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LIEBIG, HIS CHEMISTRY AND REVIEWERS.
525
pulse is quick, small, and
sometimes
irregu-
lar ; respiration is quickened; there is thirst; LIEBIG, loss of appetite; a white tongue ; nausea, HIS AND REVIEWERS. CHEMISTRY frequently vomiting; pain and weight at the BY epigastrium ; constipation, and high-coloured and scanty urine. The degrees of nervous HENRY ANCELL, Esq., depression are proportioned to the quantity Lecturer on Medical Jurisprudence at the and influence of the morbid poison. The sucSchool of Anatomy and Medicine, Grosvecession of symptoms, which I have just St. George’s Hospital; Surgeon nor-place, stated, may be regarded as those of the aveto the Western General Dispensary ; and rage power of the disease; but in some inAuthor of " Lectures on the Blood," stances the drowsiness proceeds to lethargy published in THE LANCET for 1839-40. and sometimes coma; and in children, particularly during teething, to convulsions. InNo. VII. deed, the prostration may be so extreme during this period as to be speedily fatal. Gelatine is Where the stomach is the principal seat ofr in the nutriment of the azotised substance the is and congestion unceasing, vomiting the tongue is red, first at the tip, and then the carnivora, and of other animals who live over its general surface. Sometimes the on a mixed diet, next in importance to albulungs are most severely affected, in which men, fibrine, and caseine; it enters largely case there are pains in the chest, oppression into the composition of jellies, soups, and
the principal constituent of employed as food, and occurlence of the febrile attack seems centered, ring in smaller quantities in many. Even and the patient suffers from anxiety, and muscular flesh contains a portion of gelatine tumultuous action of that viscus. All the belonging to the cellular membrane intersymptoms of invasion are augmented during spersed amongst its fibres ; it is obtained from the night. the’tendons, bones, and internal and external When the case is liliely to become one of tegumentary membranes of animals, and has . confluent small-pox, the above symptoms are been employed as a main article of susteelevated to their highest pitch of severity. nance for the poor in public institutions, for The vomiting is more troublesome ; the dys- the support of invalids, and for the recovery pnoea greater, and the nervous depression of health and strength during convalescence intense. The tongue and lips are dry, and from acute disease. Jelly has even been covered with sordes; the heat of skin is ex- relied upon for the nourishment of the whole cessive ; and there is sometimes diarrhoea. of the animal vitalised tissues, upon principles The approach of the period of eruption is certainly erroneous. Its properties, therefore, commonly announced by an augmentation of require to be well understood. the symptoms of invasion, to be immediately Gelatine was for some time regarded as a followed by the constitutional calm which of the action of water upon product attends the eruptive stage. The oppression the tissues from which it boiling is procured, an opiand languor cease; the nausea and vomiting nion entertained by Berzelius. More recently, are suspended ; the pulse becomes natural, the fact has been ascertained, that however, and all distress and pain are lulled. its peculiar chemical characteristics are The manner of appearance of the eruption, manifested by those tissues, both before as together with the diversity of characters well as after the process by which it is which it presents under different circum- obtained in a separate state. stances, would, in the present lecture, carry It has lately been shown that the tissues me beyond the limits assigned to me; I shall, classed together as gelatinous, conin next commence with the formerly therefore, my petain two somewhat allied substances, gelatine tiod of eruption.
of
breathing,
and troublesome
cough ;
and
fish, forming
at other times it is in the heart that the vio- some articles
THE SEAT
STRICTURE.-M.
in of stricture is not in the mucous membrane of the urethra, which, he says, is little, if at all, involved in its production; but in the thickening of the cellular coat external to that This fact, once established, membrane. would, as he states, show the malpractice of treating stricture by caustic applications, which could only enlarge the passage by the destruction of a healthy structure, and, of course, at the risk of setting up anew and a
recent
Or
memoir,
Civiale,
asserts that the
dangerous inflammation.
cause
I
and chondrine. The most striking circumstance connected with these substances is, that they differ entirely from the compounds of proteine; they contain no sulphur, no phosphorus, and either more nitrogen or less carbon, or different proportions of oxygen and hydrogen, by which a chemical distinction is clearly established; they do not even belong to the same series, and accordingly we must regard gelatine and chondrine, whether in reference to diet or to the constitution of the animal structures, as totally distinct, in a chemical point of view, from albumen and fibrin, the essential principles of the blood.
526
Gelatine. The formula
adopted by Liebig,
Scherer, is-
C48 H41 N7! 018’
satisfactory explanation why it is, that carnivorous animals soon die of starvafrom tion if limited to a gelatinous diet. Thus much of the gelatine of food and the nourish. most even
circumstances under which this substance must be formed from the compounds of proteine in the animal economy ; thus, oats, beans, wheat, &c., contain no gelatine
There
are
(Table 1.), although they frequently constitnte the entire food of certain herbivora. Liebig points out several ways in which, by comparing the formula given above, with that of albumen or proteine, the formation of gelatine may be conceived. I. Supposing the carbon to be a fixed quantity, albumen might become gelatine, bylthe separation of sulphur and phosphorus, with the addition of oxygen, of water, and of the elements of ammonia. If. Assuming the nitrogen to remain entire, albumen might become gelatine by the separation of the sulphur and phosphorus, and of carbon and hydrogen. This is regarded by Liebig as more probable than the former. HI. Gelatine might be produced by two atoms of proteine combining with the elements of a third atom of proteine from the metamorphosed tissues. IV. Three atoms of proteine might become gelatine, by the loss of the elements of a compound containing no nitrogen, which actually occurs as one of the products of the transformation of theI
ment of the gelatinous tissues. In the next place, as respects the lIIetamorphoses of the Gelatinous Tissues, Liebig believes that the change of matter pro. ceeds much slower than in the more vitalised parts, a position borne out by the fact, that in a starving individual the fat and muscular tissue having in great part disappeared, no perceptible alteration is found in the tendons and membranes. The gelatinous tissues, again, cannot give origin to exactly the same products as the albuminous structures. The probable modes of the formation of gelatine above cited, will lead to analogous conceptions of the nature of the products of its tissues, and these will be borne out by various interesting facts, as, for instance, the
formation of uric acid and urates in the cellular tissue of the skin and joints, which frequently occurs. It has to be remembered, also, that the formulaof flesh and blood (Table II.) must represent, together with fibrin and
