The Chemistry of CookeryWilliams, W. Mattieu (William Mattieu)
Science
The Chemistry of Cookery
Williams, W. Mattieu (William Mattieu)
Cooking
The following passage from Lehmann’s ‘Physiological Chemistry’ (vol.
ii. p. 389), shows that the skin throws out plenty of nitrogen obtained
from somewhere: ‘It has been shown by the experiments of Milly, Jurine,
Ingenhouss, Spallanzani, Abernethy, Barruel, and Collard di Martigny,
that _gases_, and especially _carbonic acid_ and _nitrogen_, are
likewise exhaled with the liquid secretion of the sudiparious glands.
According to the last-named experimentalist the ratio between these
two gases is very variable; thus, in the gas developed after vegetable
food there is a preponderance of carbonic acid, and, after animal food,
there is an excess of nitrogen. Abernethy found that on an average the
collective gas contained rather more than two-thirds of carbonic acid
and rather less than one-third of nitrogen.’ But it appears that less
gas is exhaled when there is much liquid perspiration.
Lehmann’s summary of the experiments of Abernethy, Brunner, and
Valentin (vol. ii. p. 391), gives the amount of hourly exudation, under
ordinary circumstances, as 50·71 grammes of water, 0·25 of a gramme of
carbon, and 0·92 of a gramme of nitrogen. This amounts to 21½ grammes
of nitrogen per day in the _insensible_ perspiration; three-quarters of
an ounce avoirdupois, or as much nitrogen as is contained in one pound
and a half of natural living muscle.
That the liquid perspiration contains compounds of nitrogen, and just
such compounds as would result from the degradation of nitrogenous
tissue, is unquestionable. As Lehmann says (vol. ii. p. 389), ‘the
sweat very easily decomposes, and gives rise to the secondary formation
of ammonia.’ Simon and Berzelius found salts of ammonia in the sweat:
that the ammonia is combined both with hydrochloric acid and with
organic acids: that it probably exists as carbonate of ammonia in
alkaline sweat.
The existence of urea in sweat appears to be uncertain; some chemists
assert its presence, others deny it. Favre and Schottin, for example,
who have both studied the subject very carefully, are at direct
variance. I suspect that both are right, as its presence or absence is
variable, and appears to depend on the condition of the subject of the
experiment.
Favre describes a special nitrogenous acid which he discovered
in sweat, and names it _hydrotic_ or _sudoric acid_. Its
composition corresponds, according to his analysis, to the formula
C_{10}H_{8}NO_{13}.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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