To return to our flour. As soon as all the starch is gone out of it, there remains in your hand a whitish, elastic substance, which is also sticky or glutinous, so that it makes a very good glue if you choose; and hence its name of gluten, which is the Latin word for glue.
When dried, this gluten becomes brittle and semi-transparent. It keeps for an unlimited time in alcohol, putrefies very soon in water exposed to the air, and is easily dissolved in a wash of soda or potash. Finally 100 ounces of it contain as follows:—
Ounces.
Carbon 63
Hydrogen 7
Oxygen 13
Nitrogen 17
—-
100
Observe the last material named. It is a new arrival, of which I shall soon have something to say.
But where am I leading you? you will ask, with all these uninteresting details about glue.
Wait a little and you shall hear.
You have probably never seen any one bled, which is a pity, as it happens; for if you had, you might have noticed (provided you had had the courage to look into the basin), that after a few seconds, the blood which had been taken away separated itself of its own accord into two portions; the one a yellowish transparent liquid, the other an opaque red mass floating on the top, and which is called the coagulum of the blood or clot. This coagulum owes its color to an infinity of minute red bodies of which we will speak more fully by and by, and which are retained as if in a net, in the meshes of a peculiar substance to which I am now going to call your attention.
That substance is whitish, elastic and sticky; and when dried becomes brittle and semi-transparent. It keeps for an unlimited time in alcohol, putrefies very soon in water exposed to the air, and is easily dissolved in a wash of soda or potash. Finally 100 ounces of it contain as follows:—
Ounces.
Carbon 63
Hydrogen 7
Oxygen 13
Nitrogen 17
—-
100
This substance is called fibrine. It goes to form the fibres of those muscles which are contained in a half formed state in the blood.