minute in the absence of any facts which indicate the contrary, we may refer the products of these tissues, together with those of the compounds of proteine, to the bile and urine, as the channels of their choleic acid of bile. According to our author’s views, there is elimination. very little probability indeed that the gela- I, Chondrine. tinous tissues, membranes, tendons, and the This substance composes the cellular carlike, can form themsel ves out of heterogeneous tilages, as those of the ribs; it differs from materials brought to them from the blood. If muscular fibre and other vitalised tissues gelatine in containing less nitrogen and more its formula being require a substance identical in composition oxygen, with themselves for their nutrition, the non048 H40 Nd 020’ vitalised gelatine of bones and membranes It may be regarded as a compound of proalso requires a compound to be presented to teine, with two atoms of oxygen and four of it ready prepared for assimilation. Under water, and is much more likely to undergo many circumstances such a material must transformations similar to those of the probe formed in the organism, but the site of its tenised tissues than gelatine is, since by the formation is at present unknown. Liebig abstraction of a partof its oxygen it may be suggests the probability that gelatine takes resolved into choleic acid and urate of amits origin during the transformation of venous monia. into arterial blood. Although gelatine must be frequently Although, therefore, the compounds of formed in the animal body, and although it proteine must be formed into gelatine in the is totally incapable of nourishing the vitalised living system for the nourishment of the tissues, by no means is it to be rejected as a gelatinous tissues, the converse does not hold useless article of diet. Liebig remarks, that good. Gelatine, the most highly azotised no substance can be better fitted for the nouprinciple of food, is totally incapable of rishment of membranes and for the produc. forming proteine. We may be assured of tion of cells than the gelatine which exists this when we consider that notwithstanding, in animal food, and is taken in a soluble or becomes soluble in the stomach; undoubtedly, one compound of proteine may be converted into another, as, for instance, intimating that while fibrine and fibrine into albumen, and albumen into albumen nourish muscular and nervous fibrine and casein, yet we have no proof structures, gelatine, ready prepared, is assiwhatever, in any one case, of the vital force milated to the animal matter of bones and having, in animals, converted any azotised of the skin, cellular membrane, and gelatisubstance into proteine. Hence, gelatine is nous structures generally ; which circumincapable of nourishing the albuminous and stance may account for the fact that fibrinous structures, and we have in this a f D’Arcet found gelatine extremely useful as
albumen,
a
proportionate, although
quantity of gelatine ;
,
I
form, thereby
so
that,
527
valescence from acute diseases in which it is a great practical mistake to allow, even for a few days, gelatinous diet to constitute lescence. Nevertheless, animals, when fed on gela- the principal azotised food of the patient, the tine alone, die in about thirty days ; they consequence being frequently disturbance of gradually lose their vital force, their fat the digestive functions, and uniformly probecomes exhausted first, and then their mus- tracted debility. cular and albuminous structures waste : The consideration of the nutrition of carwhen at the point of starvation they may be easily and with certainty recovered by giving nivorous animals, strictly so called, has led them protenised food. Edwards and Balzac to the above remarks, for although my ob.are quoted as having found, that the addition ject in these papers is to investigate the prinof a very small quantity of meat to soup is ciples contained in Liebig’s work, and the sufficient to render the latter nutritive to foundation upon which they rest, it becomes dogs.* One-seventh part of soup made from scarcely possible to avoid altogether the inliorse-flesh, is said to have rendered gelatine troduction of observations bearing upon sufficiently nutritious, the effect being attri- practice. We proceed in the next place to buted to the sapid and odorous principles of examine the process of the meat; but we find that the soup emNutrition in the Herbivora, ployed in these experiments was made into a soft paste for use with bread. Aware, as which appears, at first sight, in animals we now are, of the’real nutritive properties living upon vegetables alone, to differ totally The digestive organs of of bread, our are opened in this in- from the former. stance to a fatally erroneous inference, the herbivora are more complex than those arising from the defects of our former know- of the carnivora, and the great mass of their ledge of the subject. Attendants on the food contains but little nitrogen. Yet expesick entertain very erroneous notions re- rience proves that they cannot live upon food destitute of nitrogen, and that the quantity specting the use off of food which they consume is in a great Jelly as an Article of Food. measure in an inverse ratto to the proportion If I have succeeded in placing this subject of nitrogenised principles which it contains, in a clear point of view before my profes- their blood being formed essentially from sional brethren, I believe that I shall have compounds of nitrogen identical with those furnished a valuable principle by which its which supply blood to carnivorous animals. It is especially ser- By a careful examination of Table I., A, B, use may be regulated. viceable in debilitated states of the system, C, it will be found that oats, peas, beans, where there is reason to believe that the and other seeds, contain vegetable albumen, power of forming gelatine is diminished, and gluten, and casein. All other substances it is then, in all probability, carried to the nutritive to animals contain these proximate gelatinous tissues ready prepared. But we principles, which are not only similar, but must bear in mind that alone it will never identical in composition with the essential serve for the repair of the fibrinous and albu- principles of the food of carnivora, and of minous tissues, nor for the regeneration of the blood of all animals, containing pre-the vital force necessary for carrying on the cisely the same proportions of sulphur, functions of life, when that force has been phosphorus, and phosphate of lime. Thus, reduced to a very low standard ; it has progreat truth is established, that the conbably a secondary use in the economy of the stituents of the blood of animals is produced sick, for those animal principles of the di- originally in the organism of vegetables. gestive fluid, to which the properties of fer- From this, also, it appears that the developments or solvents havee been ascribed, ment and growth of the animal organism is being products of membranes, gelatine may universally dependent on certain proximate promote the secretion of such principles, and principles employed as food, already formed thereby aid the process of digestion in its by the vital force, and identical with the chief various stages. When the object, therefore, constituents of the blood. " The developis to recruit the system, that is to say, to ment of the animal organism begins with promote the growth of structures which have those substances in the production of which been unduly wasted, and to augment the the life of an ordinary vegetable ends, and available vital force, the food prescribed the first substance capable of affording numay consist with great advantage of a pro- triment to animals is the last product of the portion of jelly, but if in some such cases creative energy of vegetables." The existence of the herbivora depend jelly alone were to be depended upon, even for a moderate period (I believe I may say throughout their lives not alone upon the comfor a few days), death would be the result. pounds of proteine presented tp ready, There is a point also in the treatment of con- formed, as constituents of their diet, the "plastic elements of autrition/’buf also The Physiology of Digestion. A. upon non-nitrpgeised ;"ub&bgr;taMes Combe, M.D., p. 247, 3rd edit. Liebig has called " elements of respiration."
part of the diet in hospitals, and that it materially abridged the period of conva-
a
eyes
the
"
’
them,
which.
