The chemical and physiological balance of organic nature : an essay / by J. Dumas and J.B. Boussingault ; edited by D.P. Gardner.

  • Dumas, J.-B. (Jean-Baptiste), 1800-1884.
Date:
1844
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The chemical and physiological balance of organic nature : an essay / by J. Dumas and J.B. Boussingault ; edited by D.P. Gardner. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

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    elements of modern chemistry, organic nature made use of but three or four ; that of those vegetable and animal substances which are now multiplied almost to infinity, general physiology requires no more than some ten or twelve species; and that all the phenomena of life, so complex in appear- ance, may be referred in their essence to a single general formula, so simple, that in a few words everything seems stated, everything having been recalled to mind, every thing foreseen. Have we not, in fact, found, by a multitude of results, that an animal, in a chemical point of view, constitutes a true apparatus of combustion, by which carbonaceous matters, burnt incessantly, are returned to the atmosphere in the shape of carbonic acid ; in which hydrogen, burnt incessantly, is re- turned as water; whence, in fine, free azote is ceaselessly exhaled in the breath, and, in the state of oxide of ammonium, is thrown off in the urine 1 From the animal kingdom, therefore, as a whole, carbonic acid, watery vapor, and azote or oxide of ammonium, are continually escaping,—simple substances, and few in number, the formation of which is intimately connected with the history of the atmosphere itself. Have we not, on the other hand, found that ve- getables, in their natural and healthy state, decom- pose carbonic acid incessantly, fixing the carbon