ERRORS OF LIEBIG. 903 



that oxygen is conveyed by the blood globules 

 to all parts of the body, he maintains that " at- 

 mospheric oxygen is the proper, active, external 

 cause of the waste of matter in the animal body, 

 that it acts like a force which tends to destroy 

 the manifestation of the vital force at every mo- 

 ment," that " by the absorption of oxygen into 

 the substance of living tissues, these lose their con-, 

 dition of life, and are separated as lifeless, unor- 

 ganized compounds," that " the cause of waste 

 of matter is the chemical action of oxygen," 

 that " the globules of arterial blood, in their pas- 

 sage through the capillaries, yield oxygen to cer- 

 tain constituents of the body,* that " a small 

 portion of this oxygen serves to produce the 

 change of matter, determines the separation of 

 living parts, and their conversion into lifeless com- 

 pounds; while the greater part is employed in 

 converting into oxidized products the newly 

 formed substances which no longer form part of 



* He maintains that as all the tissues of the body contain for 

 the same amount of carbon, more oxygen than the constituents 

 of blood during their formation, oxygen, either from the atmos- 

 phere, or from the aliment, is added to the elements ofproteine, 

 which he regards as the basis of albumen, and the starting point 

 of all the tissues, that the gelatinous tissues contain an excess 

 of nitrogen and hydrogen, in the proportions to form ammonia, 

 that vegetable albumen, fibrin, and caseine, are the only parts of 

 plants capable of being converted into actual nourishment ; and 

 that they are identical in composition with the nitrogenized con- 

 stituents of the animal tissues not only in containing the same 

 proportions of carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, and oxygen, but of 

 sulphur, phosphorus, and phosphate of lime. 



3 N 