528
These constitute four-fifths of their diet; upon oats and hay, phosphoric acid is rarely they are excessively rich in carbon and to be detected. In Thomson’s animal hydrogen, containing, with other matters, a Chemistry" I find it stated that the urine of large proportion of gum, starch, or sugar, the horse is alkaline, and contains no phosthe most abundant and widely extended of phate whatever. According to Fourcroy’s which is starch, and there is this remarkable and Vauquelin’s analysis. it contains only feature connected with them that they .07ths of urea. Chevreul could detect no closely resemble sugar of milk, a substance phosphate of lime in the urine of the camel. which enters largely into the diet prepared Liebig takes the deficiency or absence of the alkaline phosphates as an obvious indication by nature for the young of the carnivora. These vegetable principles which are con- of the slowness with which some, if not all, sumed in so large an amount by the herbi- the tissues in this class of animals are metavora, are also very closely allied to each morphosed. The diminished quantity of other in their chemical composition, and are urea, uric acid, and other compounds of ni. convertible into each other by very slight trogen, has the same signification. 3. The herbivora are prone to the productranspositions of atoms. Thus, starch becomes sugar by the simple addition of the tion of fat, and this leads us to a consideraelements of water. Liebig illustrates the tion of the interesting and important subject relations of these substances to each other in of the following manner, C representing carbon Tlae Fornaation nf Fat in Animals. and aq. water:== 12 C + 10 aq. Starch The production of fat in every part of the Cane-sugar -. 12 C + 10 aq. z- 1 aq. body in carnivorous animals is "utterly in= 12 C + 10 aq. + 1 aq. Gum significant ;" the flesh of wild animals of the Sugar of milk = 12 C + 10 aq. + 2 aq. herbivorous class being also devoid of fat. Grape-sugar = 12 C z- 10 aq. + 4 aq. The circumstances under which animals not For the same number of equivalents of otherwise fat become so, are very marked and carbon, starch contains 10 eq. of water, or of decided, and a consideration of them leads to its elements, and grape-sugar 14 equiva- a knowledge of the true origin of fat. Thus, lents. dogs and cats, originally camivOI’ae, have There are three very remarkable circum- their fat increased, under a mixed diet and i stances connected with the nutrition of her- comparatively little exercise, on becoming domesticated. Wecan increase the formation bivora. 1. The energy of their vegetative life, and of fat also at pleasure in other domestic aniaccordingly their capacity for increase of mals, but only by means of diet not contain’ mass is greater than in the carnivora ; the ing nitrogen. A pig fed with highly nitrolatter devour their prey only when urged by genised food becomes full of flesh ; when hunger, and their flesh always remains fed with potatos, consisting chiefly of starch, tough and sinewy. The sheep and cow eat it acquires little flesh, but a thick layer of almost without interruption, and they con- fat. A stall-fed cow furnishes milk not vert into organised tissue all the nutritive only rich in sugar, but also in butter. The parts of their food beyond the quantity reo milk of the cow in the meadow contains less quired for supplying waste. The excess of of the fatty material and more casein ; beer blood formed is converted into muscular and and farinaceous diet increase the proportion cellular tissue, and they become plump and of butter in the milk of the human female, fleshy ; but in herbivora habituated to much while an animal diet, although it diminishes muscular motion, as in the hare and stag, this the quantity of milk, renders it richer ill difference is not so marked. calcine. These are not only interesting considera2. Their food containing so small a proportion of the compounds of proteine, the tions, but highly practical also. We shall change of matter in their organised struc- now inquire into Liebig’s explanation of tures must be proportionately slower. them ; because, if we can arrive at a true Liebig states that this is ascertained to be theory upon this, as upon other subjects, we the facr, from a consideration of the compo- may reason from what is known absolutely sition of their urine. Assuming that this to what is unknown, and there is no valid fluid contains the products of the metamor- reason why we should not learn how to iuphosed tissues, by its comparison in the two fluence the nutrition of certain tissues in disclasses of animals, we find it indicated that eased states of the system, or in states the process of change of matter difiers both tending to, or verging upon, disease, as we have already ascertained how to control the in form and rapidity. Sulphates, phosphates, and urates, de- nutrition of the tissues in the lower animals rived from the albuminous and fibrinous tis- for special purposes. When the composition of the chief matesues are abundant in the acid urine of animals living upon flesh. Phosphates and rials of non-nitrogenised food, as, for insulphates occur in the smallest possible stance, starch and sugar, is compared with quantity in the alkaline urine of herbivorous that of various kinds of fat (Table II.), it animals. In the urine of the horse, living becomes obvious that they agree in contain. ,
529
ing the
same relative proportions of carbon qualities. Hay also is said to contain 2 per and hydrogen, and that they differ only in cent. of oil ; they suggest that animals derive their proportion of oxygen. From this it their fat, always ready prepared, from the follows that by the mere separation of a por- food on which they are fed; but animals tion of oxygen from sugar, starch, or gum, i may be fattened upon vegetable substances substances must be formed having exactly, which have not been shown to contain oil or or very nearly, the composition of fat. If, fat; and accordingly, although it should turn from the formula of starch out in the progress of discovery, that fat
ready prepared is frequently assimilated, C]2 1-1100;o, take nine equivalents of oxygen, there yet the opinion that it is always so is by far remains very nearly the empirical formula too exclusive. These facts by no means controvert Liebig’s reasonings. The jelly of of fat, calve’s feet is not derived ready prepared O. Cu HIO from the milk of the cow, as may be seen by The difference being only one equivalent of the analytical tables, still it is examining in an starch so that of equivalent carbon ; consistent with Liebig’s views, that jelly an must lose order to be converted into fat taken as food may contribute to the nourishequivalent of carbonic acid CO2, and sevenI ment of the gelatinous tissues. The latter eq. of oxygen. circumstance does not alter our view respectSince the herbs, roots, barley, potatos, ing the essential nature of the chemical pro&c., which constitute the food of cows, 1 cess by which gelatine is formed. In the and contain no swine, geese, frequently I same way fat must be frequently formed in and for the most part, as far as existing anathe animal system, but it may happen also lyses have determined, do not contain suffi- that a diet of oil and fat contributes directly cieut to account for the masses which accuto the accumulation of fat. The latter cirmulate in the bodies of these animals, a certhe fact that tain quantity of oxygen must, in some way cumstance does not controvert must be extricated in the conversion or other, be separated from the constituents oxygen of their food to form this material. Liebig of fibrine, starch, or sugar into fat, even it might have some significance as represents the proportion of carbon to oxygen although to the relation which may subsist between in various proximate principles of vegetable respiration and the formation of fat, and some food as follows :of the uses of fat in the animal economy. A very curious fact is recorded by Dr. G. 0. Rees.* A donkey having been destroyed seven hours after a full meal of oats and beans, the chyle was collected from the mesenteric vessels, and examined chemically; it contained 3.6 per cent. of fatty matter. What was the origin of this? According to the analyses of these vegetables they contain no oil or fatty matter. Are the analyses deWhile bodies contain on an fective, or is the fatty matter the result of for one hundred and twenty equivalents of the admixture of bile,-a metamorphosis of carbon, only ten equivalents of oxygen, So atoms in the alimentary canal ? The fact is that if we suppose fat to be formed in the consistent with Liebig’s theory. animal organism, from the compounds of Liebig remarks, that there is only one way proteine, or from starch, sugar, or gum, 26, in which the formation of fat can take place or 90, or 100, or 110 equivalents respectively in the animal body, which is precisely the of oxygen, must be separated from the ele- same as that by which oil is formed in plants, ments of these substances during the pro- viz., by a separation of oxygen from the elecess. ments of the food. He brings forward a According to this view, the system, or some most beautiful analogical argument in favour part of it, is capable of deriving oxygen from of his views from the economy of the bee. the food during the formation of fat, as it By recurring to Table II. (p. 391) it will be derives oxygen from the air in respiration ; a seen that wax corresponds very closely in circumstance which has led Liebig to inves- elementary composition with fat, its formula tigate the relation which subsists between being C20 H2o 0, the process of respiration and the formation The bee produces its wax from honey of fat in the animal body. under circumstances very similar to the forAt a meeting of the Academy of Sciences mation of fat in herbivorous animals. The in Paris in October last, Messrs. Dumas and honey being given as food, is taken into the Payen stated that cattle, when fattening, stomach and digested ; one portion passes always contains less fat than the elements off as excrement, and another is absorbed, which they have consumed, an opinion de- and received into the fluids of the insect; it rived from the circumstance that these che* mists have found a considerable quantity of Cyclop. of Anatomy and Physiol., art. oil in maize, a seed possessing high fattening Lymphatic System. we
oxen, fat,
all fatty
average,
530
is then secreted between the scales of the abdominal rings, not as honey but as wax. Honey alone is necessary for the’ formation and secretion of wax, which takes place in about forty hours, and it is only when bees receive more honey than is required for nutrition, that wax is produced. As in the case of the formation of fat from sugar, starch, gelatine, or albumen, oxygen must be given off in the ecomony of the insect during the formation of wax from honey.
