ON THE SOURCE OF SULPHUR. 



CHAPTER VI. 



On the Source of Sulphur. 



Physiology teaches us that all the tissues of the body, such as 

 muscular fibre, cellular tissue, the organic substance of bones, 

 hair, skin, &c, are formed from the blood — the fluid which cir- 

 culates through every part of the organism. 



The blood, from which all parts of the animal frame are pro- 

 duced, is itself furnished to animals by plants. For although 

 the carnivora subsist wholly on the flesh and blood of the herbi- 

 vora, they actually receive from the latter the component parts 

 of the plants upon which they were nourished. 



Chemists have ascertained that sulphur is contained in the 

 two principal ingredients of blood, named by them fibrin and 



ALBUMEN. 



When fresh blood is agitated with a rod or stick, fibrin is 

 separated in the form of white elastic fibres. A similar separa- 

 tion of this ingredient takes place when blood is allowed to stand 

 for a certain time. The whole becomes coagulated into a sort of 

 jelly, which gradually contracts, and separates itself into a yellow- 

 ish-colored liquid, containing the serum or water of the blood, and 

 into a net- work of very fine threads of fibrin. The latter inclose 

 within them the coloring matter of the blood, just as a sponge 

 would do in similar circumstances. 



The albumen is contained in the serum, and communicates to 

 that fluid the property of coagulating by heat, in a manner 

 similar to the white of an egg, which contains albumen as its 

 principal ingredient. 



Fibrin, when removed from the circulation, is found to be per- 

 fectly insoluble in cold water. Albumen on the other hand, in 

 its natural condition, as it exists in serum or in the white of egg, 

 is soluble in water, and miscible with it in all proportions. 



