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THE VETERINARIAN, AUGUST 1, 1861. 
Ne quid falsi dicere audeat, ne quid veri non audeat. —Cicero. 
ON THE PHOSPHATES IN ORGANIC BODIES. 
Nature, ever wise in all she does, has so apportioned 
certain principles in the cereals as to render them most con¬ 
ducive, as articles of food, to the well-being of man. Man, 
often unwise, too frequently through caprice and fashion re¬ 
moves some of these principles, and suffers in health accord- 
ingly. 
Of late years white bread has taken the place of brown , and 
this frequently to the impairment of the digestive organs 
and the loss of sustentation of certain parts of the system. 
The bran which is removed from the flour, to render the 
bread whiter, contains a large quantity of the phosphates, 
and these are indispensably necessary to the normal constitu¬ 
tion of several of the tissues of the body, as well as for the 
formation of muscle-fibre, the brain and nerves, and like¬ 
wise the bones. To obviate the evils resulting from this 
abstraction. Professor Horsford, of Philadelphia, has pro¬ 
posed to make a bread for domestic purposes which shall 
contain a compound similar to that furnished by nature. 
After a trial of several expedients, nearly all of which failed 
entirely to meet his views, he came to the conviction, to use 
his own words, “ that if it were possible to prepare phosphoric 
acid in some form of acid phosphate of lime, such that, after 
its action with moist carbonate of soda, it would leave phos¬ 
phate of soda (a constituent of the blood) and phosphate of 
lime (an essential constituent of food), and confer upon it 
the necessary qualities of a dry, pulverulent acid, the end 
would be so far attained as to justify a practical experiment 
in domestic use.” 
Such a compound, the formula for which, however, is 
not given, has been for years consumed by his family, he says, 
and among his friends, and is now finding its way throughout 
the country, under the name of " yeast-powder,” to a 
