MUSCLES. 275 



by him in 1832.* But chemical analyses were made at that 

 early period with so little attention to exactness, that it would 

 not be safe to trust to his results. 



Towards the end of the eighteenth century, Thouvenel re- 

 peated some of the experiments of Geoffrey with more precision ; 

 and found that when flesh was boiled in water, not only gelatin 

 was dissolved, but likewise a particular extractive matter which 

 fixed his attention. About the year 1802, when Fourcroy pub- 

 lished his General System of Chemical Knowledge, he gave an 

 account of a set of experiments which he had made to analyze 

 the muscles of animals.! ThenardJ soon after examined the mat- 

 ter dissolved from the muscle by alcohol, and gave it the name of 

 osmazome. Mr Hatchett, in his Experiments on Zoophytes, publish- 

 ed in the Philosophical Transactions for 1800, (p. 327),has given 

 an account of numerous experiments on the component parts of 

 membranes, and, among other things which he examined, was the 

 muscular fibre of beef. He freed it as much as possible from 

 all foreign matter, and then examined it by means of different 

 reagents. Berzelius, in his Animal Chemistry, the second vo- 

 lume of which, containing his account of muscles, was printed in 

 1808, gives an account of an analysis which he had made of 

 muscle. Besides the substances previously detected by Four- 

 croy and Hatchett, he found also lactate of soda. He says in 

 his system that he discovered at the same time lactates of potash 

 and lime ;|| but I do not find any mention of these salts in his 

 Animal Chemistry. In 1821, Braconnot published an analysis of 

 the heart of an ox, in order to compare it with the excrements 

 of a nightingale which had been fed on that heart. 1 These, so 

 far as I know, are the only chemists who have examined the che- 

 mical characters and constitution of muscles. 



Mr Hatchett took a piece of lean beef, cut it into thin small 

 pieces, and macerated it for fifteen days in cold water, sub- 

 jecting it each day to pressure, and changing the water. The 

 shreds of muscles, which amounted to about three pounds, were 

 then boiled with about six quarts of water during five hours, and 



* Memoires de 1* Academic des Sciences, 1732, p. 17. 

 f Fourcroy's System, ix. 334. \ Traite de Chimie, iv. 613. 



Djurkemien, ii. 170. || TraitS de Chimie, vii. 493. 



] Ann. de Chim. et de Phys. xvii. 388. 



