Annals of medicine for the year Author:Andrew Duncan Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: III. Syjleme de Connaiffances Cbymiques, ft kurs Application aux Pbenomenes de la Nature et de VArt. Par A. F. Fourcroy. X. Tomes. 8z)0. Paris. An g. CFoti... more »RCRor has dedicated the two laft volumes of his extenfive work to the analyfis of the Animal Kingdom ; and as they afford by much the moft complete view of that fubje'ct, which has ever been publifhed, we fhall here attempt an accurate account of his details. After noticing briefly the ftructure of animals, their functions, and the hiftory of animal chemiftry, he proceeds to mention the general refults obtained by the modern experiments on animal compounds. The alterabi- lity of animal matters is fufficiently accounted for by the addition of azot, made by the power of life, to the three primary conftitu- F 2 ' entsents of vegetable alimentary matters, carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen. It depends upon the multiplication of attractions, by the increafed number of principles. When deprived of the azot, which rendered their compofition more complicated, efpecially by the action of the nitric acid, they again return to the vegetable ftate which they had previous to their animalization. The complication in the compofition of animal fubftances, does not depend folely on the addition of azot, but alfo on that of fulphur and phofphorus; which fubftances, combined with carbon and hvdrogen, are the fources of all the fetid gafes, evolved during the decom- pofition of animal matters. The abundance of the phofphats is one of the moft ftriking differences between the compofition of animal and vegetable matters. Animal matters contain more hydrogen, and lefs carbon ; more fulphur and phofphorus, and more phofphats, with different ba- fes, than vegetable fubftances do; fo that their difference does not confift entirely in the ...« less