constituents of food must always be attended with the extrication of oxygen. These facts and their explanation we see are independent of the question whether the fat be introduced ready prepared or formed in the economy. In either case there is an excess of hydro-carbon, and particularly of carbon, deposited in the structures of an animal. In the healthy condition of an ox, or a horse, as to food and exercise, the urine contains benzoic acid with 14 equivalents of carbon, but as soon as the animal Not alone the process by which fat is pro- is kept quiet in the stable, the urine contains duced, but the circumstances also under hippuric acid with 18 equivalents of carbon. which it is formed, claim attention. The Thus, we see an eHbrt in the system to get most obvious and the most remarkable of rid of the excess of carbon; yet it is only a these is, that an excess of carbon in the diet small of that excess which can be proportion is a condition favourable to its deposition. expelled by the secretions, the remainder But in the stag and hare, animals living on being employed in the production of fat. a carbonaceous diet, who take a great deal it seems to be manifest from these Finally, of exercise, and accordingly absorb a great that the accumulation of fat considerations, deal of oxygen, we find little or no fat ; the is the result of a want of due proportion reason being, that the oxygen absorbed between the amount of non-nitrogenised during respiration suffices to combine with food received by the stomach, and of the all the carbon and hydrogen of their food oxygen absorbed by the skin and lungs. not employed in the nutrition of their tissues. We have thus examined the more simple When the carbon of the food, and the oxygen form of nutrition in the carnivora, and we absorbed by the skin and lungs, are in due find the same in the herbivora. We process proportion, no fat is produced. But if with have considered several important modificaan excess of carbon a diminished supply of tions in the economy of animals of the latter oxygen occurs, a condition which may be class; but the use of the uon-nitrogenised called abnormal, then an increase of the principles which enter so largely into the body takes place, from an increase of sub- composition of their food, the production of stances containing much carbon and no nibile, according to Liebig, with the evolution trogen, that is to say, of fat. Thus, in the of animal heat, remain to be investigated. process of fattening animals, far more food is The following essential circumstance must gilen than the wants of the system require; not be omitted in this place. The they are made to repose for digestion only ; Nutrition of the Young of Carnirora, want of exercise brings a deficient supply of oxygen ; the hydro-carbonaceous materials which is effected by means of a fluid, the cannot be converted into carbonic acid gas milk, secreted from the blood of the mother, aud water, and accordingly they are depo- is strictly analogous to that of the herbivora sited in the form of fat. If the fattened ani- throughout their lives. mal be allowed to take more exercise the fat Milk contains a plastic element of nutriagain disappears. The production of fat in tion, caseine, which nourishes the cellular the animal tissues is thus always the conse- tissue, muscular fibre, nervous structure, and quence of a deficient supply of oxygen. bones. It also contains non-nitrogenised Hence it is that people of great activity, principles, " elements of respiration" in the breathing a pure air, whatever their diet, forms of butter and sugar of milk. have generally but a small proportion of fat, The caseine is distinguished from fibrin while the inmates of prisons and workhouses,chiefly by its great solubility ; no foreign living upon poor diet, but taking very little substance is required to convert it into blood. exercise, frequently become puffy and fat, It contains a larger proportion of the earthy and that the same thing occurs in sedentary matter of bones than blood does, and that in a females. very soluble form; so that we find in the carniA large proportion of oxygen being re- vora at this early period, as well as throughceived into the system as compared with the out life, the development of the vital tissues quantity of food ingested, prevents the depo- depends on the supply of substances idensition of fat by combining with the super- tical with the chief constituents of their fluous carbon and hydrogen. Conversely, blood. As to the butter and sugar of milk, they the absorption of a small proportion of oxygen, as compared with the amount of the contain no soda, potassa, or fixed bases. The ingesta, particularly of non-nitrogenised sugar is closely allied to starch, gum, and substances, favours the deposition of fat. vegetable sugar, all of which contain hydroThis principle applies whether the fat is in- gen and oxygen in the proportion to form troduced ready prepared.into, or is formed in water, with an excess of carbon. There is the system. The formation of fat from the added, therefore, to the nitrogenised consti.
531
food, carbon, and in the case of MISCELLANEOUS hydrogen. These sub- CONTRIBUTIONS TO PATHOLOGY stances cannot possibly be employed in the AND THERAPEUTICS, production of the essential constituents of blood, because the caseine contains exactly the By JAMES RICHARD SMYTH, M.D., London. amount of carbon required for that purpose.
tuents of the
butter,
carbon and
Notwithstanding this, they for the most part IMPOTENCE AND STERILITY. disappear from the economy ; they cannot IN a paper in THE LANCET of August the be detected in the feaces or in the secretions, but, except so far as they form fat, they are 28th, 1841, we stated that in the great demonstrably given out from the lungs and majority of cases, in either sex, the causes skin in the forms of carbonic acid gas and of impotence and sterility would be found, water. Fat itself is ultimately disposed of on careful investigation, to consist in some in the same way. Thus, whatever meta- lesion involving the constitution and genemorphoses the non-nitrogenised principles of ral health of the individual ; of which, food may undergo in their progress through there certainly can be little doubt. And the system, they are ultimately destined to the circumstance is easily understood by combine with oxygen. This fact is of the simply bearing in mind that the reproducutmost significance as respects the uses of tive system of the animal, like the flower these nou-nitrogenised substances, not only of the plant or tree, to which it is analogous, in the young of the carnivora, but in the is wholly dependent for its primitive evoluheibivora throughout their lives, as well as tion, and subsequent vitality and vigour, in reference to the mixed, and for the most upon the perfect development and continuous part highly complicated diet of the human healthy condition of the general system and circulation; and as canker, or defect, of the species. root, or stem (the parts which compose the vegetable constitution) of the plant inevi. BELLADONNA IN PI3THISIS.-M. Delhaye tably causes its flower to fade and its seed appears to have derived the most signal and fruit to wither and fall, so also does advantage from the use of belladonna in disease, or any circumstance which impairs tubercular phthisis and the tedious nervous the general powers of the constitution of the i cough which is so often the precursor of I animal, debilitate for a longer or shorter the He administers powdered time, or altogether destroy, the energies and consumption. root in a quantity varying from half a grain functions of the reproductive organs. Of to a grain, in one or more doses, during the this truth, if necessary, numerous illustratwenty-four hours. Where irritability of the tions might be adduced. stomach exists, however, he prefers the exLet us, by the way, here further notice Of the how very opposite, in the two systems of tract or tincture of belladonna. former he gives about the same quantity as animals and vegetables, are the positions of the powdered root, and of the latter, from which Nature has assigned to the sexual twenty to thirty drops during a like period. organs. The fact is, unquestionably, not a He says, also, that the tincture is one of the little remarkable. In the one, namely, the best palliatives of the diarrhoea that super- animal, we see these organs, with undeBut viating carefulness, and for reasons better venes in the latter stages of phthisis. at all times he regards, as an indispensable known to Nature herself, removed from the condition for the employment of this medicine, site of immediate observation, and placed in that the stomach should be in a tolerably partial cover and concealment; while in the healthy state, a decided contra-indication of other an arrangement altogether the reverse the use of belladonna being the presence of obtains. The flower, or efflorescence (as it gastro-enteritis, so usual a concomitant of is termed in botanical language), of the plant, chronic disease of the lungs.—Archives de which constitutes its reproductive organisala Med. Belge. tion, occupies, not only the most conspicuous INGREDIENTS BY THE BUSHEL.-It would part of the vegetable body, but is also with forms and colours the most seem that the days of mithridate, and such invested and attractive. But to be more beautiful like farragos, are not yet gone by, at least on the continent. The 11 Journal de Chimie practical, the following case of Sexual Incapacity in the Male, Medicale publishes the formula of a preparation called " eau hemostatique de Mon- consequent, as we conceive, upon constituterossi," consisting of not less than twenty- tional debility and general disorder of the five different ingredients, among which figure economy, corroborates, to a considerable ex. peppermint, pennyroyal, thyme, sage, rose- tent, the opinions we entertain upon this mary, teucrium marum, acorus, bistort root, pathological point. And let us here observe, tormentilla, logwood, cypress, sumach, oak- en passant, that the most useful, and, in all bark, agaric, pitch !This notable compound respects, satisfactory, mode of exemplifying
I.
