The Chemical and Physiological Balance of Organic Nature; An Essay (Paperback)

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: iopment of the grand principles which we have announced ; finally, that it would be advantageous to you in your future studies, to have in writing, and in precise terms, the expression of views which have been engendered in part under the stimulus of your regards, and therefore presented with the hesitation which so frequently accompanies the first cast of our thoughts. Inasmuch as all the phenomena of life are carried on upon substances having for their basis carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, and oxygen; inasmuch as these substances pass from the animal to the vegetable kingdom, through intermediate forms?car- .bonic acid, water, and oxide of ammonium; since, in fine, the air is the source whence the vegetable world is nourished, is the reservoir within whose bosom the animal world is annihilated, we are naturally led to study these different bodies from the particular point of view of general physiology. Composition of Water (1).?Water is incessantly formed and decomposed in the bodies of animals and vegetables. With a view to the due appreciation of what is to follow, let us inquire into its composition. Direct experiments,?the combustion of hydrogen in oxygen gas,?in which I have produced more than a quart of artificial water, render it extremely probable that water js composed by weight, of 1 part Hydrogen, and 8 parts Oxygen, and that these simple and round numbers express the prime relations in which these two elements combine to constitute water. As substances are always represented in the eyes of the chemist by atoms or molecules, as he always seeks to connect in thought, with every substance, the weight of its atom, the simplicity of the relation just stated is not without importance. Each atom of water, in fact, being a compound of one atom of hydrogen and one...