ON SOME ANIMAL SUBSTANCES ALLIED TO ALBUMEN.

213 may also be united, if necessary, with purgatives, such as the pure fibrin, was found to have the following composition with extracts of rhubarb, aloes, or colocynth, with scammony, the three species of fish, when burned with chromate of lead. &c., and sometimes, most beneficially, with the extract of colchicum.

Meanwhile much attention must be given to the state of the urine, and the action of the skin. The condition of the urine is a matter of much importance. It must be our care to detect and re-adjust any departure from the normal equilibrium of that important excretion, any excess or deficiency of its constituents. In general, it may be remarked that morbid stomachic secretions are more often associated with and is obvious, therefore, that fibrin can be obtained with dependent on a deficiency of some of the constituents of the theItgreatest facility, and of the purest form, from fish. urine, than with excess of these. Can a substance be obtained from albznnen &c. free from 2. When heartburn is attended with a red tongue, thirst, these kinds of fibrin, sulphur could be pain at the epigastrium, and a distinct sensation ofcoolness in sulphur?—In all of the stomach, on cold fluids being swallowed-circumstances readily detected, nor was it found possible, by any of the which have been hitherto described, to obtain, either indicating hyperæmia and erythema of the mucous membrane methods - solutions of the acetate of ammonia, nitrate of potass, borax, from fibrinous matter, or from albuminous substances, a and even dilutions of the acetic, tartaric, and sulphuric acids, simpler body destitute of sulphur. The analyses of the milk, Seltzer water, iced drinks, lemonade, detailed in a previous part of the report, afforded excellent are to be employed. of testing the accuracy of the idea, supported and grapes, ripe apples pears, &c., may also be used as ordinary opportunities drink and food. by some continental chemists, that a substance can be ob3. That species of heartburn which is a mere variety of tained by the action of potash upon albuminous substances, contains no sulphur. On repeating the experiments gastrodynia, and is accompanied with no derangement of se- that have been detailed in books, upon a considerable scale, cretion, no hyperaemia. or tumidity of the mucous membrane, is best treated with pills of the tris-nitrate of bismuth and with casein or curd of milk, which were carefully conducted Parry, Esq., late of H. M.’s4th Regiment, it was hyoscyamus, nitrate of silver and conium, oxide of zinc and by Williamfound that the resulting product contained sulphur. extract of chamomile. To these may be conjoined draughts uniformly of the infusions of orange peel, of taraxacum, and of gentian. By this statement, certainly, it is not meant to infer that such a substance may not exist; but only that the writer has Bentinck-street, Manchester-square. not been able to procure such a substance as protein by following most scrupulously the directions supplied by its original describer, and those who have copied his descriptions. His ON SOME ANIMAL SUBSTANCES ALLIED TO scepticism on this subject originated some years ago, when ALBUMEN. engaged with researches on the brain, (an abstract only of BY ROBERT D. THOMSON, M.D., Lecturer on Practical which has been published in Liebig’s edition of Geiger’s " Chemistry in the University of Glasgow. Pharmacie.") The process of analysis for this intricate THis paper was written for a Government Report, detailing combination consisted in dissolving the albuminous part of the results of an extensive series of experiments made on the the nervous system in dilute caustic potash-a reagent which influence of different kinds of food in feeding cattle, during produces no soluble influence on the peculiar matter of the the course of 184-5. The report was drawn up last year, and brain, but combines with it, forming an insoluble salt. The was printed, by order of Parliament, in April last. In potash solution, on being withdrawn from the insoluble reference to the reducing powers of the animal system, it is matters, yielded, by neutralization with acetic acid, a substance to have been protein, because it was procured by remarked, that " there is only one instance with which physio- which ought the same process as that which has been described precisely are at present acquainted that could be adduced as logists evidence in favour of any substance being rendered more as the best for procuring that substance. But on dissolving after washing in potash, adding acetate of lead, and boiling, complex in the animal system-viz., the production of fibrin or it it gave an abundant black precipitate, indicating the presence flesh from curd or casein. So far as chemical experiments of sulphur. This experiment was shown to Professor Liebig in a we are not to affirm that no fibrin condition us, carry exists in milk; but it must be admitted, that none has as yet by the writer at the time, (1842,) and it is believed that that been detected. If these be correct, then it would appear to distinguished chemist considers the existence of protein follow, that the infant fed on milk must derive its flesh from problematical. PEGMIN. the curd of that fluid, and that as curd contains no phosphorus, while fibrin does, the curd of the milk, in order to form musAbout the same period, (four years ago,) the writer exacular fibre, is united to phosphorus in the animal system, mined a product of disease usually known under the name of and is thus built up, instead of being, as is the rule with other the buffy coat of the blood-a coating of a buff colour, which substances, reduced to a smaller number of elements. The usually exhibits itself on the surface of inflamed blood, and objection to this view of the subject is, that the experiments which has attracted much of the attention of writers upon which have been made on fibrin do not provethat it contains pathological subjects. He found it to be a distinct body, and phosphorus; they only prove that phosphoric acid can be de- he has been in the habit of describing it in his lectures under tected in it even when it is purified in the most careful manner the name of pegmin, (from a, coagulum.) It partially but may be suggested by our chemical knowledge, and it would therefore dissolves by long-continued boiling in be somewhat premature to adopt any such analogy as that washed in cold water, like fibrin, .without undergoing any which we have been considering." decomposition. It therefore possesses an equal right, with In support of the view first suggested by Deccaria, and ad- fibrin, to the character of a body, sui generis, or, at least, of a vocated in recent times by Prout, that the animal system distinct modification of fibrin. When dissolved in potash, and precipitated with acetate of merely modifies the substances which it employs as food, and does not produce them from its elements, a series of expe- lead, and the liquid is boiled, a black precipitate of sulphuret riments, made by the writer four years ago, may be quoted,, of lead falls. The following are the results of analyses of hitherto unpublished, which demonstrate that, in the ocean as this substance made in 1842, and which the writer has been on land, the higher subsist on the lower animals, because the in the habit of quoting in his lectures:latter consist of the same materials of which the higher sys1. PEG:lIIN COXTAIXIXG FAT. tems are composed. Without the lower animals, therefore, The first specimen was prepared by simply washing the it is obvious the larger animals could not exist, and hence we’ may infer that the inferior organizations first peopled the buffy coagulum with repeated additions of cold water. It earth-an argument opposed to the idea of some geologists, was taken from a patient affected with a violent attack of that animals havenot been developed in succession. As it is pleuritis. It is obvious, from the analysis, that it contained a well known that oysters serve as food for larger fishes, and considerable amount of fatty matter. these again for more powerful species, experiments were made to determine the composition of oysters, herrings, and haddocks, as it is highly probable that these prey on each other. Portions of the fishes were well washed in water, till the oil and soluble matters were removed ; the white residue was then treated with alcohol, and repeated digestions in ether. The resulting matter, which was considered to be