"
is said to be
causes
avec
is, without doubt,
an universal styptic 11 employ6e succes contre toute espece d’hemor-
rhagie."—L’Experience.
in the unabstract science of medicine to give the phenomena which accompany them, which result from
pulse is quick, small, and
sometimes
irregu-
lar ; respiration is quickened; there is thirst; LIEBIG, loss of appetite; a white tongue ; nausea, HIS AND REVIEWERS. CHEMISTRY frequently vomiting; pain and weight at the BY epigastrium ; constipation, and high-coloured and scanty urine. The degrees of nervous HENRY ANCELL, Esq., depression are proportioned to the quantity Lecturer on Medical Jurisprudence at the and influence of the morbid poison. The sucSchool of Anatomy and Medicine, Grosvecession of symptoms, which I have just St. George’s Hospital; Surgeon nor-place, stated, may be regarded as those of the aveto the Western General Dispensary ; and rage power of the disease; but in some inAuthor of " Lectures on the Blood," stances the drowsiness proceeds to lethargy published in THE LANCET for 1839-40. and sometimes coma; and in children, particularly during teething, to convulsions. InNo. VII. deed, the prostration may be so extreme during this period as to be speedily fatal. Gelatine is Where the stomach is the principal seat ofr in the nutriment of the azotised substance the is and congestion unceasing, vomiting the tongue is red, first at the tip, and then the carnivora, and of other animals who live over its general surface. Sometimes the on a mixed diet, next in importance to albulungs are most severely affected, in which men, fibrine, and caseine; it enters largely case there are pains in the chest, oppression into the composition of jellies, soups, and
the principal constituent of employed as food, and occurlence of the febrile attack seems centered, ring in smaller quantities in many. Even and the patient suffers from anxiety, and muscular flesh contains a portion of gelatine tumultuous action of that viscus. All the belonging to the cellular membrane intersymptoms of invasion are augmented during spersed amongst its fibres ; it is obtained from the night. the’tendons, bones, and internal and external When the case is liliely to become one of tegumentary membranes of animals, and has . confluent small-pox, the above symptoms are been employed as a main article of susteelevated to their highest pitch of severity. nance for the poor in public institutions, for The vomiting is more troublesome ; the dys- the support of invalids, and for the recovery pnoea greater, and the nervous depression of health and strength during convalescence intense. The tongue and lips are dry, and from acute disease. Jelly has even been covered with sordes; the heat of skin is ex- relied upon for the nourishment of the whole cessive ; and there is sometimes diarrhoea. of the animal vitalised tissues, upon principles The approach of the period of eruption is certainly erroneous. Its properties, therefore, commonly announced by an augmentation of require to be well understood. the symptoms of invasion, to be immediately Gelatine was for some time regarded as a followed by the constitutional calm which of the action of water upon product attends the eruptive stage. The oppression the tissues from which it boiling is procured, an opiand languor cease; the nausea and vomiting nion entertained by Berzelius. More recently, are suspended ; the pulse becomes natural, the fact has been ascertained, that however, and all distress and pain are lulled. its peculiar chemical characteristics are The manner of appearance of the eruption, manifested by those tissues, both before as together with the diversity of characters well as after the process by which it is which it presents under different circum- obtained in a separate state. stances, would, in the present lecture, carry It has lately been shown that the tissues me beyond the limits assigned to me; I shall, classed together as gelatinous, conin next commence with the formerly therefore, my petain two somewhat allied substances, gelatine tiod of eruption.
of
breathing,
and troublesome
cough ;
and
fish, forming
at other times it is in the heart that the vio- some articles
THE SEAT
STRICTURE.-M.
in of stricture is not in the mucous membrane of the urethra, which, he says, is little, if at all, involved in its production; but in the thickening of the cellular coat external to that This fact, once established, membrane. would, as he states, show the malpractice of treating stricture by caustic applications, which could only enlarge the passage by the destruction of a healthy structure, and, of course, at the risk of setting up anew and a
recent
Or
memoir,
Civiale,
asserts that the
dangerous inflammation.
cause
I
and chondrine. The most striking circumstance connected with these substances is, that they differ entirely from the compounds of proteine; they contain no sulphur, no phosphorus, and either more nitrogen or less carbon, or different proportions of oxygen and hydrogen, by which a chemical distinction is clearly established; they do not even belong to the same series, and accordingly we must regard gelatine and chondrine, whether in reference to diet or to the constitution of the animal structures, as totally distinct, in a chemical point of view, from albumen and fibrin, the essential principles of the blood.
526
Gelatine. The formula
adopted by Liebig,
Scherer, is-
C48 H41 N7! 018’
satisfactory explanation why it is, that carnivorous animals soon die of starvafrom tion if limited to a gelatinous diet. Thus much of the gelatine of food and the nourish. most even
circumstances under which this substance must be formed from the compounds of proteine in the animal economy ; thus, oats, beans, wheat, &c., contain no gelatine
There
are
(Table 1.), although they frequently constitnte the entire food of certain herbivora. Liebig points out several ways in which, by comparing the formula given above, with that of albumen or proteine, the formation of gelatine may be conceived. I. Supposing the carbon to be a fixed quantity, albumen might become gelatine, bylthe separation of sulphur and phosphorus, with the addition of oxygen, of water, and of the elements of ammonia. If. Assuming the nitrogen to remain entire, albumen might become gelatine by the separation of the sulphur and phosphorus, and of carbon and hydrogen. This is regarded by Liebig as more probable than the former. HI. Gelatine might be produced by two atoms of proteine combining with the elements of a third atom of proteine from the metamorphosed tissues. IV. Three atoms of proteine might become gelatine, by the loss of the elements of a compound containing no nitrogen, which actually occurs as one of the products of the transformation of theI
ment of the gelatinous tissues. In the next place, as respects the lIIetamorphoses of the Gelatinous Tissues, Liebig believes that the change of matter pro. ceeds much slower than in the more vitalised parts, a position borne out by the fact, that in a starving individual the fat and muscular tissue having in great part disappeared, no perceptible alteration is found in the tendons and membranes. The gelatinous tissues, again, cannot give origin to exactly the same products as the albuminous structures. The probable modes of the formation of gelatine above cited, will lead to analogous conceptions of the nature of the products of its tissues, and these will be borne out by various interesting facts, as, for instance, the
formation of uric acid and urates in the cellular tissue of the skin and joints, which frequently occurs. It has to be remembered, also, that the formulaof flesh and blood (Table II.) must represent, together with fibrin and
