TO PHYSIOLOGY AND PATHOLOGY. 23 



CASEIN AND SUGAR. 



In the first period of its putrefaction the casein of milk converts the sugar of 

 milk and the grape sugar into lactic acid ; at a higher temperature the sugar of 

 grapes passes into alcohol and carbonic acid ; and if the formation of free acids be 

 hindered by the addition of an alkaline base, the casein in the last stage of its 

 metamorphosis, occasions a decomposition of the saccharine atoms into carbonic 

 acid, butryic acid and hydrogen. 



ANIMAL MEMBRANE AND SUGAR. 



Animal membrane behaves in the same manner. At first it effects a change of 

 the starch into sugar, then of the sugar into lactic acid, and subsequently of the 

 sugar into carbonic acid and alcohol. 



THE INFLUENCE OF A HIGHER TEMPERATURE UPON 

 FERMENTATION. 



The same sugar of beet root, which ferments at an ordinary temperature, and is 

 decomposed into alcohol and carbonic acid, yields, on raising the temperature of 

 the juice without the addition of any foreign substance, mannite, lactic acid, gum, 

 carbonic acid and hydrogen. 



FOUSEL OIL FROM SUGAR. 



The same sugar yields, on changing again the conditions of its fermentation, 

 butyric acid ; it is decomposed, in the fermenting molasses of beet-root sugar into 

 water, carbonic acid and hydrated oxide of amyle (fousel oil.) 



SEPARATION OF THE SUGAR, SIMILAR TO THAT OF ACETIC ACID 

 OCCASIONED BY THE ACTION OF HEAT. 



Milk sugar and sugar of grapes contain the same elements as lactic acid, and 

 combined in the same relative proportions. 



The products which appear on the fermentation of sugar of grapes contain 

 precisely the same elements as an atom of sugar. Its decomposition is a simple 

 separation, or transposition of its atoms, as is seen in acetic acid on the application 

 of a higher degree of temperature. The carbonic acid contains two-thirds of the 

 oxygen : the alcohol all the hydrogen of the atom of sugar. 



THE PROPERTY OF CAUSING FERMENTATION IS COMMON TO ALL 

 COMPOUND ORGANIC ATOMS. 



If we take into consideration that the capacity of producing putrefaction or 

 fermentation is common to bodies of the most various forms of composition ; that 

 blood, meat, cheese, membranes, cells, saliva, diastase, milk of almonds, &c., gain 

 this property as soon as, by the chemical action of oxygen, a disturbance of the 

 state of equilibrium has been excited in the attraction of their elements, it would 

 seem that all doubt of the true cause, by which these phenomena are brought 

 about, must vanish. 



