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Doctor Young obferves in general that the milk of the 

 whole clafs of nun-ruminant animals is lefs acefcent than that 

 of the ruminant. 



I HAVE been able to find but one other author whofe obfer- 

 vations at all coincide with mine, and for his authority I am 

 indebted to the induflry of the late Baron Haller. This author 

 is a M. Navier. His words are " hac femiiiinum nullum prodit 

 " acoris Jignum. Pojl quaJraghita et ires integros dies 7ion magis 

 " acet qudm lac vacc^s recens." Hallcr's obfervation on this paffage 

 is " Ea vis eji viBus animalis " and thus he feems to think this 

 fingularity accounted for. But many of my experiments were 

 made on the milk of women rigidly confined to gruel, bread and 

 whey, and therefore the phenomenon obferved by Navier was 

 probably not the effed of animal diet. Perhaps another inftance 

 could not be adduced of an animal fluid refifting fo powerfully 

 the changes produced on moft bodies by fermentation. Whether 

 it is to be attributed to the fsrccharine nature of milk taking up 

 a length of time in going through a vinous fermentation previous 

 to the acid ftage, or whether this faccharine principle, fo abundant 

 in human milk, be of an antifeptic nature, and thus prevents 

 the other principles from running into the putrid ftage of fermen- 

 tation, I fliall not pretend to determine. Of the fa6t I have 

 no doubt, however it may be explained. If we find milk out 

 of the body fo very flow in running into an acefcent ftate, does 

 it not aflibrd ftrong prefumptive evidence that the milk of nurfes 

 cannot be fo very prone to run iato acidity in the flomachs of 

 infants as authors endeavour to perfuade us? ji. 



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