On non-nitrogenised food in a physiological point of view / by Messrs. Seller and Stephens.

  • Seller, William.
Date:
1867
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On non-nitrogenised food in a physiological point of view / by Messrs. Seller and Stephens. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.

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    of the most serious character among bodies of men from any- considerable diminution of nitrogenised food, has been but too well exemplified in recent times; and we cannot but consider it as a most dangerous innovation to place the nitrogenised food of animals beneath anj form of non-nitro- genised food in essential importance, however much the relative quantities necessary maj differ under particular cir- cumstances. Nitrogen is always passing from the living body, even under the most perfect rest, and its place must be as constantly supplied. For the proof, let any one ask himself, What is urine ? What but a nitrogenised fluid ? What would urine be on any day of the year without urea ? When Dr Voelcker, without any limitation or qualifi- cation, says in his lecture, The most valuable feeding material is ready-made fat and oil, it would have been well if he had made his less instructed readers aware that Magendie found each of two dogs, fed exclusively on pure olive-oil and water, to die on the thirty-sixth day, having apparently thriven on that diet only for fifteen days; and that another dog, fed on butter, had almost exactly the same fate. It must be confessed, however, that our views of the physiology of nutrition in animals are losing much of their original simplicity, and acquiring an intricate controversial character, owing, in particular, to the aspect under which the subject has passed in the hands cliiefly of chemical phy- siologists. Voelcker may be regarded as heading one party of these chemical physiologists, while the leader of another party of more determined controversialists, at least in this country, is Frankland. To obtain a clear idea of what each of those chemists in particular inculcates must then be our first object, and our next to consider how far the view of each will bear com- parison with the facts ascertained as to the function of nutri- tion in the animal M'orld.
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