354 Or Organic Substances artificially formed from Albumen, June 1 6, 



formed from albumen by the decomposition of the water of its composition 

 by voltaic means. 



Lymph I consider to be imperfectly formed fibrin more highly deve- 

 loped than the preceding or granular form. It is possible for this arti- 

 ficially formed lymph, under favourable circumstances, to assume a more 

 organized appearance. 



I have no doubt that the fibrinous outgrowths on the intestine would have 

 become larger and more developed if the experiment had been carried on 

 for a sufficient length of time. In fact almost all the fibrin formed round 

 a platinum wire inserted into albumen is at first covered by outgrowths of 

 a soft structure. These outgrowths, at the earliest period of their forma- 

 tion, do not under the microscope present any appearance of fibrils. After 

 the lapse of some time they appear to undergo condensation, and then to 

 organize to such an extent that it would be difficult at first sight to deter- 

 mine whether the substance might not be a portion of fibrous tissue. 



The alkalies, with the exception of ammonia, prevent entirely the forma- 

 tion of fibrin. Ammonia, although it does not retard its formation, dis- 

 solves it after the lapse of a short time. The acids and absence of alkaline 

 salts favour its formation. The opposite, however, is the case with the 

 hydrogen products, as an alkaline state favours their production. 



The action of hydrogen on albumen, as far as my investigations have as 

 yet proceeded, forms substances analogous to chondrin and mucin. I 

 believe that the organic substances, chondrin and mucin, products formed 

 in a living organism, are very closely allied to one another, if not varieties of 

 the same substance, diifering only in their mode of aggregation and stages 

 of development, and the amount of water in their composition. 



Of the exact mode in which hydrogen acts on albumen we are at present 

 ignorant. I have noticed that in some experiments sometimes one, some- 

 times the other product was obtained, even when the same influences were 

 apparently acting on experiments conducted at the same time. 



Considering the important physiological part that fibrin, chondrin, and 

 mucin play in the living body, the production artificially of substances 

 analogous in their behaviour with reagents to those products formed in a 

 living organism will, I trust, be taken as a sufficient excuse for submitting 

 to the Royal Society a paper so obviously deficient in many parts, but 

 which, nevertheless, it would require a vast amount of both time and labour 

 to carry one step further. 



