of potassium and phosphate of 

 potash, with phosphate of magnesia, whilst the blood and 

 lymph contain merely those of soda (phosphate of soda). If, 

 therefore, the latter are indispensable to the formation of 

 blood and the processes of fife, it is evident that an animal 

 on the continent, which finds in plants only potash-salts, 

 should have chloride of sodium given to it, by means of which 

 the phosphate of potash of the seeds and of the rest of the 

 plant is transformed into chloride of potassium and phosphate 

 of soda. I found further that the salt brine which flows from 

 salted meat contained certainly alkaline phosphates, and that 

 scurvy is hence easily explained by the deficiency in the 

 salted meat of the alkaline phosphates necessary to the for- 

 mation of blood. The soup from boiled meat contains the 

 soluble phosphates of the flesh, and the meat itself the in- 

 soluble. Neither the soup nor the flesh alone can maintain 

 the processes of life, but both must be taken together. The 

 Enghsh have in this respect hit upon the proper practice. 

 In a theoretical point of view their food is more correctly 

 combined than that of the Germans. 



Still more wonderful results have been obtained by the oxi- 

 dation of casein by means of peroxide of manganese and sul- 

 phuric acid, by M. Gugelberger. Three products are ob- 

 tained : the first of which is aldehyde, the second oil of bitter 

 almonds, and the third a fluiil c-ethereal body with a compo- 

 sition similar to metacetonc. The aldehyde was analysed as 

 aldehyditc of ammonia, of which a considerable quantity was 

 obtained. From oil of bitter almonds the most beautiful ben- 

 zoic acid was produced by the action of cldorine. 



From these results a sort of conception may be obtained 

 liow and wherefore many medicines have a certain deleterious 

 or useful action. 



