62 MATERIAL COMPOSITION OF MAN. 



or unusual fulness of blood-vessels; at others, the blood is less in 

 quantity. 



Experiments have been made for the purpose of ascertaining the 

 relative proportion of fluids to solids. M. Richerand says, that they are 

 in the ratio of six to one ; M. Chaussier, of nine to one. The latter pro- 

 fessor put a dead body, weighing one hundred and twenty pounds, into 

 a heated oven, and dried it. After desiccation, it was found to be 

 reduced to twelve pounds. It is probable, however, that some of the 

 more solid portions were driven off by the heat employed ; and hence, 

 that the estimated proportion of fluids was too high. On this account, 

 M. BeVard 1 thinks, that instead of estimating the proportion of liquids 

 at nine-tenths, it would be better to take the mean result of experi- 

 ments by M. Chevreul, who performed the desiccation in vacuo and 

 with a very moderate heat. This would give the proportion of water 

 in the human body about 6*667 parts in the 10*000. 



In the Egyptian mummies, which are completely deprived of fluid, 

 the solids are extremely light, not weighing more than seven pounds ; 

 but as we are ignorant of the original weight of the body, we cannot 

 arrive at any approximation. The dead bodies found in the arid sands 

 of Arabia, as well as the dried preparations of the anatomical theatre, 

 afford additional instances of reduction by desiccation. To a less extent, 

 we have the same thing exhibited in the excessive diminution in weight 

 that occurs in disease, and occasionally in those who are apparently in 

 health. Not many years ago, an Anatomie vivante was exhibited in 

 London to the gaze of the curious and scientific, whose weight was not 

 more than eighty pounds. Yet the ordinary functions were carried on, 

 apparently unmodified. In the year 1830, a still more wonderful 

 phenomenon was shown. A man, named Calvin Edson, forty-two years 

 old, five feet two inches high, weighed but sixty pounds. His weight 

 had formerly been one hundred and thirty-five pounds. For sixteen 

 years previously, he had been gradually losing flesh, without any ap- 

 parent disease, having enjoyed perfect health and appetite, and eating, 

 drinking, and sleeping as well as any one. He was properly called the 

 "living skeleton.'' It was stated in the public journals 2 that Dr. Edson, 

 a brother of Calvin, was to all appearance entirely destitute of flesh. 

 He was, in 1847, forty-two years old ; of ordinary height five feet six 

 inches, and yet weighed only forty-nine pounds. He retained all his 

 faculties apparently in full vigour. We have it also, on the authority 

 of Captain Riley, 3 that after protracted sufferings in Africa, he was 

 reduced from two hundred and forty pounds to below ninety [?]. 



The fluids are variously contained; sometimes in vessels as the 

 blood and lymph ; at others, in cavities as the fluids secreted by the 

 pleura, peritoneum, arachnoid coat of the brain, &c.: others are in 

 minute areolse as the fluid of the areolar membrane ; whilst others, 

 again, are intimately combined with the solids. They differ likewise 

 in density, some existing in the state of halitus or vapour ; others 



1 Cours de Physiologic, p. 200, Paris, 1848. 



a Philadelphia Public Ledger, Feb. 2, 1847. 



3 Narrative of the Loss of tli American Brig Commerce, &c., p. 302. New York, 1817. 



