Copy 1

On the nature and treatment of stomach and urinary diseases: being an enquiry into the connexion of diabetes, calculus, and other affections of the kidney and bladder, with indigestion / [William Prout].

  • Prout, William, 1785-1850.
Date:
1840
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On the nature and treatment of stomach and urinary diseases: being an enquiry into the connexion of diabetes, calculus, and other affections of the kidney and bladder, with indigestion / [William Prout]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    55/656 (page 35)
    71. Complementary decomposition is at least of two kinds ; a substance may be changed into a new principle designed for ulterior purposes, and another principle designed to be excre- mentitious; e. g. albumen may be decomposed into gelatine, and hydrated carbon capable of becoming carbonic acid on exposure to air in the lungs. Ora substance may be decom- posed into two principles, both of which may be designed for ulterior, or both for excrementitious purposes. Instances, perhaps innumerable, of these two forms of change are con- stantly taking place in the animal economy; though the first seems more naturally to belong to healthy action ; the second to disease. ‘Thus albumen and gelatine are converted into principles, one or both of which are applied to further uses in the economy; whereas, in peculiar states of disease, gelatine in particular appears to be almost wholly converted into some modification of the saccharine principle and urea; both of which from their properties may be considered as excremen- titious. 72. We have alluded above to the decomposition of a prin- ciple into three or more complementary principles, and many such decompositions doubtless take place in the animal economy, though they are at present little understood. As an instance, gelatine may be mentioned ; which, instead of being decom- posed into some form of the saccharine principle and urea, may be, and often is, converted into oxalic acid and the carbonate of ammonia. 73. The above remarks on complementary decomposition are chiefly applicable to the essential elements of which or- ganised bodies consist. How far they are applicable to the mineral elements incidentally present in organised bodies is not known; and the following may be said to comprise almost the whole of the little at present understood on this part of the subject. but the substance, plus or minus, one or more proportions of water. This circumstance is of such frequent occurrence in organic decomposi- tions, as almost to constitute the rule rather than the exception.