1871.] 



and the Nutiition of Muscular Tissue. 



467 



lar tissue for the formation of its insoluble portion, or framework, it supplies 

 flesh with a large proportion of potash, the only object of which is the 

 ultimate removal of the phosphoric anlrydride it contains. 



Class No. I. of the constituents of muscular tissue is to be considered as 

 the tissue in the complete stage of assimilation. 



Class No. II. constitutes the material from the blood on its way to form 

 the Class No. I. 



Class No. III. constitutes the material from Class No. I. in the effete 

 state, and on its way out of flesh. 



Ninth. That flesh contains in store a supply of nourishment equal to 

 about one-third more than its requirement for immediate use, this being 

 apparently a provision of nature to allow of muscular exercise during pro- 

 longed fasting. 



Tenth. That the numbers representing the excess of phosphoric an- 

 hydride and potash in blood over the proportion of these substances in an 

 equal volume of serum in the regular normal nutrition of herbivorous 

 animals appear to bear to each other nearly the same relation as that which 

 exists between the phosphoric anhydride and potash on their way out of 

 muscular tissue, from which result I conclude that the blood-corpuscles 

 have apparently the power of taking up and preparing the material which 

 they themselves supply to muscular tissue for its nutrition. 



Eleventh. That vegetables used as food- for man and animals, such as 

 flour, potato, and rice, contain respectively about the same proportions of 

 colloid phosphoric anhydride and colloid potash compared to the total 

 quantities of these substances present ; this fact is very remarkable, con- 

 sidering that the proportions of phosphoric anhydride and potash vary to a 

 great extent in these different articles of vegetable food. I also found in 

 some of my analyses of blood that the proportions of colloid phosphoric 

 anhydride and colloid potash to the total quantity of these substances 

 was the same as the corresponding proportion existing between these sub- 

 stances in flour, potato, and rice ; and I conclude that vegetable food has 

 the power of transforming phosphoric anhydride and potash from the 

 crystalloid or diffusible into the colloid or undiffusible state, and in certain 

 tolerably definite proportions ; and it is only after having been thus pre- 

 pared that these substances appear to be fit to become normal constituents 

 of blood, and contribute to the nutrition of flesh. 



A final remark, and one which is worth consideration, is the fact esta- 

 blished by the whole of the present investigation, that there is a constant 

 change, as rotation in nature, from crystalloids to colloids and from colloids 

 to crystalloids. The substances destined to nourish plants being inanimate 

 must be diffusible, otherwise they could not be distributed throughout 

 the mineral kingdom and brought within the reach of plants. Vegetables 

 transform into colloids the mineral substances destined for the food of 

 animals, and it might be said that the locomotion of animals in some re- 

 spects acts the same part as the diffusion of mineral substances ; for animals 



