A digest of metabolism experiments in which the balance of income and outgo was determined / by W.O. Atwater and C.F. Langworthy.

  • Atwater, W. O. (Wilbur Olin), 1844-1907
Date:
1898
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A digest of metabolism experiments in which the balance of income and outgo was determined / by W.O. Atwater and C.F. Langworthy. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    both the liquid and solid substances composing it to rub against each other until they were worn out and divided into minute i)articles. The licpiid ])articles were then eliminated in the urine, through the lungs skin, etc., and the solid matter was Qliminated in the feces. The loss ot material was made good by the food consumed. This and other mechanical theories were entertained for many years. The fact that the body loses considerable material through tlie skin and lungs was very early recognized. In 1G14 Sanctorius' measured the amount of material thus excreted iii a large number of cases iu health and disease. Ilis method was as follows: The subject was weighed at the begiuniug of the experimental period, and from the weight of the body plus the weight of the food and drink consumed was subtracted the weight of the body at the end of the period plus the weight of the urine and feces excreted, lie recognized the fact that the insensible ])erspiration includes the respiratory products as well as the material excreted through the skin. In the translation of Sanctorius\s Aphorisms early in the eighteenth century, I^uincy^ emphasized the fact that the body is a machine and the princii)les of mechanical motion can be applied to it. Toward the close of the eighteenth century oxygen was discovered by Priestly and Lavoisier. The latter' explained the process of com- bustion. In 178J) he enunciated the doctrine that combustion takes place in an analogous way in the animal organism.^ Many ])hysiolo- gists would not accept his views at first. Evidence accumulated, how- ever, and the truth of Lavoisier’s opinions was at hist generally conceded. The growth of the knowledge of metabolism owes vei’y much to Liebig, lie isolated, analyzed, and studied many of the comiiounds which occur in food and the various tissues and liquids of the animal organism and made important contributions to the subject of the origin of animal heat and other physiological (piestions. In this subject, as bi many others, Liebig seems to have arrived as if by intuition at conclusions which the labor of later years has only verified. The early experiments in which the attenqit was made to determine a balance of matter are few in number. The subject has been devel- ojied largely since 1850. Of experiments with man the earliest which is included in the present compilation was made by Lehmann® in 1830. The methods of analysis 'Snnetorius: De Statica Mediciua, I.eipsic, 1614. Mediciiia Statica, or Rules of Health. Translated by .1. D., Loudon, 1676. Bio{rra])hio Universelle. Paris: L. G. Miehaud, 1825, pp. 308-310. '^Sauctoriiis: Mediciua Statica. Translated by .JohnQuincy. Loudon: Win. New- ton, 1712, ]). LXVIII. “Lavoisier’s Chemistry, Kerr’s translation. New York, 1806, p. 63. ^M(5in. de I’acad. des Sciences, 1789, p. 185. Oeuvres de Lavoisier, II, p. 688; cited by Voit in Hermann’s Handbuch der Physiologie, VI, p. 266. “Jour, prakt. Chem., 27, p, 257.