370 THE IMPROVED ART OF FARRIERY. 



no volatile alkali. There is also much variety in the 

 quantity and state of the combination of the saline and 

 other matters in different secreted fluids. 



Animal oils and fats, like the gross oil of vegetables, 

 are not of themselves soluble, either in water or vi- 

 nous spirit, but they may be united with water by the 

 intervention of gum or mucilage. Most of them may 

 be changed into soap by fixed alkaline salts, and may 

 thus be rendered miscible with spirit as well as water. 



The oderous matter of some oderiferous animal 

 substances, as musk, civet, castor, is, as well as essen- 

 tial oil, soluble in spirit of wine, and volatile in the 

 heat of boiling water. 



It is said that an actual essential oil has been ob- 

 tained from castor in a very small quantity, but of an 

 exceedingly strong diffusive smell. The blistering 

 matter of cantharides, and those parts of sundry 

 animal substances in which their pecuhar taste resides, 

 are dissolved by rectified spirit, and seem to have 

 some analogy with any gummy resins. 



The gelatinous principle of animals, like the gum 

 of vegetables, dissolves in water, but not in spirit or 

 in oils ; like gums also, it renders oils and fats mis- 

 cible with water into a milky colour. Some insects, 

 particularly the ant, are found to contain an acid juice, 

 which approaches nearly to the nature of vegetable 

 acid. There are, however, sundry animal juices which 

 differ greatly, even in these general kinds of properties, 

 from the corresponding ones of vegetables. Thus, 

 animal serum, which appears analagous to vegetable 

 gummy juices, has this remarkable difference, that 

 though it mingles uniformly with cold or warm water, 

 yet, on considerably heating the mixture, the animal 

 matters separate from the watery fluid, and concretes 

 into a solid mass. 



