Volume 1

Lectures on anatomy : interspersed with practical remarks / by B. B. Cooper.

  • Bransby Blake Cooper
Date:
1829-1832
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Lectures on anatomy : interspersed with practical remarks / by B. B. Cooper. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by King’s College London. The original may be consulted at King’s College London.

    397/706 (page 11)
    Fluids. Muriate and lactate of soda ] 80 Coagulated albumen and fibrine . 2 20 Phosphate of soda .... . 0 90 Extractive, soluble in water only . 0 15 Phosphate of lime with albumen . 0 OS Water and loss . 77 17 100 00 Berzelius also speaks of the presence of a free acid, which he terms lactyne. Besides these constituents is found a peculiar extractive matter of a brown colour, of a pung’ent taste, and of an aromatic odour, which has been named osmazome by M. Thenart, and by him is supposed to be the principal source of the flavour of the flesh of animals. The stronger acids and caustic alkalies act freely upon muscle, and will ultimately dissolve it; during this action a considerable quantity of gas is evolved ; and if nitric acid be used, nitrogen is disengaged; the same phenomenon occurs if nitric acid be poured upon other animal substances, but not to the same extent as where muscular fibre is exposed to its influence. If muscle be exposed for a length of time to a slow running stream of water, it becomes converted into a substance of an unctuous quahty very much resembling spermaceti, and which is called adipocire; this process is quickened if muscle be subjected to the action of diluted nitric acid. The spontaneous conversion of the bodies of those buried in a certain part of Paris, is a peculiar instance of this chemical change: there is also another instance of it on record in this metropolis in two bodies, which had been buried many years in the church-yard of St. Saviour, South-, w'ark, which were found completely converted into this sub- stance. Properties of Muscle. The muscular fibre, in common with every other modifica- tion of matter, possesses certain properties connected with