202 Chemical Properties of Animal Fluids. [Sept. 



The portion not dissolved by alcohol, and digested with water, 

 left a fresh residue of albumen, weighing 1 "95 grammes, and 

 possessing the same characters as that of Exper. 2. The watery 

 solution could not be made to gelatinize, and did not hold the 

 smallest quantity of gelatine. Besides the alkali, it contained 

 an animal matter easily precipitable by tannin and by muriate 

 of mercury, and which appeared to me to be extracted from the 

 albumen by the boiling water, during its coagulation, and to be 

 analogous to the substance obtained by boiling fibrin with water. 

 We have been told, that the blood contains much alkaline and 

 earthy phosphates. I coagulated a large quantity of serum, and 

 thus procured a good deal of the residuary uncoagulable fluid. 

 This I mixed with barytic water, which after a time gave a slight 

 precipitate, soluble in muriatic acid. Some of the same serum, 

 mixed with lime-water, was not clouded. It follows from this, 

 that the blood contains no sulphuric acid, and only a vestige of 

 the phosphoric. In my Treatise on Animal Chemistry, I nave 

 endeavoured to prove, that the phosphates, as well as the lac- 

 tates, are always produced by the spontaneous decomposition of 

 animal substances, and that the small quantity of each which is 

 found in the blood is carried thither by the absorbent system, 

 in its progress to the secretions, through which it is discharged 

 from the body, and hence the secretions contain always a much 

 larger proportion of these acids. 



Not to be too diffuse, I shall pass over the description of the 

 methods I employed, to ascertain the respective proportions of 

 the contents of the serum, and shall only give the results : — 

 A thousand parts of serum I find to consist of 



Water 605*00 



Albumen 79*99 



Substances soluble in alcohol, viz. 



Lactate of soda, and extractive matter 6*1 75 ? _ ,. . 



Muriate of soda and potash 2*565 5 



Soda and animal matter soluble only in water. . 1 *52 



Loss 4*75 



1000*00 



not, it bas been considered as a single substance, and has received the name of 

 osmazome. One of the component parts of this extract is lactate of soda, and 

 the other, with which it is intimately combined, is an animal matter that may 

 be separated by means of tannin. To prove the presence of lactic acid, dis- 

 solve the whole in alcohol, and add a mixture of sulphuric acid much diluted 

 with alcohol, as long as there appears any precipitate, which is sulphate of 

 potash or soda. Digest this spirituous solution (which contains muriatic, sul- 

 phuric, lactic, and sometimes phosphoric acid) with carbonate of lead, and 

 all the above acids will unite with the oxide of lead, but of these only the 

 lactate will be soluble in alcohol. Decant the alcoholic solution of lactate of 

 lead, separate the lead by a stream of sulphureted hydrogen gas, and by eva- 

 porating the clear liquor, the lactic acid will remain in the state of an acid syrup. 



