BONES. 285 



remains, and which Berzelius assures us consists of the small 

 blood-vessels which traversed the bone in order to supply it with 

 nourishment. 



The fact that muriatic acid deprives bones of their earthy 

 matter, leaving only cartilage, was not unknown to chemists at 

 an early period. It is mentioned by Boerhaave as well-known 

 in his time.* It had also been long observed that when bones 

 are heated in an open fire they burn with flame, and leave a 

 white, brittle, friable substance, having the shape of the original 

 bone, but much lighter, and distinguished by the name of earth 

 of bones. In some of the earlier systems of chemistry, the earth 

 of bones is considered as a substance sui generis, and ranked 

 among the earths. About the year 1768, Assessor Gahn of 

 Fahlun discovered that this supposed earth consisted chiefly of 

 phosphate of lime. Scheele, in his experiments on fluor spar, 

 published in 1771, mentions, when giving an account of the ac- 

 tion of phosphoric acid on fluor spar, that it had been lately dis- 

 covered that the earth of bones was phosphate of lime.f In con- 

 sequence of this notice, it was for some time believed that Scheele 

 was the discoverer of the constitution of bone-earth ; and Asses- 

 sor Gahn was so indifferent about his reputation as a discoverer, 

 that he never tried to correct a mistake, which had been so long 

 prevalent. 



The first person that attempted an analysis of bone was Me- 

 rat-Guillot, an apothecary at Auxerre, who, about the year 

 1 798, published a comparative analysis of the bones of man, and 

 of a variety of other animals ;J but his results were far from 

 near approximations to the truth. About the year 1801, Four- 

 croy and Vauquelin announced the discovery of phosphate of 

 magnesia in bones, and published an analysis of the bones of an 

 ox. In 1808, Berzelius published the second volume of his 

 Animal Chemistry, in which he gave an analysis both of hu- 

 man bone and that of the ox.|| Morichini had announced a year 

 or two- before that fossil bones contained fluoric acid in combina- 

 tion with lime, and this discovery was confirmed by the experi- 

 ments of Gay-Lussac.1T Berzelius, in his elaborate analysis of 



* Boerhaave 's Chemistry, i. 518 ; English translation. 



f Scheele's Essays, p. 13; English translation. 



\ Ann. de China, xxxiv. 68. Ibid, xlvii. 244. 



|| Djurkemie, ii. 120. f Phil. Mag. xxiii. 264, or Ann. de Chim. lv. 258. 



