DR. PROUT ON ANIMAL CHEMISTRY. 497 
long attention to the subject, I am satisfied that the merorganiz- 
ing principles are chiefly derived from the living animal itself, at 
least the more essential ones, and that they are contained in those 
products of secretion furnished by the stomach and other organs ; 
and this view of the subject accords with what we know of the 
operations of the animal economy in general. Thus in the incu¬ 
bated egg, I have found that the small quantity of earthy matters 
occurring in the albumen remains unappropriated at the end of 
the process, and that the animal has derived the earthy basis of 
its skeleton from some other and unknown source. The meror- 
ganizing principles, therefore, already existing in the aliments, 
though they-undoubtedly render them better adapted to the pur¬ 
poses of the animal economy, are not sufficient; and unless the 
economy furnishes the materials properly prepared, the future 
work of assimilation will be imperfect. 
3. Of the redaction of the alimentary substances , or their com¬ 
bination with water and consequent solution .—Before this impor¬ 
tant part of the functions of the stomach can be well understood, 
it becomes necessary to make a few remarks upon the influence 
of water in modifying the constitution and properties of bodies. 
It is a general law, pervading all the three great classes of alimen¬ 
tary substances, as well, perhaps, as all others into which water 
enters as a necessary ingredient, that the greater the proportion of 
water they hold in combination, the more they approach the state 
of a fluid—the more prone they are to decomposition; and if 
soluble in water in any state, the more soluble they are in that 
fluid. Thus, if we take sugar as an example : the strong crys¬ 
tallized large-grained sugar of the cane contains only about fifty- 
seven per cent., while the low, weak, and imperfectly crystal¬ 
lized sugar of honey contains as much as sixty-four per cent.; the 
only difference between the two being in the proportion of water 
they contain in combination. The same is true of oils. The 
solid and fixed oily bodies, or stearines, contain less water than 
the soft and delicate fats and fluid oils; while alcohol, the lowest 
of the class, contains as much as thirty-nine per cent, of water, 
and is quite soluble in that fluid. Gelatinous and albuminous 
bodies also are subject to precisely the same variations. The 
strong tenacious glue used in the arts is prepared from the firmer 
portions of the hides of old animals ; while the delicate and gela¬ 
tinous size, or weak glue, is formed from the skins of young or 
more delicate animals ; and the two differ from one another in the 
proportion in which they hold water in combination; and, gene¬ 
rally speaking, the differences between the constituent principles 
of old and young animals lie chiefly in the proportion of combined 
water they contain, 
VOL. IV. 3 Y 
