440 SECOND CLASS OF MINERAL CONSTITUENTS. 



solvents for albumen. It is well known that large quantities of the 

 alkaline carbonates have the property of impeding or altogether 

 preventing the coagulation of the fibrin. 



Finally, that the alkali of the blood also contributes to saturate 

 the acids conveyed into the organism or formed within it, is the 

 more probable, because nature seems to have provided that the 

 alkaline carbonates shall be produced as rapidly as possible from 

 the combinations of potash and soda with vegetable acids. (See 



P. 97.) 



The origin of carbonate of soda in the animal body is so 

 obvious, from the preceding observations, that it is unnecessary to 

 enter further into the subject. 



ALKALINE PHOSPHATES. 



Important as the alkaline phosphates doubtless are in the meta- 

 morphosis of animal tissue, we are unable at present to state much 

 witli certainty regarding them. Before Rose had introduced his 

 new method of preparing and analysing the ashes of organic bodies, 

 it must have been concluded from the abundant occurrence of 

 alkaline phosphates in the ashes of animal substances, that these 

 salts played an important part in the animal economy. This 

 conclusion seemed especially to be supported by the peculiar rela- 

 tions of the saturating capacity of phosphoric acid, and by the 

 metamerism of the phosphates. For it is almost self-evident that 

 no salts of any other acid could be so usefully applied in the 

 metamorphosis of tissue, as those of phosphoric acid, which can 

 form neutral salts with one, two, and three atoms of base, acid 

 salts with one and two atoms, and likewise several basic salts. 

 Moreover it must be recollected that common phosphate of soda 

 may contain one atom of basic water in place of one atom of fixed 

 base, and thus by its alkalinity it may serve, like free alkalies or 

 their carbonates, as a solvent for many animal substances ; that 

 it has the property of yielding to the weakest acids, as, for instance, 

 uric acid, one of the two atoms of fixed base, and of being converted 

 into an acid phosphate; and finally, that the ordinary basic phos- 

 phate of soda (with 3 atoms of fixed base) yields 1 atom of soda to 

 free carbonic acid, and thus gives rise to two neutral salts both of 

 which, however, have an alkaline reaction, and a si rung solvent 

 power. 



