220 
A LECTURE ON FAT AND MUSCLE, DELIVERED 
TO THE PROBUS FARMERS' CLUB. 
By Mr. Kaekeek, V.S., Truro. 
On Saturday evening, the 18 th instant, a lecture on the Pro- 
duction of Fat and Muscle was delivered by Mr. Karkeek, of 
Truro, to the members of this institution. This is an interesting 
and important lecture to agriculturists, as may be supposed from 
the circumstance of the English Agricultural Society having lately 
offered a premium for an essay on the same subject, explaining 
the causes which appear to determine the production of fat and 
muscle respectively, according to the present state of our know- 
ledge of animal physiology. 
Mr. Karkeek stated, at the commencement of his lecture, that 
some of the physiological views which he had adopted were those 
of Professor Liebeg, they having yielded the most valuable re- 
sults, in relation to the connexion between organic chemistry and 
dietetics, — under which head was comprised the nutritiveness of 
particular vegetables on the feeding of cattle. 
With the view of his lecture being clearly understood, he first 
directed the attention of his audience to some of the phenomena 
connected with growth and assimilation in vegetables and ani- 
mals, shewing the manner in -which the former produce the blood 
and flesh of the latter; and that man, in consuming animal food, 
consumed, strictly speaking, the vegetable principles which have 
served for the nutrition of cattle. This part of the lecture was 
explained in an easy manner by reference to tables containing 
the analysis of the elementary and proximate principles of the 
food of herbivorous animals by Boussingault and others, which 
proved that vegetable fibrin, albumen, and casein — the true nitro- 
genized principles of their food — were, in fact, identical in com- 
position with the chief constituents of blood, animal fibrin, which 
is the fibrin of flesh, animal albumen from eggs, and animal 
casein from milk. He next shewed the difference which existed 
in the aliments of cattle as far as they were concerned in the pro- 
duction of fat and muscle . This portion of the lecture was clearly 
explained by reference to Professor Liebeg’s theory, that one of 
the effects of respiration was to remove some of the carbon from 
the blood by the oxygen of the atmosphere, and the forming of 
carbonic acid gas ; in which process a separation of two essential 
parts of the blood took place — the one being composed of nitro- 
genized materials, capable of assimilation to the various organs 
and tissues, muscles, nerves, bones, &c.— the other part being com- 
