82 ON ANIMAL MATTER. 



from which an acid has been procured by boiling them in 

 water. 



The solid parts of animal bodies, as the muscles, tegu- 

 ments, tendons, cartilages, and even the bones, when boiled 

 in water, give a gelatinous matter, or glue, resembling the 

 vegetable gums, but much more adhesive. We must how- 

 ever, except the hair. The acids, the alkalies, and quick- 

 lime are found to be powerful solvents of animal matter. It 

 is from the solids that the greatest quantity of volatile alkali 

 is obtained ; it arises along with a very fetid empyreumatic oil, 

 from which it is in some measure separated by repeated recti- 

 fications. This salt is partly in a fluid, and partly in a solid 

 state ; and from its having been formerly prepared in the 

 greatest quantity from the horns of the stag, it has been 

 called salt or spirits of hartshorn. Volatile alkali may be 

 procured from many animals, and from almost every part, 

 except the fat. Though we are sometimes able to procure 

 the fixed alkali from animal fat burnt to a cinder, yet it is 

 probable that this salt did not make any part of the living 

 animal, but rather proceeded from the introduction of saline 

 matter, incapable of being assimilated by the functions of 

 the living creature. 



In speaking of the fluid parts of animals, we should first 

 examine the general fluid, from whence the rest are secreted. 

 The blood, which, at first sight, appears to be a homogeneous 

 fluid, is composed of several parts, easily separable from each 

 other, and which the microscope can even perceive in its 

 uncoagulated state. On allowing it to stand at rest, and be 

 exposed to the air, it is separated into what are called the cras- 

 samentum and the serum. The crassamentum consists chiefly 

 of the red globules, joined together by another substance, 

 called the coagulable lymph. The serum is a yellowish 

 fluid, having little sensible taste or smell ; »at the heat of 160° 

 Fahrenheit's thermometer, it is converted into a jelly. This 

 coagulation of the serum is also owing to its containing a 

 matter of the same nature with that of the crassamentum, 

 viz.. the coagulable lymph : whatever, then, coagulates 



