456 On the Nutrition of Muscular and Pulmonary Tissues. 



nary tissue there is every reason to believe that the potash is 

 eliminated in a very great measure as a crystalloid carbonate, due 

 to the action of the carbonic acid emitted from the blood during its 

 circulation through the lungs. The effete material in muscles 

 contains phosphoric acid and potash in the proportion of 43 to 57, 

 and in lungs in the proportion of IJ 32 to 88*68. 



9th. That wheaten flour, potato, and rice contain certain 

 proportions of colloid phosphoric acid and colloid potash, which 

 exist in the three kinds of vegetables very nearly in the ratio of 

 one part of total phosphoric acid to 0*55 part of colloid phos- 

 phoric acid, and one part of total potash to 0'24 part of colloid 

 potash — thus establishing the remarkable fact that, at all events 

 in the three above kinds of vegetable food, although the propor- 

 tion of phosphoric acid and potash respectively differ, still the 

 proportion of total to colloid phosphoric acid and potash in each 

 of them remains very nearly the same. 



10th. That in phthisis a given weight of muscular tissue con- 

 tains less nutritive material than it does in health, less mature 

 or insoluble tissue, rather more water, and a much higher pro- 

 portion of chlorine and soda. 



11th. That, in phthisis, the phosphoric acid and potash effete 

 in muscular tissue are present exactly in the right proportion for 

 the formation of a pyrophosphate, as occurred in healthy flesh. 

 This shows that the process of waste of muscles in phthisis takes 

 place precisely as it did while in the state of health, and con- 

 firms the result relative to the composition of the effete ma- 

 terial of muscular tissue, eight analyses of flesh yielding phos- 

 phoric acid and potash effete in the proportion of a pyrophosphate. 



12th. That the emaciation in phthisis appears due mainly to 

 the blood not being in the proper condition to supply nutritive 

 material to muscular tissue. The damp or wet state peculiar to 

 muscles after death from phthisis appears to show that the colloid 

 state of flesh in that disease is somewhat deficient. 



13th. That the tubercular or adenoid formation in pulmonary 

 tissue actually undergoes nutrition, and is constqnenily a groivth, 

 the pho^^phoric acid and potash being apparently eliminated, as 

 in the case of flesh, under the form of a crystalloid phosphate. 

 The nutrition of the abnormal growth accounts for the absence 

 of any smell of decomposition, which is nearly invariably observed 

 at the post-mortem examination when performed shortly after 

 death from consumption. 



14th. The process of softening of the tubercular substance 

 appears due to a loss of colloid power ; it can hardly be owing 

 to an increase in the proportion of water, as there is but very 

 little more water in softening tubercular lungs than in healthy 

 lungs — the proportion being, for 200 grammes of tissue, 158 in 



