Boston Medical and Surgical Journal Volume 72-73 (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1865 edition. Excerpt: ...of disease where elimination of urea is retarded it is found abundantly in the muscles. Thus, in cholera, especially in the muscles which have been severely cramped, urea is detected with ease. In this disease there is a small amount of chloride of sodium in the blood, and its solvent action on the urea is thus reduced. In anaemia, also, it can readily be extracted from muscular substance. From the considerations entered into, it must be held that Liebig was amply justified in viewing the non-nitrogenous portions of food as mere heat-givers. They never can act vicariously for albuminous bodies as tissue-formers, although tissues may and do evolve heat by transformation when required to do so. That heat-givers do operate indirectly on the waste of tissues cannot be questioned. They facilitate transformation by keeping up animal heat and by promotion of the circulation. Cold-blooded reptiles become more active when artificial warmth is supplied to them, and conversely warm-blooded mammals become more sluggish when the heat of their bodies falls, as during hybernation. Such dependencies of different groups of food, acting co-ordinately, are incessantly found, but nevertheless each group has its own specific work to perform. There cannot be longer any question that all the nitrogen of the in-gesta is to be found again in the urine and faeces. When a large amount of animal diet is the chief source of food, exercise becomes a necessity.in order to waste the tissues for the support of respiration and other vital movements; without it the animal soon loathes the food. This is the experience not only of carnivora, but also of man. Darwin tells us that when in the Pampas he lived tolerably well on a meat diet, " but felt that it would only agree...