MINERAL CONSTITUENTS OF THE ANIMAL BODY. 409 



The column C exhibits, therefore, those mineral substances in 

 the oxidised state which, according to Rose, are not oxidised in the 

 organic substance. 



It must be further observed, that in the solid excrements the 

 number representing the mineral substances that cannot be ex- 

 tracted, would not be so strikingly high if sand and the silica 

 of the vegetable tissue were not mixed with them ; the number 

 representing the non-oxidised substances is also increased in the 

 white of egg, the ox-bile, and the urine, by the silica occurring in 

 them. 



Although Rose's investigations have greatly contributed to our 

 advance towards the knowledge of the inorganic constituents of 

 animal substances, we dare not flatter ourselves that we have as 

 yet attained the object in view, for it not only remains for us to 

 apply this method to the investigation of the mineral substances 

 contained in different normal and morbid animal juices and tissues, 

 but also, by further investigation, definitively to determine the 

 question that has been started against Rose's view of the combina- 

 tion of radicals containing sulphur and phosphorus with metals; in 

 other words, it will be necessary to collect a greater number of 

 facts, in order to illustrate this obscure subject in various points of 

 view, before we venture to apply it, in all its consequences, to scien- 

 tific questions. Yet it cannot be denied that no previous method 

 affords us so good a guide as Rose's, for the correct recognition of 

 the mineral substances existing preformed in organic bodies. 



When, however, we have obtained by Rose's method such an 

 admixture of mineral bodies as we may assume to exist preformed 

 in the organic substance, the actual analysis still remains to be 

 made ; and this, notwithstanding the labours of the most eminent 

 chemists, has by no means attained to the degree of perfection 

 which has been generally obtained in mineral analyses. The recent 

 investigations of Fresenius, Erdmann, Mitscherlich, and more 

 especially of Rose, have made us acquainted with numerous defi- 

 ciencies which attached to the former methods of examining the 



