Treatise on human physiology : For the use of students & practitioners of medicine / By Henry C. Chapman. Illustrated with 595 engravings.

  • Henry Cadwalader Chapman
Date:
1899
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Treatise on human physiology : For the use of students & practitioners of medicine / By Henry C. Chapman. Illustrated with 595 engravings. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Augustus C. Long Health Sciences Library at Columbia University and Columbia University Libraries/Information Services, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the the Augustus C. Long Health Sciences Library at Columbia University and Columbia University.

    45/934 (page 39)
    when excreted in the nrine in sufficient quantity render it alkaline. The acid carbonate; appears to be produced within the body, espe- cially in the blood corpuscles and the plasma, through the action of carbon dioxide and water upon di})otassium phosphate, the latter being transformed at the same time into the monopotassium salt as follows : K^HPO^ + CO^ + H^ = KHCO3 + KH^PO, The neutral carbonate may also be produced within the liody through the oxidation of an organic salt of potassium, such as the tartrate K^C^H^^ + 0,0 = K^C03 + 3C0^ + H^O Experiments made in the laboratory render it highly prol^able that potassium carbonate and sodium chloride react upon each other in the body, the double decomposition supposed to take place giv- ing rise respectively to sodium carbonate and potassium chloride (K^CO, + 2NaCl = 2KC1 + Na^COg). Inasmuch as both these substances are excreted in the urine, it is evident that food rich in potassium salts, like potatoes when eaten, entail a loss of sodium chloride to the economy. Hence the necessity, in order to make good this loss, of adding salt to the food, when the latter is largely of a vegetable character. On the other hand, if the diet consists principally of rice, relatively ]ioor in potassium salts, the use of salt can be, to a great extent, dispensed with. Salt is not used, as a general rule, in cases where the food consists solely of fish and meat, the blood of the animals eaten supplying the sodium salts.^ Salts of Calcium. Calcium chloride (CaCl.,) occurs in small quantities in bones and calcium fluoride (CaFl.,) in bone, dentine and enamel. Difference of opinion still prevails among chemists as to the manner in which the mineral substances of bone are combined with each other. Chlo- rine and fluorine appear to be present^ in the same form as in the mineral a[)atite (CaFl,, SCa^P^OJ. Calcium sulphate (CaSOJ is also found in bone in small quantities. It is often introduced into the economy through the use of spring and well water in which it is present. It is discharged from the body in the feces, being occa- sionally found in the sediment of strongly acid urine. Tricalcium Phosphate, Ca.^P.,Oj,.—This very important substance is found in all the solids and fluids of the body. It ^\ill be seen, however, that calcium phosphate exists in much larger proportions in the solids than in the fluids. Only traces are found in blood, saliva, etc., whereas a thousand parts of enamel will contain nearly nine hundred parts of this principle. 'Bunge, Lehrbiicli tier Plivsiologischen und Pathologisclien Cliemie, Dritte Auf., 1894, s. 108-116. ^Oloj Hamniai-sten : A Text Book of Physiological Chemistrv. Translated by .John A. Mandel, 1893, p. 2.38.