The servants of the stomach / by Jean Macé.

  • Jean Macé
Date:
1868
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The servants of the stomach / by Jean Macé. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    An experiment was made by feeding some pigeons on madder, and afterwards killing them to see the effect produced. In those fed for some time on this diet, the bones were quite red ; in those birds which had been fed thus for several days, the surface only of the bones was red ; when madder and the usual food had been em¬ ployed alternately every fortnight, alternate layers of red and white were found upon sawing the bone, correspond¬ ing to the different periods ; lastly, in birds fed upon madder for a certain time and then restored to their customary food, the bones were quite white, the redness having departed, though traces of it were discernible upon a close examination of the heart of the bones, for the old layers disappear from the centre in proportion as new ones deposit themselves on the surface. Our bony framework, then, follows very nearly the same laws in its formation as does the ligneous portion of vegetables, the solid part of which also increases by the deposit of superficial layers advancing regularly towards the interior or from without inwards, in conse- sequencc of the accumulation of the successive layers which are continually being formed. There is this dif¬ ference, however ; in the bone which belongs to a supe¬ rior order of existence we remark two kinds of move¬ ment, one implying ingress the other egress, while the life of wood, more simple in its nature, is satisfied with the accumulation of new layers on its surface without interfering with the old ones, which death only destroys. On the other hand, I can show you another very curious point of resemblance between bone and wood. I have already told you that wood is produced year by year by the bark of the tree. The bone also has its bark which produces it, but without intermission, as'in this hot-house of ours, always heated to 98° Fahrenheit,
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