The Chemical Statics of Organised Beings. 59 



itself. This azotated matter, the real origin of all the parts of 

 the plant, is never destroyed; it is always to be found, however 

 abundant may be the non-azotated matter which has been inter- 

 posed between its particles. 



This azote, fixed by plants, serves, therefore, to produce a 

 concrete fibrinous substance, which constitutes the rudiment of 

 all the organs of the vegetable. 



It also serves to produce the liquid albumen which the 

 coagulable juices of all plants contain; and the caseum, so 

 often confounded with albumen, but so easy to recognise in 

 many plants. £ 



Fibrin, albumen, and caseum exist, then, in plants. These 

 three products, identical in their composition, as M. Vogel has 

 long since proved, offer a singular analogy with the ligneous 

 matters, the amidon, and the dextrine. 



Indeed, fibrin is, like ligneous matter, insoluble; albumen, like 

 starch, coagulates by heat ; caseum, like dextrine, is soluble. 



These azotated matters, moreover, are neutral, as well as the 

 three parallel non-azotated matters ; and we shall see that by 

 their abundance in the animal kingdom they act the same part 

 that these latter exhibited to us in the vegetable kingdom. 



Besides, in like manner as it suffices for the formation of non- 

 azotated neutral matters, to unite carbon with water or with its 

 elements, so, also, for the formation of these azotated neutral 

 matters, it suffices to unite carbon and ammonium with the 

 elements of water; forty-eight molecules of carbon, six of am- 

 monium, and seventeen of water, constitute, or may constitute, 

 fibrin, albumen, and caseum. 



Thus, in both cases, reduced bodies, carbon or ammonium, 

 and water, suffice for the formation of the matters which we are 

 considering, and their production enters quite naturally into the 

 circle of reactions, which vegetable nature seems especially 

 adapted to produce. 



The function of azote in plants is therefore worthy of the 

 most serious attention, since it is this which serves to form the 

 fibrin which is found as the rudiment in all the organs ; since it 

 is this which serves for the production of the albumen and 

 caseum, so largely diffused in so many plants, and which animals 

 assimilate or modify according to the exigencies of their own 

 nature. 



It is in plants, then, that the true laboratory of organic chemistry 

 resides. Thus, carbon, hydrogen, ammonium, and water are 

 the principles which plants elaborate : ligneous matter, starch, 

 gums, and sugars on the one part, fibrin, albumen, caseum, and 

 gluten on the other, are, then, the fundamental products of the 

 two kingdoms; products formed in plants, and in plants alone, 

 and transferred by digestion into animals. 



