CHAP, vii.] ULTIMATE PHENOMENA OF ANIMAL NUTRITION. 141 



in the liver without determinate characteristics ; then we see an 

 amidonised product forming in its cavity, as starch forms in the 

 chlorophyllian cell, and without doubt by an analogous chemical 

 synthesis. 



The larva of the fly, the asticot, may be considered as a bag of 

 glycogenical matter ; now this larva is developed and nourished 

 especially by animal food in a state of putrefaction, tending to 

 decomposition, to mineralization. Accurate experiments seem 

 to have shown that this larva develops itself, not at the expense 

 of animal food in general, but of a small part of the extractive 

 substance ; nevertheless it fabricates glycogenical matter with 

 this azotized substance. 



The glycogenical function is diffuse in the lower animals, and 

 specialised in man and the higher mammifers. M. Cl. Bernard, 

 concludes from this that the case must be the same in the 

 formation of albuminoidal substances, that consequently there 

 must be animal cells, where the synthesis of protei'c matters is 

 specially accomplished at the expense of the dissevered elements 

 of the nutriments. 1 



It is very certain that the various species of histological 

 elements fabricate varied quaternary substances, since each of 

 them has its special chemical composition, and their assimilation 

 is carried on at the expense of the same sanguineous plasma. 

 But where are the special agents of the albuminoidal fabrication 

 in the complex animal organism 1 No one yet knows. Besides, 

 it is incontestable that the animal cannot live without azotized 

 aliments, already containing, in a prepared state, substances 

 analogous to those which constitute the web of its tissues. No 

 animal can aliment itself simply with distilled water and air, 

 in which however it finds wherewith to compose, elementarily, 

 ternary and quaternary substances. 



The precise amount of our knowledge of this very interesting 



1 Cl. Bernard, Des Ph&nomenes de la Vie Communes aux Animaux ct O.MM 

 Vigttaux (Revue Scientifique, 1874). 



