ON SWEAT AND ITS ACID. 65 



I ought to mention the method I adopted for procuring 

 it. 



I applied to persons who are in the babit of wearing flan- How obtained 

 ml waistcoats next the skin. To avoid every source of y 

 errour, the waistcoats, before they were put on, were first 

 washed with soap; then rinsed in a stream of water, and af- 

 terward in diluted muriatic acid several times; and lastly 

 thev were immersed and wrung out of a large tub of water. 

 The persons who were so obliging as to submit to the expe- 

 riment, went into the bath before they began it, and were 

 :ularly careful to rub every part of the body well. The 

 sweat that was collected uninterruptedly in the flannel dur- 

 ing the course of ten days I separated by means of hot dis- 

 tilled water; and this I boiled down to the consistence of a Distilled. 

 sirup in a retort, to the neck of which a receiver was adapted. 

 The product of this distillation emitted a nauseous smell, 

 which diminished as the liquor cooled. It caused no alteration 

 in sirup of violets, but it evidently reddened infusion of lit- 

 mus. Left for some time exposed to the air, it retained the 

 transparency it had at first, and underwent no remarkable 

 change, unless with respect to its smell, which entirely 

 vanifhed : in a close vessel probably it would have putrified, 

 like the product of the distillation of all other animal fluids,. 



The residuum was not very copious, and evidently void of Residuum 

 smell ; though pretty strongly acid, the agreeable taste of 

 eea salt predominated in it, yet with this taste something 

 acrid and pungent was perceptible; it was slightly deliques- 

 cent, requiring some days to resolve into a liquid; and it was 

 completely soluble in water. Lime, barytes, ammonia, the 

 acidulous oxalate of potash, the carbonates of potash and 

 soda, most acids, and acetate of lead, gave no precipitate 

 with this solution, and disengaged nothing from it. Nut- 

 occasioned a slight precipitate in it, but the nitrate of 

 « r rendered it very tuvbid. 



tJalciued by if self it was decomposed, emitting vapours Calcined, 

 that had nothing of the. fetid smell of animal matter, and 

 was converted into a black substance, that was composed 

 *imply of a great deal of common salt, charcoal, and scarcely 

 . perceptible quantities of lime and oxide of iron. 



Finally, when subjected to calcination after the acid has Calcined aftar 

 Vol. XXIX.— Jan. 1S0S. F been 



