TRANSACTIONS OF THE SECTIONS. 65 
- For these experiments, sealed glass tubes, about 4 an inch in diameter and 5 to 7 
inches long, were used. 
When large quantities of nitric acid are supposed to be present, (a) must be larger, 
and consequently the extreme delicacy of the process is impaired ; yet for ‘078 grm. 
it gave accurate results to tenths of millegrams. 
In the second process. 
Let a=weight of normal acid (SO,) used to absorb the ammonia given off in the 
distillate from the products of the action of the nitric and upon the pro- 
tochloride of tin ; 
N=the number of volumes used in a single determination ; 
N'=the number of volumes of an alkaline solution (of such strength as will 
allow accurate reading) which neutralize N volumes of the acid solution; 
n=the number of volumes of the alkaline solution necessary to complete the 
neutralizing action after the absorption of the ammonia in question ; 
NO, 
50, =NO, present. 
then (Nim) Sx ax 
This gave in four consecutive analyses,— 
Nitric acid used .........0.5.- °00539 
Nitric acid found ...........+.. °0045 
” ” sees te eeas eter “0049 
” ” Ceee ee eeererae *0048 
” (A Pistogennenc MoE 
The second process is not quite so exact as the first, because of the want of delicacy 
in the process for the determination of ammonia; yet it is true to two-tenths of a 
millegram of the nitrogen present. 
In order to use the first process, no easily deoxidizable substance should be present. 
The author had not yet learned the full extent of the influence of such substances, but 
he hoped to be able to find means of eliminating all possible errors from this source. 
On Animal Ammonia, its Formation, Evolution, and Office. 
By the Rev. J. B. Reape, M.A. FR. 
Alluding to the essay on ‘The Cause of the Coagulation of the Blood,’ by Dr. 
Richardson, to which the Astley Cooper Prize had been adjudged, the author pointed 
out how nearly Raspail had approached to the same conclusions as the essayist. In 
his treatise on Organic Chemistry, he says, “ the constant alkalescence of the blood, 
newly drawn from the vessels, and the coagulation produced in it by a diluted acid, 
do not leave room for a doubt that the menstruum of the albumen is an alkali, 
This alkali is soda, but more especially ammonia, of which no notice has been taken by 
the various authors, but the presence of whose salts in the blood may be distinctly 
recognized by the microscope.” ‘If this principle,” he adds, “be admitted, the 
spontaneous coagulation of the blood presents no inexplicable difficulty.” Raspail’s 
additional remarks only led him further from the truth he so nearly approached, and 
inconsistently he attributed coagulation to the evaporation of watery vapour only. 
Many years since the author demonstrated before the Microscopical Society of 
London, the presence of ammonia in the breath and tissues of animals, but his con- 
clusions were received with much hesitation. Now that its office as a solvent of the 
fibrine of the blood is generally admitted, he would proceed to inquire into its source. 
An experiment, by which the presence of ammonia in the perspiration of man and 
animals is shown, may be readily performed, but is not included in those given by 
Dr. Richardson. A glass vessel is moistened upon its inner surface with hydrochloric 
acid, and its aperture held against the skin after exercise has been taken. The fluid 
will yield evidence of hydrochlorate of ammonia, when submitted to microscopic 
examination. 
Dr. Richardson has shown that the transmission of the vapour of blood through 
another portion of that fluid arrests coagulation. The same effect occurs when the 
breath is passed into blood. 
Repeated experiments have shown that the ammonia eliminated in the breath 
varies greatly in different individuals at the same time, and in the same person at 
1858, 5 
