26 FIRESIDE SCIENCE. 



The yolk and albumen of a fecundated egg re 

 main as sweet and free from corruption during the 

 whole time of incubation as they are in new-laid 

 eggs, and there is but little loss of water ; whereas 

 an unfecundated egg passes rapidly into putrefac- 

 tive decay and perishes. 



Any one who eats three or four eggs at breakfast, 

 consumes that number of embryo chicks. All the 

 materials which enter into the legs, bones, feathers, 

 bill, etc., of the new-born chick exist in the egg, as 

 nothing is derived from outside. The little creature 

 that has just pecked his way out of his calcareous 

 prison-house, has lime and phosphorus in his bones, 

 sulphur in his feathers, iron, potash, soda, and man- 

 ganese in his blood, all of which mineral constit- 

 uents came from the egg, and are taken into the 

 stomach when it is eaten as food. The valuable or 

 important salts are contained in the yolk, and hence 

 this portion of the egg is the most useful in some 

 forms of disease. A weakly person, in whom nerve 

 force is deficient and the blood impoverished, may 

 take the yolks of eggs with advantage. The iron 

 and phosphoric compounds are in a condition to be 

 readily assimilated, and although homeopathic in 

 quantity, nevertheless exert a marked influence 

 upon the system. The yolks of eggs, containing 

 as they do less albumen, are not so injuriously af- 

 fected by heat as the white, and a hard-boiled yolk 



