Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 07.djvu/806

* FLERS. ■>1 FLESHLY SCHOOL. linen, fustian, and especially of ticking. Popu- lation, in 1901, 13,680. FLESH (AS. flwsc, OHG. fleisk, Ger. Fleisch, flesh, [eel. flesh, pork). The ordinary term for animal tissues, excluding bone. After the re- moval of the blood-vessels, nerves, cartilage, vis- cera, connective (or cellular) tissue, and areolar tissue, the resulting muscle (q.v.) is popularly called flesh. Numerous analyses have been made of the muscular substance or various animals. The following table gives the determinations of the individual constituents of beef freed as far as possible from blood-vessels, and may be re- garded as fairly representing the composition of flesh generally: CONSTITUENTS Percentage amounts From 76.00 " 26.00 to 77.00 " 23.00 The solid constituents In- clude : 100.00 From 13.00 0.60 2.20 0.07 undeter From 0.60 0.60 0.66 0.50 0.07 0.04 0.02 0.04 100.00 to 18.00 " 1.90 " 3.00 ■• 0.14 mined to 3.00 ■• 0.68 " 0.70 " 0.54 " 0.09 " 0.09 ■• 0.03 " 0.08 This list, however, does not include all the in- gredients of flesh. In the freshly expressed mus- cular juice, which exhibits a strong acid reaction, we also find small quantities of proteids (myosin, muscle-albumen, and haemoglobin), acids (sar- colactic acid and acid phosphates), salts of potas- sium and sodium, mineral substances (phosphoric acid and potash), and extractives (either basic substances or amides, as kreatin, xanthin, carnin, and carnie acid — all representing the fragments of broken-down proteids and of no use as tissue builders). There are also found hypoxanthin and formic, butyric, and acetic acids, which may all be products of decomposition, uric acid, and urea, and inosit (q.v.). Bernard discovered glycogen (q.v.) in the muscles of the embryos of various animals. The dried flesh of the ox is practically identical in its ultimate composition with dried blood, as is shown by the following analyses, which were made by Playfair: CHEMICAL COMPONENTS Carbon Hydrogen Nitrogen Oxygen Ash Ox-blood 61.95% 7.17 15.07 21.39 4.42 For further informal ion on the subject, eon -nil : l.ichig. Researches on the Chemistry of Food, translated by Gregory (Edinburgh, 1847) ; l.i-liiiiaiui. Physiological Chemistry, vol. iii. (Lon- don, lNr>:ii : Gamgee, Physiological Chemistry (London, 1880) ; Hutchison, Food and the I'rin Dti h tics i I iondon, 1 900). See also liography under CHEMISTRY, PHYSIOLOGICAL. FLESH-BIRD, or MEAT-BIRD. Name* given in various parts of the world to birds that come about camps or ships and devour fragments of meat. In North America they refer to the Canada jay. Sec Jay. FLESH-FLY, BLOW-FLY, or MEAT-FLY. Any of several large, noisy, blue or green Hies of the house-fly type, which lay their eggs on exposed wounds, meat, or carrion. A very con- spicuous one is a large 'blue-bottle' fly (Calli- lilitini irulliroccpluila), rather dull in color, with a rust-red forehead and black spines on the thorax. It is the common Tdow-fly' of Europe whose maggots are called 'gentles' and used as bait by English anglers. Another familiar Brit- ish species [Sarcophaga camaria) is rarely seen in America, where its place is taken by a similar scavenger-species (Sarcophaga sarracenios) . A third well-known American species is the green- bottle (Lucilia c&sar), which often enters houses. This and the preceding species frequently lay their eggs in the putrid mass of insects caught by the plants of the fly-trap ( Sarracenia ) . In the Western States a most troublesome kind is the screw-worm fly (Compsomyia macellariu) . which ranges throughout the warmer regions of both Americas, and sometimes attacks wounds or diseased parts (as the nostrils) of men as well as domestic animals. Indeed, the evil effects of several sorts of flesh-flies (including the small gray ones of the genus Helicobia) are referred to in medicine by the term miasis. The stable- fly (Stomoxys calcitrans) should also be men- tioned here. The breeding habits and life history of all these flies are essentially similar. The eggs are laid in packets on dead animals or upon raw or even cooked meat, each packet containing from 3 to 100 eggs. The instincts which guide the fly to just the food its larva? will require are as pre- cise as they are curious. Prof. Jacques Loeb re- cords in his Physiology of the Brain (New York, 11)00) that where pieces of lean meat and of fat from the same animal were exposed together "the fly never failed to lay its eggs on the meat and not on the fat;" furthermore, he was unable to rear the larva? on the fat. He believes the at- traction and choice are due to chemitropism in the parent fly. The larva?, issues in from twenty to twenty-four hours, and buries itself in the car- rion, feeding continuously for two weeks, when it crawls aside into some protected place and trans- forms to pupa, in which stage it remains from two days to several weeks. There are several genera- tions each year, and the part which these insect* play in the rapid removal of decaying carrion is very important. Unfortunately these insects also attack the fresh wounds of living animals, with most injurious effects; and Packard states, in regard in Calliphora vomitoria, (hat it grievously tormented wounded soldiers on (he battlefield during the Civil War. Careful cleaning of in- fected wounds of animals with dilute carbolic acid, and covering them with a dressing of tar, are remedial measures. Consult; Osborn, "In- sects Affecting Domestic Animals." in United States Department of Agriculture, Division of Entomology, Bulletin 5 (Washington, 1896). See Kl.Y; TSETSE-FLY. FLESHLY SCHOOL, 'I'm:. name given to a group of nineteenth-century pods, headed by