1847.] Facts in Physiological Chemistry. 55 



The composition of the body is such that creatine may be re- 

 garded as a compound of the body, glycocoll — so accurately studied 

 by Mr. Hoisford — and ammonia.* 



A third ingredient which is never wanting in fresh meat is a 

 positive organic base of constitution analogous to that of chinin, 

 or perhaps more nearly to that of codein, which is found in opium. 

 There are also in meat two nitrogenous acids; — altogether, a va- 

 riety of bodies whose existence in the living body could have been 

 scarcely suspected. I have described these bodies and their che- 

 mical relations in a paper which is now in press, and will detail 

 only a few results that may be practically applied. 



The presence of two fiuids throughout the body of opposite 

 chemical nature, one acid, (the flesh-fluid,) the other alkaline, (the 

 blood and lymph,) separated from each other by membranes per- 

 meable to both, must satisfy any one that in this arrangement 

 there is a source of electricity or of an electric current. I will 

 not herewith say, that, by consequence, electrical effects must be 

 recognizable in the body, for we know that these as such (elec- 

 trical) disappear when through any result of motion, or chemical 

 action (decomposition or composition) is produced, and I regard 

 the latter as dependent upon an electrical stream. 



Moreover, the occurrence in flesh of creatine, — of a substance 

 whose properties are allied to those of the active ingredient of 

 coffee (caffeine,) as also of another which has all the properties 

 of an organic base, makes the action of medicines appear no longer 

 so dark and mysterious. The most efficient of all medicines from 

 the vegetable kingdom are organic bases. 



If you leach finely chopped meat with cold water, you procure 

 a red fluid and a white residue. The latter is the actual muscular 

 fibre, and the solution contains, beside the above named bodies, a 

 considerable quantity of albumen that may be separated as coagu- 

 lum by heating the fluid to boiling. 



I have found that the residue (the muscular fibre) either for it- 



• Note from Prof. Horsford. — One atom of creatine equals two atoms of 

 glycocoll and one atom of ammonia. 



It contains also the elements of urea, elycocoll and wood-spirit. 

 CbH„N,0, = C,H^N„0„4^C JI^Nn^^_|.C,H ,0. 



Liehisr, by boiling creatine a length of time wiili baryla, separated the urea 

 (doubtless as carbonic acid and ammonia; — C,H^N,0,^-j-2H0 = .'> M ■.^_j_2NH,^) 

 and there remained the organic base, mentioned in the paragraph which fol- 

 lows above. Its constitution, as siven in a letter to Gay Lussac. and pub- 

 lished in the Comptes Rendus for Feb. 6, is C^H^NO^ — and contains the ele- 

 ments of the laclamide of Pelouze, a production of the action of dry ammo- 

 nia gas upon lactic acid, — C^H^O^-LNH^. It contains also the elements of 

 glycocoll and wood-spirit, as above intimated. 



C,H,N0, = C,H^N03-|-C,H,0. 



