Manual of human physiology for students : being a condensation of the subject, a conservation of the matter and a record of facts and principles up to the present day ... / by John Morford Cottle.

  • Cottle, John Morford.
Date:
1851
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Manual of human physiology for students : being a condensation of the subject, a conservation of the matter and a record of facts and principles up to the present day ... / by John Morford Cottle. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    posed; and this would be the case in our analogy, by multiply- ing the number of the angular bodies ; for it is easy to imagine, that by crowding more of the angular bodies together than are sufficient to form the cube, they will not be held so firmly ; and when their components are put in motion, they are likely to reunite in pairs, and form the cube. A peroxide, therefore, is more easily decomposed, and on such being the case, it takes the form of a protoxide, or our imaginary cube. To continue the analogy, all organic bricks are composed of the angular bodies just described; the principal difference between them is the number and arrangement of the angular components. That of albumine, or rather proteine, according to Scherer, contains 114 of these bodies; they are neither fitted together in cubes, nor the double cubes, after the manner of inorganic bodies, but come together, we will suppose, with their angles projecting against each other, like the particles of broken stone in concrete; not accidentally jumbled together, but definitely ar- ranged, and in such exact and. propor- tionate precision that if one angular component is disturbed, the symmetry of the whole brick (compound atom) is disarranged, and its structure loosens and crumbles to pieces (decay's). There are several circumstances which operate to bring about the dissolution of the organic brick : 12 out of the 114 angular bodies (the nitrogen) of which it is composed, have weak adhering powers for holding the matter, by wliich they are cemented together ; and it is so in whatever structure they enter, whether organic or inorganic, A reference to the chemical history of nitrogen will show its low affinities for oxygen and hydrogen, and how slightly it is held in union with oxygen in nitrate of potass, and with hydrogen ni amrnoniacal salts. Moisture is also well known to produce the decay of organic compounds, or, in other words, to loosen the angular com-ponents ; and the soft animal tissues are composed of at least two-thirds of water; and, lastly, the contact of atmospheric air. These physical conditions, especially when The fourth part of an atom of Albumine.