SYLLABUS OF A COURSE OF LECTURES 



ON 



PHYSIOLOGY. 



PART I. 

 THE CHEMICAL PROCESSES. 



ANIMAL life, as observed in man and the higher animals, 

 is an aggregate of chemical processes for which food and 

 oxygen afford materials, the products being heat, muscular 

 action, carbonic anhydride, water and ammonia. Food 

 essentially consists of albuminous bodies, carbonic hydrates 

 and fat, all of which undergo chemical disintegration in 

 the animal body, in addition to water and certain inorganic 

 salts. The fats and carbonic hydrates are the sources 

 from which the organism derives the material for muscular 

 action and the production of heat. Their carbon and 

 hydrogen leave the body as CO 2 and H 2 O. Of the proteid 

 material used by the body, a part is represented in the 

 discharges by bodies of known chemical constitution con- 

 taining nitrogen (nitrogenous "metabolites"): theremainder 

 eventually leaves the organism as CO 2 and H 2 O, but may, 

 in the meantime, take part in the production of fat, or of 

 other non-nitrogenous immediate principles. 



Vegetable life is also a chemical process. Green plants 

 build up their tissues out of carbonic anhydride, ammonia 

 and certain inorganic salts. Colourless plants do not dis- 

 sociate carbonic anhydride, but derive their carbon entirely 

 from the soil on which they grow. The most important 



B 