minute in the absence of any facts which indicate the contrary, we may refer the products of these tissues, together with those of the compounds of proteine, to the bile and urine, as the channels of their choleic acid of bile. According to our author’s views, there is elimination. very little probability indeed that the gela- I, Chondrine. tinous tissues, membranes, tendons, and the This substance composes the cellular carlike, can form themsel ves out of heterogeneous tilages, as those of the ribs; it differs from materials brought to them from the blood. If muscular fibre and other vitalised tissues gelatine in containing less nitrogen and more its formula being require a substance identical in composition oxygen, with themselves for their nutrition, the non048 H40 Nd 020’ vitalised gelatine of bones and membranes It may be regarded as a compound of proalso requires a compound to be presented to teine, with two atoms of oxygen and four of it ready prepared for assimilation. Under water, and is much more likely to undergo many circumstances such a material must transformations similar to those of the probe formed in the organism, but the site of its tenised tissues than gelatine is, since by the formation is at present unknown. Liebig abstraction of a partof its oxygen it may be suggests the probability that gelatine takes resolved into choleic acid and urate of amits origin during the transformation of venous monia. into arterial blood. Although gelatine must be frequently Although, therefore, the compounds of formed in the animal body, and although it proteine must be formed into gelatine in the is totally incapable of nourishing the vitalised living system for the nourishment of the tissues, by no means is it to be rejected as a gelatinous tissues, the converse does not hold useless article of diet. Liebig remarks, that good. Gelatine, the most highly azotised no substance can be better fitted for the nouprinciple of food, is totally incapable of rishment of membranes and for the produc. forming proteine. We may be assured of tion of cells than the gelatine which exists this when we consider that notwithstanding, in animal food, and is taken in a soluble or becomes soluble in the stomach; undoubtedly, one compound of proteine may be converted into another, as, for instance, intimating that while fibrine and fibrine into albumen, and albumen into albumen nourish muscular and nervous fibrine and casein, yet we have no proof structures, gelatine, ready prepared, is assiwhatever, in any one case, of the vital force milated to the animal matter of bones and having, in animals, converted any azotised of the skin, cellular membrane, and gelatisubstance into proteine. Hence, gelatine is nous structures generally ; which circumincapable of nourishing the albuminous and stance may account for the fact that fibrinous structures, and we have in this a f D’Arcet found gelatine extremely useful as
albumen,
a
proportionate, although
quantity of gelatine ;
,
I
form, thereby
so
that,
527
valescence from acute diseases in which it is a great practical mistake to allow, even for a few days, gelatinous diet to constitute lescence. Nevertheless, animals, when fed on gela- the principal azotised food of the patient, the tine alone, die in about thirty days ; they consequence being frequently disturbance of gradually lose their vital force, their fat the digestive functions, and uniformly probecomes exhausted first, and then their mus- tracted debility. cular and albuminous structures waste : The consideration of the nutrition of carwhen at the point of starvation they may be easily and with certainty recovered by giving nivorous animals, strictly so called, has led them protenised food. Edwards and Balzac to the above remarks, for although my ob.are quoted as having found, that the addition ject in these papers is to investigate the prinof a very small quantity of meat to soup is ciples contained in Liebig’s work, and the sufficient to render the latter nutritive to foundation upon which they rest, it becomes dogs.* One-seventh part of soup made from scarcely possible to avoid altogether the inliorse-flesh, is said to have rendered gelatine troduction of observations bearing upon sufficiently nutritious, the effect being attri- practice. We proceed in the next place to buted to the sapid and odorous principles of examine the process of the meat; but we find that the soup emNutrition in the Herbivora, ployed in these experiments was made into a soft paste for use with bread. Aware, as which appears, at first sight, in animals we now are, of the’real nutritive properties living upon vegetables alone, to differ totally The digestive organs of of bread, our are opened in this in- from the former. stance to a fatally erroneous inference, the herbivora are more complex than those arising from the defects of our former know- of the carnivora, and the great mass of their ledge of the subject. Attendants on the food contains but little nitrogen. Yet expesick entertain very erroneous notions re- rience proves that they cannot live upon food destitute of nitrogen, and that the quantity specting the use off of food which they consume is in a great Jelly as an Article of Food. measure in an inverse ratto to the proportion If I have succeeded in placing this subject of nitrogenised principles which it contains, in a clear point of view before my profes- their blood being formed essentially from sional brethren, I believe that I shall have compounds of nitrogen identical with those furnished a valuable principle by which its which supply blood to carnivorous animals. It is especially ser- By a careful examination of Table I., A, B, use may be regulated. viceable in debilitated states of the system, C, it will be found that oats, peas, beans, where there is reason to believe that the and other seeds, contain vegetable albumen, power of forming gelatine is diminished, and gluten, and casein. All other substances it is then, in all probability, carried to the nutritive to animals contain these proximate gelatinous tissues ready prepared. But we principles, which are not only similar, but must bear in mind that alone it will never identical in composition with the essential serve for the repair of the fibrinous and albu- principles of the food of carnivora, and of minous tissues, nor for the regeneration of the blood of all animals, containing pre-the vital force necessary for carrying on the cisely the same proportions of sulphur, functions of life, when that force has been phosphorus, and phosphate of lime. Thus, reduced to a very low standard ; it has progreat truth is established, that the conbably a secondary use in the economy of the stituents of the blood of animals is produced sick, for those animal principles of the di- originally in the organism of vegetables. gestive fluid, to which the properties of fer- From this, also, it appears that the developments or solvents havee been ascribed, ment and growth of the animal organism is being products of membranes, gelatine may universally dependent on certain proximate promote the secretion of such principles, and principles employed as food, already formed thereby aid the process of digestion in its by the vital force, and identical with the chief various stages. When the object, therefore, constituents of the blood. " The developis to recruit the system, that is to say, to ment of the animal organism begins with promote the growth of structures which have those substances in the production of which been unduly wasted, and to augment the the life of an ordinary vegetable ends, and available vital force, the food prescribed the first substance capable of affording numay consist with great advantage of a pro- triment to animals is the last product of the portion of jelly, but if in some such cases creative energy of vegetables." The existence of the herbivora depend jelly alone were to be depended upon, even for a moderate period (I believe I may say throughout their lives not alone upon the comfor a few days), death would be the result. pounds of proteine presented tp ready, There is a point also in the treatment of con- formed, as constituents of their diet, the "plastic elements of autrition/’buf also The Physiology of Digestion. A. upon non-nitrpgeised ;"ub&bgr;taMes Combe, M.D., p. 247, 3rd edit. Liebig has called " elements of respiration."
part of the diet in hospitals, and that it materially abridged the period of conva-
a
eyes
the
"
’
them,
which.
528
These constitute four-fifths of their diet; upon oats and hay, phosphoric acid is rarely they are excessively rich in carbon and to be detected. In Thomson’s animal hydrogen, containing, with other matters, a Chemistry" I find it stated that the urine of large proportion of gum, starch, or sugar, the horse is alkaline, and contains no phosthe most abundant and widely extended of phate whatever. According to Fourcroy’s which is starch, and there is this remarkable and Vauquelin’s analysis. it contains only feature connected with them that they .07ths of urea. Chevreul could detect no closely resemble sugar of milk, a substance phosphate of lime in the urine of the camel. which enters largely into the diet prepared Liebig takes the deficiency or absence of the alkaline phosphates as an obvious indication by nature for the young of the carnivora. These vegetable principles which are con- of the slowness with which some, if not all, sumed in so large an amount by the herbi- the tissues in this class of animals are metavora, are also very closely allied to each morphosed. The diminished quantity of other in their chemical composition, and are urea, uric acid, and other compounds of ni. convertible into each other by very slight trogen, has the same signification. 3. The herbivora are prone to the productranspositions of atoms. Thus, starch becomes sugar by the simple addition of the tion of fat, and this leads us to a consideraelements of water. Liebig illustrates the tion of the interesting and important subject relations of these substances to each other in of the following manner, C representing carbon Tlae Fornaation nf Fat in Animals. and aq. water:== 12 C + 10 aq. Starch The production of fat in every part of the Cane-sugar -. 