United States or Bahamas ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
In the stomach and intestines, therefore, all those substances in the food capable of conversion into blood are separated from its other constituents; in other words, during the passage of the food through the intestinal canal there is a constant absorption of its nitrogen, since only azotised substances are capable of conversion into blood; and therefore the solid excrements are destitute of that element, except only a small portion, in the constitution of that secretion which is formed to facilitate their passage.
We give that animal flesh and bones substances rich in azotised matter and we obtain, as the last product of its digestion, a perfectly white excrement, solid while moist, but becoming in dry air a powder. This is the phosphate of lime of the bones, with scarcely one per cent. of foreign organic matter.
The putrefaction of animal and other azotised bodies is a chemical process, by which they are gradually dissipated in a gaseous form, chiefly in that of carbonic acid and ammonia; now to convert the carbon of the animal substance into carbonic acid requires oxygen, and to convert the azote into ammonia requires hydrogen, which are the elements of water.