On the Composition of Animals slaughtered as Human Food. 297 



pretty exactly twice as much of the dry substance of the food, in- 

 volved in the direct production of the increase, as there was of dry 

 increase itself; hence instead of there being, as before estimated, 82 

 to 83 parts of the consumed dry matter expired, perspired, or 

 voided, without as it were being directly involved in the pi'oduction 

 of the increase, it is to be inferred that, in the sense implied, only 

 about G5 parts were so expired, perspired, or voided. 



It having been thus found that by far the larger proportion of 

 the solid increase of the so-called fattening animals is really fat 

 itself, — as moreover, it is probable that, at least in great part, the 

 fat formed in the body is normally derived from starch, and other 

 non-nitrogenous constituents of the food — and since the current 

 fattening foods contain such a very large amount of nitrogen com- 

 pared with that eventually retained in the increase — it can hardly 

 be surprising that, contrary to the usually accepted opinions, the 

 comparative values of our staple food-stuffs are much more nearly 

 measurable by their amount of digestible and assimilable non-iutro- 

 genous constituents, than by that of the digestible and assimilable 

 nitrogenous compounds. 



In order to determine the relative development of the several 

 organs and parts in different descriptions of animals, and in animals 

 of the same description in different conditions of growth and matu- 

 rity, the weights alive, and of the separate internal organs and some 

 other parts, of 16 calves, heifers and bullocks, of 249 sheep, and of 

 59 pigs, were taken. 



It appeared that in oxen the stomachs and contents constituted 

 about Hi, in sheep about 7\, and in the pig only about \^ per 

 cent, of the entire weight of the body. The amounts of the intes- 

 tines and their contents stood in the opposite relation. They 

 amounted in the pig to about &\, in the sheep to about 3^, and in 

 the oxen to only about 2^ per cent, of the whole body. These facts 

 are of considerable interest, when it is borne in mind that in the 

 food of the ruminant there is so large a proportion of indigestible 

 woody fibre, and in that of the well-fed pig a comparatively large 

 proportion of starch — the primary transformations of which are 

 supposed, to take place chiefly after leaving the stomach, and more 

 or less throughout the intestinal canal. 



Taken together, the stomachs, small intestines, large intestines, and 

 their respective contents, constituted, in oxen more than 14 percent., 

 in sheep a little more than 1 1 per cent., and in pigs about 7i per 

 cent. With these great variations in the proportion in the different 

 descriptions of animals, of these receptacles and first laboratories of 

 the food (witli their contents), the further elaborating organs, if we 

 may so call them (with their fluids), appear to be much more equal in 

 their proportion in the three cases. This is aj)proximately illustrated 

 in the fact, that taking together the recorded per-centages of 

 "heart and aorta," " lungs and windjjipe," "liver," "gall-bladder 

 and contents," "pancreas," "milt or sj)leen," and the "blood," 

 the sum indicated is for the oxen about 7 per cent., for the sheep 

 about 7\ per cent., and for the pigs about Gfrds per cent. Exclu- 

 Phil. Mag. S. 4. Vol. 17. No. Hi. April 1859. X 



