Principles of scientific botany, or, Botany as an inductive science / by J.M. Schleiden ; translated by Edwin Lankester.

Date:
1849
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Principles of scientific botany, or, Botany as an inductive science / by J.M. Schleiden ; translated by Edwin Lankester. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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

    22/646
    CHAPTER II. ON THE ORGANIC ELEMENTS. SECTION I. OF T1IE ASSIMILATED BODIES. § 8. The four elementary bodies*, Carbon, Oxygen, Hydrogen, and Nitrogen, are associated together as organic or vegetable elements, but they have evidently different values for the life of the plant even in its simplest forms. Next to these we find a series of bodies, which are necessary for the origin and develop- ment of cells, and these I call especial assimilated matters. § 9. Some of these are substances of which the cell-membrane is formed, or which necessarily precede the formation of it, and which contain only Carbon, Hydrogen, and Oxygen. I shall mention here: 1. Cellulose, or Sclerogen; 2. Amyloid; 3. Vege- table Jelly; 4. Starch; 5. Gum; 6. Sugar; 7. Inulin; 8. Oil of Fat. 1. Cellulose (Sclerogen, Lignine, woody fibre) is completely formed, rather tender, flexible, and elastic, perfectly clear and transparent, and entirely insoluble in all known menstrua. When treated with caustic potash or concentrated sulphuric acid, starch is formed. Like all organic substance it is distended by moisture and contracted by drying. It is permeable to all fluids and actual solutions, which, under some cir- cumstances, are taken in on one side and passed out on the other. Its composition, when analysed, gave the following results:— From the wood of the willow and the beech, according to Prout - Various cell-membranes, according to Payen f C II 0 {Ann. dcs Sc. Nat. 1839) - - \ 12 10 10 These analyses differ only in the quantity of water they contain. To me it appears most correct to use the above formula, in which the carbon is reckoned at 12. Mulder, however, takes C 24, 1121, 0 21, as isomeric with soluble inulin. Crookewitt has pointed out that this does * Vier Elemente Innig gesellt Bilden das Leben, Baucn die Welt. Four elements Intimately mixed Give form to life, Build up the world. The genius of the poet has here evidently anticipated later chemical discoveries. 12 8 8 12 11 11