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ON THE

CHEMISTRY OF FOOD.

BY

JUSTUS LIEBIG, M.D.,

PROFESSOR OF CHEMISTRY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF GIESSEN.

EDITED FROM THE MANUSCRIPT OF THE AUTHOR,

BY

WILLIAM GREGORY, M.D.,

PROFESSOR OF CHEMISTRY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF EDINBURGH.

LONDON:

PRINTED FOR TAYLOR AND WALTON,

UPPER GOWER STREET.

LOAN STACK

Printed by J. & H. COX, 74 & 75, Great Queen Street, Lincoln's-Inn Fields.

EDITOR'S PREFACE.

L5

IN offering to the British public the present translation of the latest work of Baron Liebig, I may be permitted to say, that I feel highly honoured in being intrusted with the duty of conveying to my countrymen a knowledge of one of the most interesting and valuable investigations which has yet been made in Animal Chemistry.

The researches into the nature of the soluble constituents of muscle or flesh, which constitute the chief part of the present work, are preceded by considerations on the true Method of Research in Animal Chemistry, which are worthy of the most earnest attention on the part of those who intend to devote themselves to investigations in this most important and at the same time most difficult department of science. A careful study of this section will convince the reader that much more might have been done of late years in Physiological Chemistry, but for the wrong direction unfortunately given to recent researches, and will

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powerfully contribute to direct into the right channel the energies of those rising chemists to whom Britain must look to sustain her scientific reputation in the present age of rapidly advancing discovery in the most recondite parts of Organic Chemistry and of Physiology.

The physiologist will also find in this introductory section, the most convincing reasons to show that, henceforth, it is indispensable that Anatomy, structural Physiology, and Chemistry should unite their forces with a view to the solution of the great questions which it is the common object of these sciences to solve.

With regard to the chemical researches contained in the present work, it is most emphatically to be stated, that they constitute only the first steps in an almost new career; that they are very far from exhausting even the single subject here investigated, namely, the nature of the soluble constituents of the muscles; and that, consequently, they are chiefly valuable as indicating the true path at present to be pursued by chemists. It would be contrary to the principles as well as to the wishes of their author, if physiologists were to regard them as completed, or as in any one point exhausting the subject; and how many more subjects does the animal organism present, which must remain obscure and impe

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