Volume 1

Animal chemistry : with reference to the physiology and pathology of man / by Franz Simon ; translated and edited by George E. Day.

  • Johann Franz Simon
Date:
1845-1846
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Animal chemistry : with reference to the physiology and pathology of man / by Franz Simon ; translated and edited by George E. Day. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by Royal College of Physicians, London. The original may be consulted at Royal College of Physicians, London.

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    the carbonic acid always increases relatively with the urea^ or in certain cases with the uric acid, and if further, we possessed experiments illustrative of the effects of diseases, and of varied diet on the bile, we should then have a more solid basis than we now occupy, on which to found our chemical inquiries, while the acquisition to the science of medicine would be po- sitive and incalculable. The questions here involved must, however, unfortunately, at the present time, be regarded as unanswerable. We cannot doubt that the pulmonary exhalation does vary, under different circumstances, in the amount of car- bonic acidj for instance, more carbonic acid is exhaled during prolonged corporeal exertion than when the body is in a state of repose; although, as far as I am aware, no experiments on this subject have yet been instituted.^ We have, however, con- clusive evidence that the amount of urea is increased under these circumstances. On the other hand, in the researches of Trommer regarding the passage of sugar into the portal blood of horses, this sub- stance could not be detected in the chyle nor in the arterial or venous blood, which renders it more than probable that the liver not only serves the purpose of modifying the composition of the blood, but likewise effects the object of altering or re- moving abnormal substances from it that have been absorbed by the mesenteric veins. Hence this organ appears, in a cer- tain degree, to take a share in the process of digestion, an opinion supported by Berzelius. Future investigations re- specting the functions of the liver may lead to very important results, and throw much light on many of the most obscure departments of physiology. Although very little has yet been done in physiological and pathological chemistry, the rational physician, who ventures to cast aside the trammels of dogmatism and empiricism, cannot, * [The experiments of Scharling on this subject were made after the publication of the * Chemistry of Man.' A brief notice of them is given in p. 129 of this volume,]