No. 144.] 357 



' the latter at any reasonable expenditure for food. You must 

 bear in mind the fact that I alhide to well ventilated and 

 thoroughly cleansed stables alone, for I am well aware that 

 many animals are placed in stables of such a character, as to im- 

 pair rather than improve their health. 



With regard to theory, Mr. Chairman, we all know that there 

 is a mysticism thrown around the various functions of the animal 

 body. From the time of Paracelsus, who shed so much light on 

 the science of medicine, until the present day, man has regarded 

 the animal economy with more or less of a mysterious feeling. 

 The terms vitality and vital functions have been freely used to 

 explain all we did not understand — to cloak our want of know- 

 ledge. But, sir, at the present day, through the instrumentality 

 ot some uf the most powerful minds of the age, among whom 

 Liebig stands in the foremost ranks, we are beginning to solve 

 these mysteries and to comprehend their actions. Thus, to 

 begin at tirst principles, we know that the animal lx)dy is derived 

 from the food consumed, that no animal possesses the power of 

 sustaining itself, or of increasing its mass, by combining the in- 

 organic elements of earth and air. No, this is the office of plants, 

 which furnish three classes of food to the animal system. The 

 starch, gum, sugar, &c., or compounds containing only carbon or 

 charcoal, oxygen and hydrogen, or water. The gluten, albumen, 

 zeine, &c , containing, in addition to the above, nitrogen as a con- 

 stituent. The -ash, or mineral matter of the plant, which go to 

 form bune, and the inorganic basis of flesh and blood. Close in- 

 vestigation and oft repeated experiment have proved that the first 

 class of bodies are the elements of respiration, or in other words, 

 that they go to iorm fatty substances which cover all the tissues 

 of the body, and that as oxygen is taken into the lungs, 

 passes into the blood, and thence courses through the body, it 

 comes in contact with the fat, combining with its carbon to form 

 carbonic acid, and with its hydrogen to form water, at the same 

 time giving offbeat; in this impure state the blood returns to the 

 lungs, and these bodies are thrown off. 



The second class of bodies, those containing nitrogen, go to 

 orm organized tissue, and do not form fiat, but produce force upon 



