Excerpt from An Introductory Lecture on Phosphorus, Delivered in the University of New York: Session 1847-8

Towards the end of last century, a Swedish chemist discovered that this body is an essential constituent of the bones, in which, under the form of phosphoric acid, it is united with lime, constituting the phosphate of lime. Soon after, it was also found to be uniformly present, in an Unoxidized state, in the brain and nervous matter generally.

Now, perhaps, you begin to discover that our subject is not quite so void of interest as appeared at first. It attaches itself to the curious history and wonderful properties of phosphorus, an element which not only enters into the construction of the skeleton, but is an essential ingredient of the brain itself. A substance which has thus, as it were, to stand in the very presence of the mind, may well borrow a glory from its exalted position. It is fitting that it Should Shine in the dark. That property is typical of its physiological destiny of the function it is called to discharge.

At a remote period, agriculturists found that, in many cases, pulver ized bones constitute one of the most fertilizing manures. Luxuriant crops might be reaped from fields so treated, and to lands worn out and exhausted the original fertility might often be restored. Observation Showed that the various corn and other plants which grew in these pla ces, abstracted this manure from the land; and by their processes of growth, the phosphate Of lime, or bone earth, was eventually stored up in the seeds. By an unerring instinct, animals and men are led to seek for these as articles of food, and indeed, life cannot be supported except on things that contain the phosphate of lime.

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