380 Mr. W. Brande’s Observations on Albumen , 
ascertaining the action of lower powers, the effects of which 
I shall afterwards relate, I find that a battery of twenty-four 
three inch double plates is sufficient to effect a perfect coagu- 
lation at the negative pole, even where the albumen is diluted 
with so large a quantity of water, as not to be detected by 
the usual tests. 
SECTION II. 
Observations on the Composition of some animal Fluids containing 
Albumen. 
Finding, from the experiments detailed in the preceding 
section, that albumen may exist in such states of combination, 
as not to be detected by the usual tests, but separable by elec- 
trical decomposition, I was induced to apply this mode of ana- 
lysis to the examination of animal fluids in general. 
1. Saliva. 
When saliva is boiled in water, a few flakes of coagulated 
albumen are deposited ; but this is by no means the whole 
quantity of albumen contained in the secretion, for on apply- 
ing the test of negative electricity to the filtered fluid obtained 
after the separation of the albumen by heat, a copious coagu- 
lation and separation of alkali, is produced at the negative pole. 
A large portion of albumen may therefore exist in a fluid, 
* s (which was by much the most considerable), consisted principally of carbonate, 
“ mixed with a small quantity of phosphate of soda. 
“ Five hundred grains of dry albumen afforded 74.50 grains of coal, of which 11.25 
“ were saline matter.” 
Vide “ Chemical Experiments on Zoophites, with some Observations on the Com- 
“ ponent Parts of Membrane.” Phil. Trans. 1800. 
