TREATMENT. 119 



organized part or tissue, but ever present in every fluid of 

 the body) leaves its base (sodium) in the common salt sup- 

 plied to the animal, and unites with potash forming the 

 chloride of potassium ; the soda set free uniting with car- 

 bonic acid, and forming the carbonate of soda.* 



Time will not sufiSce to follow these changes as far as 

 chemical and physiological research has carried them ; it may 

 suffice to add that the chlorine derived from salt, and uniting 

 with the salts of potash, is found as a principal inorganic 

 constituent of the muscles; that the soda as an oxide is found 

 in the secretions of the liver ; as a carbonate in the blood of 

 the herbivora (although the ashes of their food yields hardly 

 a trace of it), twice or thrice in excess of the carbonate of 

 potash ;t while all excess of salt furnished is carried off 

 rapidly in the secretion of the kidneys. It is important to 

 note that the carbonate of soda (found also in the saliva) 

 imparts to it as well as the blood their alkaline properties ; 

 that the tendency of this carbonate (as also that of potash) 

 is to maintain the fluidity of the fibrine and albumen of 

 the blood, that it assists in preserving the form and consist- 

 ence of the blood corpuscles ; and also performs an analogous 

 function with reference to the other semi-solids of the body.j: 



When we consider that all vital phenomena, or manifesta- 

 tions' of those actions which take i)lace in the body in a con- 

 dition of health ; though they may be said to be primarily 

 dependent upon the organic nitrogenized elements of the 

 tissues or fluids for the power of appropriating materials for 

 their nourishment, or of self-regeneration to repair waste; 

 are still, if secondarily, yet as essentially dependent upon the 

 inorganic constituents of such tissues and fluids in order to 

 keep up their play, and so maintain health and life ; we find 

 but little difficulty in concluding, that when any of the proxi- 

 mate principles, or elementary constituents, organic or inor- 



* Soda unites also with Oleic and Margaric Acids (the acids found in fat), forming the Oleate and 

 Margarate of Soda, which are found in minute quantities in the blood, bile and urine— and with 

 Pneumic Acid (the acid found in the lungs) forming Pneumate of Soda, which is not discharged 

 from the body. 



t In the milk of cows four and a half times (according to Berzelius), and six times (Pfaff and 

 Schwartz) more than in human milk. 



t Flint's Physiology, pp. 36 and 44 ; supporting Liebig's view, ut sup. p. 426. 