which

=

water ;

.

’

1

214

Liebig has suggested, with great plausibility, to the writer? that this beautiful substance may be an altered form of blood-an idea which receives some support from the fact, thatt when pyropin is incinerated, it leaves 0’52 per cent. of a reddish ash; a fact perhaps not sufficiently conclusive. When pyropin is boiled in water, the liquid is not precipitated by infusion of nut-galls, a proof that it contains no gelatin or glue; neither is it precipitated by acetate of lead. The colour of pyropin is not altered by this treatment, with the exception that a few scanty flocks of membranous-looking matter floated about. When broken into coarse powder it has a rich ruby colour; in fine powder it is brown. A scanty portion of it dissolved in hot alcohol, and was deposited, on cooling, in the form of ferruginous flocks. The following formula would probably represent the relations of the preceding bodies to each other. They must be considered as mere possible representations of their composition, calculated to exhibit the differences in reference to their increasing amount of oxygen:-

These analyses were communicated to Professor Liebig years ago, and published by him in his edition of Geger’s Pharmacie," with the omission only of the nitrogen, which had not then been determined.

some "

INSTANCE OF

DISEASE CONTRACTED FROM A NURSED CHILD: WITH A FEW REMARKS ON THE QUESTION—

"IS SECONDARY SYPHILIS CONTAGIOUS?" BY JOHN C.

In these formulæ pyropin is represented as differing from fibrin in containing no sulphur; and pegmin from the preceding bodies by the presence of an additional quantity of oxygen. The calculated composition of these substances would then be—

EGAN, M.D.,

FELLOW OF THE ROYAL COLLEGE OF SURGEONS, IRELAND; ONE OF THE SURGEONS TO THE WESTHORELAND LOCK HOSPITAL.

