DESTINATION OF ALBUMEN. 905 



this is hypothetical. The effect seems rather to be due to its lower- 

 ing, in some manner, all those organic processes which lead to the 

 formation of carbonic acid by the disintegration of blood and tissue 

 (Moleschott, Carpenter) ; in this way, alcohol may retard waste, and 

 conserve power. It may also favor the formation of new tissue, and 

 save the combustion of fatty matter. (Hammond.) 



Albuminoid bodies, the most complex substances in the animal econo- 

 my, undergo, as might be supposed, the most complicated intermediate 

 changes, before they are ultimately resolved into their simplest excre- 

 tory products. Albumen itself, constituting the pabulum of the tis- 

 sues, does not undergo any upward chemical metamorphosis; all its 

 changes are necessarily retrograde. Slight modifications, perhaps of 

 hydration, convert it into albuminose, pepsin, salivin, and pancreatin. 

 Equally slight oxygenation probably changes it into globulin, fibrin,, 

 syntonin, and casein ; this, together with a loss or total deprivation of 

 sulphur, is concerned in the production from it of keratin, chondrin, 

 and gelatin; the disappearance of the sulphur must be an essential 

 step in the nutrition of the gelatin-yielding tissues. The substitution 

 of iron, perhaps, for hydrogen or carbon, with a loss of oxygen, is pos- 

 sibly the mode of derivation of the cruorin, or blood pigment, from 

 albuminoid matter; whilst the other pigments, pulmonary, cutaneous, 

 biliary, and urinary, especially abound in carbon, and may be formed 

 by processes of dehydration. The nitrogenous acid of the nervous 

 substance, cerebric acid, is probably derived, directly or indirectly, 

 from some breaking up of albumen, but this peculiar acid, which con- 

 tains phosphorus, exists in Indian corn and other food; the glycocoll 

 and taurin of the glycocholic and taurocholic acids of the bile, also, 

 perhaps, proceed from the dissolution of albuminoid substances; and it 

 is more than probable that glycogen, or animal starch, and taurin, are 

 formed in the liver, likewise by the splitting up of albumen. 



In this case, the glycogen contains the carbon, with hydrogen and 

 oxygen in the proportions of water, whilst the choleic acid, with the 

 glycocoll and taurin, contain, besides those elements, the nitrogen and 

 sulphur. The formation of gelatinoid substances from albumen, which 

 must happen in nutrition, liberates sulphur, which may either be oxi- 

 dated, or find its escape in the taurin of the bile. Albumen may even 

 be a source of common fat; for the biliary acids might easily give rise 

 to oleic and other fatty acids. During the changes due to the develop- 

 ment of the eggs of the limnaeus or water snail, the percentage of albu- 

 men in the ova, after drying, is said to be diminished from 95.2 to 91.8, 

 whilst that of the fatty matter is increased from .6 to 2.2; the percentage 

 of salts is increased from 4 to 6. (Burdach.) It is further alleged that 

 albumen is resolvable into glycogen and urea, a change which is supposed 

 to be the origin of the sugar formed in the system in diabetes, at least 

 when no starch or sugar is taken in the foo(^. (Haughton.) In this case, 

 the albuminoid matter is supposed only to have been assimilated into the 

 blood, not to have entered into the formation of tissue. 



If albumen be broken up in the liver, then its non-nitrogenous pro- 

 ducts are resolved into carbonic acid and water ; the sulphur appears 

 in the alkaline sulphates, except when it passes off as dyslysin in the 



