Experimental researches on the physiological and therapeutic action of phosphate of lime / by L. Dusart.

  • Dusart, Lucien O.
Date:
1885
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Experimental researches on the physiological and therapeutic action of phosphate of lime / by L. Dusart. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    vegetables, had already brought this fact to notice in 1S56 in the following terms : “ In removing by a re- active the azotised matter of plants, we remove at the same time all the phosphates which have an existence independent of the organs, and circulate to contribute to the development of phenomena of a higher order.” But the vegetables do not contain in all their parts, or at all periods of their existence, the same quantity of ligneous and azotised substances; during the entire duration of their evolution, the azotised matter and the phosphate displace themselves continually; after having presided over the formation of new tissues, they follow an ascending march, to arrive, in concen- trating themselves in it, at the grain, object and ultimate end of vegetation. “The leaf of a tree,” says De Saussure, “always contains ashes more loaded with earthy phosphates in leaving the bud, than at any subsequent period.” More recently, Garreau notices the same fact in terms nearly identical: “ The ashes of the axes and of the young leaves of the buds are rich in phosphates ; the herbaceous stalks, on the contrary, after the maturation of the grain, furnish ashes which contain but feeble proportions of them.” Thus it will be clearly seen from the above observa- tions that wherever there is an organ in process of formation or of development, analysis has found in it an accumulation of phosphates and of azotised matter. We have said that the movement of these sub- stances in the vegetables is an ascending movement, that they successively leave the organs once formed to concentrate themselves definitely in the parts whose