408 MINERAL CONSTITUENTS OF THE ANIMAL BODY. 



menstrua from mineral substances ; and since, on the other hand, 

 we are already acquainted with some organic bodies in which we 

 assume that non-oxidised sulphur or non-oxidised iron is present 

 in a peculiar state of combination. Hence Rose further concludes 

 that in vegetable and animal substances those mineral constituents 

 can alone be regarded as preformed, which admit of being extracted 

 by means of water and acids from the carbonised material, while on 

 the other hand those substances which cannot be separated until 

 the carbonaceous mass is entirely burned, are inherent in the ori- 

 ginal organic substance, as integral constituents in a non-oxidised 

 condition. 



It appears from the numerous investigations prosecuted by 

 Rose, with vegetable and animal products, that while there are 

 some, as, for instance, the bones, in which all the mineral consti- 

 tuents are in a perfectly oxidised state, that is to say, admit of 

 extraction by the ordinary solvents, (and these he names teleoxidic 

 organic substances,) the great majority contain the mineral con- 

 stituents partly in an oxidised and partly in an unoxidised state 

 (these he terms meroxidic) 9 while none are as yet known that 

 contain only unoxidised elements (anoxidic.} 



In his examination of vegetable substances, Rose found that 

 the straw of different kinds of grain was almost perfectly teleoxidic, 

 whilst the seeds of the same plants were meroxidic. In reference 

 to animal substances, it was to be expected that, as the meroxidic 

 substances belonging to the vegetable kingdom specially serve as 

 food for the animal organism, those animal fluids and tissues wliose 

 chemical constitution approximates to that of vegetable substances, 

 as the blood, the muscular fibre, milk, and yolk of egg, would be 

 meroxidic, whilst the excretions, as matters which originated in the 

 animal body mainly by the process of oxidation, would be teleoxidic. 

 This supposition has been fully confirmed by the analyses of the 

 bile, the urine, and solid excrements, instituted by Weber, Fleit- 

 mann, Weidenbusch, and Poleck. In order to take a general view 

 of these relations, we will subjoin the numerical results which have 

 been obtained, according to Rose's method, by investigations on the 

 mineral constituents of animal substances. In the following table, 

 A represents the quantity of the salts that can be extracted by 

 water from 100 parts of the mineral constituents of the organic 

 substance ; while B represents the quantity of salts dissolved by 

 hydrochloric acid ; and C, the quantity of the salts which can only 

 be determined bv the combustion of the carbonaceous residue. 



