1 877-1 
at Home and A broad. 
103 
We are also told that uric acid never occurs free in normal 
urine, while damaluric and damolic acids are given as 
normal constituents ; whereas uric acid is a normal consti- 
tuent, and damaluric and damolic acids never occur in 
human urine, and only on one recorded occasion have these 
latter been obtained from the urine of a cow. 
On the subject of the brain Mr. Ralfe reproduces that which 
has long since been disproved, viz., Fremy’s conclusions* 
regarding the presence of so-called oleo-phosphoric acid, a 
body which received in Fremy’s hands not a single complete 
analysis, and which was undoubtedly a mixture of other 
substances with lecithine. This is the more remarkable, for 
Fremy, in claiming the existence of this body, overlooked 
or ignored a far more important discovery by Couerbe, viz., 
his cephalote, which, however, Couerbe did not obtain pure ; 
had he done so he would have obtained the kephalin of 
to-day. Unfortunately an accident induced Couerbe to 
assert the presence of sulphur in his substance, and on this 
account there was denied to him that credit to which he was 
so fairly entitled. 
It is a pity that, in our acknowledged state of ignorance 
as regards the chemistry of the body, such analyses as the 
following should be given, of an organ regarding which, in 
the past, our information has been so imperfeCt 
Cerebral Matter, 
Water ........ 80 
Fats ........ 5 
Albumen . 7 
Extractives and Salts . . 8 
But this analysis, given by C. H. Ralfe in his book, is no 
worse than many similar ones to be found elsewhere. 
Among these extractives and salts leucin and uric acid are 
erroneously included. The author falls into the same mis- 
takes regarding bilirubin and biliverdin as Dr. L. Brunton, 
and alarms us by saying that the breath in certain diseases 
contains chloride of sodium, uric acid, and ammonium 
urates. In this book, also, as well as in the “ Handbook 
for the Physiological Laboratory,” the speCtroscopical cha- 
racters of hematin, so beautifully worked out by Stokes and 
others, are incorrectly described. 
One more point, and we have done with Mr. Ralfe. He 
writes — “ The inorganic substances occurring in the animal 
* Ann. Ghem., ii., 463; also Journ. de Pharm., xxvii., 453, 
