EDITORIAL OBSERVATIONS. 459 
“ very large extent, settling, in the most satisfactory manner, 
all questions as to its serviceability and healthfulness. 
" Dr. Samuel Jackson, professor of the Institute of Medi¬ 
cine in the University of Pennsylvania, gives the following 
testimonial in support of these views : 
Your substitute for cream of tartar for the raising of 
bread is a decided improvement. The tartaric acid is not a 
constituent of the grains from which flour is made; it is not 
a nutritive principle, and often disagrees with the alimentary 
organs. The phosphate of lime, which is the principal 
ingredient of your preparation, is an essential constituent of 
all grains. It is further an important nutritive principle ; 
and recent experiments have proved it is an indispensable 
element in the construction, not of bones only, but of all the 
animal tissues. A deficiency of the phosphate of lime in 
food is a common cause of ill health, of defective develop¬ 
ment, and retarded growth in children. In the conversion of 
wheat into flour, the phosphate of lime is rejected with the 
bran ; and, in consequence, this necessary element of nutri¬ 
tion, contrary to the arrangement of nature, is not obtained 
from our fine wheat-bread. Your preparation, while it makes 
a light, sweet, and palateable bread, restores to it the phos¬ 
phate of lime which has been separated from the flour, and 
thus adapts it as an aliment for the maintenance of a healthy 
state of the organisation/” 
The necessity of combinations of phosphorus existing in 
the organism being thus shown, its presence is to be sought 
for first in the vegetable, which necessarily derives it from 
the soil. Lava has been said to be rich in phosphoric acid, 
and it has been also found in rocks of igneous origin, proba¬ 
bly in combination with alumina. These becoming disin¬ 
tegrated and strewed over the earth’s surface, yield up this 
constituent to the growing plant. 
M. B. Corenninder, in a series of articles in the Chemical 
News, on the migrations of phosphorus in vegetables, says,— 
“ If we look upon the cellular and fibrous tissue as consti¬ 
tuting the skeleton of the plant, it is strange that no phos¬ 
phates are found after merely washing it with cold water. 
If the conclusion were not hazardous, it might be said that 
the bones of animals and those of plants, notwithstanding 
the essential differences which distinguish them, present 