12 C + 10 aq. z- 1 aq. body in carnivorous animals is "utterly in= 12 C + 10 aq. + 1 aq. Gum significant ;" the flesh of wild animals of the Sugar of milk = 12 C + 10 aq. + 2 aq. herbivorous class being also devoid of fat. Grape-sugar = 12 C z- 10 aq. + 4 aq. The circumstances under which animals not For the same number of equivalents of otherwise fat become so, are very marked and carbon, starch contains 10 eq. of water, or of decided, and a consideration of them leads to its elements, and grape-sugar 14 equiva- a knowledge of the true origin of fat. Thus, lents. dogs and cats, originally camivOI’ae, have There are three very remarkable circum- their fat increased, under a mixed diet and i stances connected with the nutrition of her- comparatively little exercise, on becoming domesticated. Wecan increase the formation bivora. 1. The energy of their vegetative life, and of fat also at pleasure in other domestic aniaccordingly their capacity for increase of mals, but only by means of diet not contain’ mass is greater than in the carnivora ; the ing nitrogen. A pig fed with highly nitrolatter devour their prey only when urged by genised food becomes full of flesh ; when hunger, and their flesh always remains fed with potatos, consisting chiefly of starch, tough and sinewy. The sheep and cow eat it acquires little flesh, but a thick layer of almost without interruption, and they con- fat. A stall-fed cow furnishes milk not vert into organised tissue all the nutritive only rich in sugar, but also in butter. The parts of their food beyond the quantity reo milk of the cow in the meadow contains less quired for supplying waste. The excess of of the fatty material and more casein ; beer blood formed is converted into muscular and and farinaceous diet increase the proportion cellular tissue, and they become plump and of butter in the milk of the human female, fleshy ; but in herbivora habituated to much while an animal diet, although it diminishes muscular motion, as in the hare and stag, this the quantity of milk, renders it richer ill difference is not so marked. calcine. These are not only interesting considera2. Their food containing so small a proportion of the compounds of proteine, the tions, but highly practical also. We shall change of matter in their organised struc- now inquire into Liebig’s explanation of tures must be proportionately slower. them ; because, if we can arrive at a true Liebig states that this is ascertained to be theory upon this, as upon other subjects, we the facr, from a consideration of the compo- may reason from what is known absolutely sition of their urine. Assuming that this to what is unknown, and there is no valid fluid contains the products of the metamor- reason why we should not learn how to iuphosed tissues, by its comparison in the two fluence the nutrition of certain tissues in disclasses of animals, we find it indicated that eased states of the system, or in states the process of change of matter difiers both tending to, or verging upon, disease, as we have already ascertained how to control the in form and rapidity. Sulphates, phosphates, and urates, de- nutrition of the tissues in the lower animals rived from the albuminous and fibrinous tis- for special purposes. When the composition of the chief matesues are abundant in the acid urine of animals living upon flesh. Phosphates and rials of non-nitrogenised food, as, for insulphates occur in the smallest possible stance, starch and sugar, is compared with quantity in the alkaline urine of herbivorous that of various kinds of fat (Table II.), it animals. In the urine of the horse, living becomes obvious that they agree in contain. ,
529
ing the
same relative proportions of carbon qualities. Hay also is said to contain 2 per and hydrogen, and that they differ only in cent. of oil ; they suggest that animals derive their proportion of oxygen. From this it their fat, always ready prepared, from the follows that by the mere separation of a por- food on which they are fed; but animals tion of oxygen from sugar, starch, or gum, i may be fattened upon vegetable substances substances must be formed having exactly, which have not been shown to contain oil or or very nearly, the composition of fat. If, fat; and accordingly, although it should turn from the formula of starch out in the progress of discovery, that fat
ready prepared is frequently assimilated, C]2 1-1100;o, take nine equivalents of oxygen, there yet the opinion that it is always so is by far remains very nearly the empirical formula too exclusive. These facts by no means controvert Liebig’s reasonings. The jelly of of fat, calve’s feet is not derived ready prepared O. Cu HIO from the milk of the cow, as may be seen by The difference being only one equivalent of the analytical tables, still it is examining in an starch so that of equivalent carbon ; consistent with Liebig’s views, that jelly an must lose order to be converted into fat taken as food may contribute to the nourishequivalent of carbonic acid CO2, and sevenI ment of the gelatinous tissues. The latter eq. of oxygen. circumstance does not alter our view respectSince the herbs, roots, barley, potatos, ing the essential nature of the chemical pro&c., which constitute the food of cows, 1 cess by which gelatine is formed. In the and contain no swine, geese, frequently I same way fat must be frequently formed in and for the most part, as far as existing anathe animal system, but it may happen also lyses have determined, do not contain suffi- that a diet of oil and fat contributes directly cieut to account for the masses which accuto the accumulation of fat. The latter cirmulate in the bodies of these animals, a certhe fact that tain quantity of oxygen must, in some way cumstance does not controvert must be extricated in the conversion or other, be separated from the constituents oxygen of their food to form this material. Liebig of fibrine, starch, or sugar into fat, even it might have some significance as represents the proportion of carbon to oxygen although to the relation which may subsist between in various proximate principles of vegetable respiration and the formation of fat, and some food as follows :of the uses of fat in the animal economy. A very curious fact is recorded by Dr. G. 0. Rees.* A donkey having been destroyed seven hours after a full meal of oats and beans, the chyle was collected from the mesenteric vessels, and examined chemically; it contained 3.6 per cent. of fatty matter. What was the origin of this? According to the analyses of these vegetables they contain no oil or fatty matter. Are the analyses deWhile bodies contain on an fective, or is the fatty matter the result of for one hundred and twenty equivalents of the admixture of bile,-a metamorphosis of carbon, only ten equivalents of oxygen, So atoms in the alimentary canal ? The fact is that if we suppose fat to be formed in the consistent with Liebig’s theory. animal organism, from the compounds of Liebig remarks, that there is only one way proteine, or from starch, sugar, or gum, 26, in which the formation of fat can take place or 90, or 100, or 110 equivalents respectively in the animal body, which is precisely the of oxygen, must be separated from the ele- same as that by which oil is formed in plants, ments of these substances during the pro- viz., by a separation of oxygen from the elecess. ments of the food. He brings forward a According to this view, the system, or some most beautiful analogical argument in favour part of it, is capable of deriving oxygen from of his views from the economy of the bee. the food during the formation of fat, as it By recurring to Table II. (p. 391) it will be derives oxygen from the air in respiration ; a seen that wax corresponds very closely in circumstance which has led Liebig to inves- elementary composition with fat, its formula tigate the relation which subsists between being C20 H2o 0, the process of respiration and the formation The bee produces its wax from honey of fat in the animal body. under circumstances very similar to the forAt a meeting of the Academy of Sciences mation of fat in herbivorous animals. The in Paris in October last, Messrs. Dumas and honey being given as food, is taken into the Payen stated that cattle, when fattening, stomach and digested ; one portion passes always contains less fat than the elements off as excrement, and another is absorbed, which they have consumed, an opinion de- and received into the fluids of the insect; it rived from the circumstance that these che* mists have found a considerable quantity of Cyclop. of Anatomy and Physiol., art. oil in maize, a seed possessing high fattening Lymphatic System. we
oxen, fat,
all fatty
average,
530
is then secreted between the scales of the abdominal rings, not as honey but as wax. Honey alone is necessary for the’ formation and secretion of wax, which takes place in about forty hours, and it is only when bees receive more honey than is required for nutrition, that wax is produced. As in the case of the formation of fat from sugar, starch, gelatine, or albumen, oxygen must be given off in the ecomony of the insect during the formation of wax from honey.