IN the second number of the Dublin Quarterly Journal of Medical S’cience, for May last, I published some observations on the subject of syphilis as contracted from nursed children, and adduced cases illustrative of the views put forward in that paper. Since

committing these remarks to the press, the following example came under my notice; and as it bears directly on the question which has recently attracted so much interest,

and which has been of late so often canvassed in your journal, I trust you will not consider it undeserving of a place in the columns of THE LANCET. The increased amount of oxygen in pegmin may be exMary S--, aged forty-eight, married, and mother of five children; of strictly temperate habits; her husband a plained by the circumstance that in the inflammatory action healthy man of excellent character; admitted into the Westmoreland is of a more carried on, and, consequence, respiration rapidly Hospital,April 3rd, 1846; states, that about October last, greater quantity of oxygen is introduced into the system than Lock in the healthy condition of the system. In all cases of coagu- she first took charge of her daughter’s child, (then one year lation of blood, in contact with oxygen, there is observable a and a half old,) to dry nurse. At this period, there were at the verge of the anus of the infant, the mucous memlight-coloured portion, situated on the surface of the coagulum, sores of the lips was inclined to peel off, and the tongue was affording a proximate illustration of the production of the brane the seat of small white blisters. Shortly after birth, an erupIt is that the coat. fibrinous buffy highly probable, however, and albuminous class of substances may vary somewhat in the tionpresentedon its body,which had been alternately declining amount of the oxygen they contain, either from the process and reappearing up to the date of her attendance on it. She employed in preparing them, or from the state of the animal ’, likewise states,that she was constantly in the habit of kissing the from which they are extracted, more especially from the blood.’, child during the time its mouth was affected, and more than The mother once applied her lips to the sores on the anus. II. PURE PEGMIN. contracted disease from her husband a few months after marAnother specimen, procured from a different patient, also riage, (now six years,) which appeared in sores on the labia 3ffected with an attack of inflammation of the membrane of pudendi. Since then, she has borne five children: the first the lungs, was treated with cold water, alcohol, and ether, to lived a year and a half, when it died, extremely attenuated remove all the fatty and oily matters mixed with it. When from repeated attacks of the disease; the subsequent children, burned with chromate of lead, the following result was ob- with the exception of the present, were all premature and tained:still-born. About the latter end of December last, the nurse perceived, for the first time, blisters on her tongue, with a fissured state of the lips, which disappeared in the course of six weeks without having recourse to any mode of treatment. During this period she describes herself as "very dead in spirits," and an unaccountable oppression over her. In a month after the tongue and lips had healed, she was attacked with an inveterate itching of the vulvæ, which was succeeded by elevated (condy100 lomatous) sores. At this stage, she appears to have underan irregular and imperfect course of mercury; the sores The same substance is met with in the superior animals, gone healed notwithstanding, but inflammation of the right eye especially in the horse, although not, it is believed, in the quickly ensued. She was again subjected to mercurial treathealthy state of that animal, as has been asserted, but in a ment, ptyalism supervened, and the eye regained its former condition of the animal similar to that in which it appears in condition. She now remained free from disease for healthy the human subject suffering under inflammation. about a fortnight, when within the last ten days the left eye was similarly attacked, and for which she was admitted into PYROPIN. The only body which bears any resemblance in composition hospital. On examination, the external structure of the eye to the so-called protein, is a beautiful substance, which is presents a deep scarlet-red colour; the pupil is irregular and found occasionally in the tusk of the elephant, occupying the indistinct, and surrounded by whitish tubercles; the memhollow portion of the interior of that part of the animal, or the brane of the aqueous humour is semi-opaque, giving the appearance of turbidness to that fluid; she complains of extreme position of the pulp from which it may be derived. It pos-intolerance of light, and intense pain in the supra-orbital sesses a fine ruby colour, and is sometimes tough, but when of the finest hue is brittle. Sections of it exhibit occasional region; cannot clearly distinguish any object; never had any traces of the remains of organization. It is insoluble in water, form of eruption.* Local depletion was resorted to; pills of calomel and opium and thus differs from glue or gelatin, to which it has some affinities in its physical aspect. The writer has not been able were prescribed, with the external use of extract of bellato satisfy himself that it contains no sulphur, in consequence * The papular, as has been observed by Mr. Carmichael, is the most of its difficult solubility in caustic potash. The composition usual form of eruption in these cases, and my experience fully corroborates of pyropin, by two analyses, is as follows-.the truth of that remark.