REMARKS. 37 



acid in the gastric fluid. In all other cases it is found as chloride 

 of sodium (common salt), or of potassium. 



12. Fluorine is combined with calcium, in small amount, in bones. 



13. Silicum exists, oxidized (as silica), in small quantity in the 

 hair, in wool and feathers, and in the urine. It abounds in plants. 



14. Iron constitutes about ^^^ part, by weight, of the blood ; it 

 also exists in hair, muscle, milk, pigment-cells, and (a mere trace) 

 in the gastric fluid. Iron always exists, also, in the feces, since 

 solid and fluid articles of food contain more of it than is required 

 in the organism. 



15. The oxide of manganese is found in bone (Kane\ and, some 

 say, in the coloring matter of the hair. It is separated from the 

 organism in the bile. 



Remarks. 1. Our food (and drink) must contain at least the fif- 

 teen elements just specified, in order to secure and maintain the 

 development of the body. No single article of food, except milk 

 and eggs, perhaps, contains them all, and hence the necessity for 

 variety of aliment. 



2. The absurdity of the idea of some, that minerals should never 

 be used as remedies, is at once apparent. Ten of the fifteen simple 

 elements are minerals, and the rest, also, all enter into the compo- 

 sition of various mineral substances. We must, therefore, take 

 minerals in all our food, and this whether the latter be animal or 

 vegetable ; for all vegetable as well as animal tissues contain mine- 

 ral substances. 



3. Nor is the notion that no minerals except such as form apart of 

 the lody should be used as medicines, any more tenable, for the 

 same objection would hold against all vegetable remedies, since not 

 one of them (opium, lobelia, &c.) naturally enters into the compo- 

 sition of the body ; and thus the sole remedies remaining would be 

 the fifteen elements above named ; for if it be said that the active 

 principles of vegetables, as morphia, quinia, &c., contain only the 

 elements above mentioned (e. g. the four first mentioned), yet it is 

 true that some of these compounds, as strychnia, hydrocyanic acid, 

 &c., are more dangerous and destructive to animal life than any 

 mineral substance known. 