constituents of food must always be attended with the extrication of oxygen. These facts and their explanation we see are independent of the question whether the fat be introduced ready prepared or formed in the economy. In either case there is an excess of hydro-carbon, and particularly of carbon, deposited in the structures of an animal. In the healthy condition of an ox, or a horse, as to food and exercise, the urine contains benzoic acid with 14 equivalents of carbon, but as soon as the animal Not alone the process by which fat is pro- is kept quiet in the stable, the urine contains duced, but the circumstances also under hippuric acid with 18 equivalents of carbon. which it is formed, claim attention. The Thus, we see an eHbrt in the system to get most obvious and the most remarkable of rid of the excess of carbon; yet it is only a these is, that an excess of carbon in the diet small of that excess which can be proportion is a condition favourable to its deposition. expelled by the secretions, the remainder But in the stag and hare, animals living on being employed in the production of fat. a carbonaceous diet, who take a great deal it seems to be manifest from these Finally, of exercise, and accordingly absorb a great that the accumulation of fat considerations, deal of oxygen, we find little or no fat ; the is the result of a want of due proportion reason being, that the oxygen absorbed between the amount of non-nitrogenised during respiration suffices to combine with food received by the stomach, and of the all the carbon and hydrogen of their food oxygen absorbed by the skin and lungs. not employed in the nutrition of their tissues. We have thus examined the more simple When the carbon of the food, and the oxygen form of nutrition in the carnivora, and we absorbed by the skin and lungs, are in due find the same in the herbivora. We process proportion, no fat is produced. But if with have considered several important modificaan excess of carbon a diminished supply of tions in the economy of animals of the latter oxygen occurs, a condition which may be class; but the use of the uon-nitrogenised called abnormal, then an increase of the principles which enter so largely into the body takes place, from an increase of sub- composition of their food, the production of stances containing much carbon and no nibile, according to Liebig, with the evolution trogen, that is to say, of fat. Thus, in the of animal heat, remain to be investigated. process of fattening animals, far more food is The following essential circumstance must gilen than the wants of the system require; not be omitted in this place. The they are made to repose for digestion only ; Nutrition of the Young of Carnirora, want of exercise brings a deficient supply of oxygen ; the hydro-carbonaceous materials which is effected by means of a fluid, the cannot be converted into carbonic acid gas milk, secreted from the blood of the mother, aud water, and accordingly they are depo- is strictly analogous to that of the herbivora sited in the form of fat. If the fattened ani- throughout their lives. mal be allowed to take more exercise the fat Milk contains a plastic element of nutriagain disappears. The production of fat in tion, caseine, which nourishes the cellular the animal tissues is thus always the conse- tissue, muscular fibre, nervous structure, and quence of a deficient supply of oxygen. bones. It also contains non-nitrogenised Hence it is that people of great activity, principles, " elements of respiration" in the breathing a pure air, whatever their diet, forms of butter and sugar of milk. have generally but a small proportion of fat, The caseine is distinguished from fibrin while the inmates of prisons and workhouses,chiefly by its great solubility ; no foreign living upon poor diet, but taking very little substance is required to convert it into blood. exercise, frequently become puffy and fat, It contains a larger proportion of the earthy and that the same thing occurs in sedentary matter of bones than blood does, and that in a females. very soluble form; so that we find in the carniA large proportion of oxygen being re- vora at this early period, as well as throughceived into the system as compared with the out life, the development of the vital tissues quantity of food ingested, prevents the depo- depends on the supply of substances idensition of fat by combining with the super- tical with the chief constituents of their fluous carbon and hydrogen. Conversely, blood. As to the butter and sugar of milk, they the absorption of a small proportion of oxygen, as compared with the amount of the contain no soda, potassa, or fixed bases. The ingesta, particularly of non-nitrogenised sugar is closely allied to starch, gum, and substances, favours the deposition of fat. vegetable sugar, all of which contain hydroThis principle applies whether the fat is in- gen and oxygen in the proportion to form troduced ready prepared.into, or is formed in water, with an excess of carbon. There is the system. The formation of fat from the added, therefore, to the nitrogenised consti.
531
food, carbon, and in the case of MISCELLANEOUS hydrogen. These sub- CONTRIBUTIONS TO PATHOLOGY stances cannot possibly be employed in the AND THERAPEUTICS, production of the essential constituents of blood, because the caseine contains exactly the By JAMES RICHARD SMYTH, M.D., London. amount of carbon required for that purpose.
tuents of the
butter,
carbon and
Notwithstanding this, they for the most part IMPOTENCE AND STERILITY. disappear from the economy ; they cannot IN a paper in THE LANCET of August the be detected in the feaces or in the secretions, but, except so far as they form fat, they are 28th, 1841, we stated that in the great demonstrably given out from the lungs and majority of cases, in either sex, the causes skin in the forms of carbonic acid gas and of impotence and sterility would be found, water. Fat itself is ultimately disposed of on careful investigation, to consist in some in the same way. Thus, whatever meta- lesion involving the constitution and genemorphoses the non-nitrogenised principles of ral health of the individual ; of which, food may undergo in their progress through there certainly can be little doubt. And the system, they are ultimately destined to the circumstance is easily understood by combine with oxygen. This fact is of the simply bearing in mind that the reproducutmost significance as respects the uses of tive system of the animal, like the flower these nou-nitrogenised substances, not only of the plant or tree, to which it is analogous, in the young of the carnivora, but in the is wholly dependent for its primitive evoluheibivora throughout their lives, as well as tion, and subsequent vitality and vigour, in reference to the mixed, and for the most upon the perfect development and continuous part highly complicated diet of the human healthy condition of the general system and circulation; and as canker, or defect, of the species. root, or stem (the parts which compose the vegetable constitution) of the plant inevi. BELLADONNA IN PI3THISIS.-M. Delhaye tably causes its flower to fade and its seed appears to have derived the most signal and fruit to wither and fall, so also does advantage from the use of belladonna in disease, or any circumstance which impairs tubercular phthisis and the tedious nervous the general powers of the constitution of the i cough which is so often the precursor of I animal, debilitate for a longer or shorter the He administers powdered time, or altogether destroy, the energies and consumption. root in a quantity varying from half a grain functions of the reproductive organs. Of to a grain, in one or more doses, during the this truth, if necessary, numerous illustratwenty-four hours. Where irritability of the tions might be adduced. stomach exists, however, he prefers the exLet us, by the way, here further notice Of the how very opposite, in the two systems of tract or tincture of belladonna. former he gives about the same quantity as animals and vegetables, are the positions of the powdered root, and of the latter, from which Nature has assigned to the sexual twenty to thirty drops during a like period. organs. The fact is, unquestionably, not a He says, also, that the tincture is one of the little remarkable. In the one, namely, the best palliatives of the diarrhoea that super- animal, we see these organs, with undeBut viating carefulness, and for reasons better venes in the latter stages of phthisis. at all times he regards, as an indispensable known to Nature herself, removed from the condition for the employment of this medicine, site of immediate observation, and placed in that the stomach should be in a tolerably partial cover and concealment; while in the healthy state, a decided contra-indication of other an arrangement altogether the reverse the use of belladonna being the presence of obtains. The flower, or efflorescence (as it gastro-enteritis, so usual a concomitant of is termed in botanical language), of the plant, chronic disease of the lungs.—Archives de which constitutes its reproductive organisala Med. Belge. tion, occupies, not only the most conspicuous INGREDIENTS BY THE BUSHEL.-It would part of the vegetable body, but is also with forms and colours the most seem that the days of mithridate, and such invested and attractive. But to be more beautiful like farragos, are not yet gone by, at least on the continent. The 11 Journal de Chimie practical, the following case of Sexual Incapacity in the Male, Medicale publishes the formula of a preparation called " eau hemostatique de Mon- consequent, as we conceive, upon constituterossi," consisting of not less than twenty- tional debility and general disorder of the five different ingredients, among which figure economy, corroborates, to a considerable ex. peppermint, pennyroyal, thyme, sage, rose- tent, the opinions we entertain upon this mary, teucrium marum, acorus, bistort root, pathological point. And let us here observe, tormentilla, logwood, cypress, sumach, oak- en passant, that the most useful, and, in all bark, agaric, pitch !This notable compound respects, satisfactory, mode of exemplifying
I.
"
is said to be
causes
avec
is, without doubt,
an universal styptic 11 employ6e succes contre toute espece d’hemor-
rhagie."—L’Experience.
in the unabstract science of medicine to give the phenomena which accompany them, which result from