AS YET BUT LITTLE KNOWN. 
195 
men, on the contrary, constitutes part of all tissues, though 
especially of passive organs, such as bones, tendons, cartilages, 
&c., as well as of the animalised fluids, secreted and excreted. 
Caseine quits the blood for the purpose of the secretion of 
milk, of which it forms one of the chief ingredients. 
The globules, according to some physiologists, serve for 
nutrition, though their principal end is to serve for sanguineous 
incitation. 
The fat the blood contains, often in great abundance after 
digestion, will be principally destined to furnish the fatty 
matters of the organization. 
Lastly, the saline-earthy principles are, in part, for the hard tis¬ 
sues, such as bones and cartilages, and in part for the soft tissues, 
as well as for the secretions and excretions. If, then, the blood 
conveys to the divers organic tissues the assimilable matters 
necessary for their support, it is easy to conceive that, should 
any one of its elements appear in superabundance, its depo¬ 
sits and assimilation should likewise become superabundant 
equally through the entire system. And this is what expe¬ 
rience shews. So that, if pigs or poultry, put up to fat be fed 
on barley-meal or maize, substances in whose composition fat 
largely enters, these animals fatten with great rapidity. 
Let a horse be fed largely on oats, a grain which contains 
much vegetable fibrine; or a dog principally on flesh, either 
raw or cooked, which contains a large proportion of animal 
fibrine and creatine, and we shall soon perceive, under such a 
regimen, his muscles increasing in volume, and his muscular 
contraction becoming more energetic and sustained; while, 
under a regimen composed of plants containing an excess of 
albumen, although receiving at the time a good allowance of oats, 
I have observed horses to make fat; and that, though kept all 
the time at hard work, they never acquire that strength and 
robustness which they do while feeding on grain derived from 
the family of the grasses. 
Am I not, therefore, warranted in believing that the over¬ 
use of leguminous fodder and grain, aliments which furnish the 
blood with no fibrine, while they saturate it with albumen, 
produce serious modifications in the process of nutrition? At 
the same time, am I not to be permitted to think that the 
origin of disease, its gravity, and the difficulty with which it is 
removed, are referrible to these profound and consequential mo¬ 
difications? As indeed have shewn experiments ipade for 
these ten years past, with all possible accuracy, by a committee 
under the auspices of the Academy of Sciences. 
It has been ascertained that the use of fibrine and albumen, 
