273 



PART II. 



THE bad effects of all acid and acescent substances, 

 being generally felt and acknowledged, we cannot be sur- 

 prised, that sufferers from these maladies should naturally 

 expect an alleviation of their complaints, from substances 

 of a very opposite nature; or that, perhaps, in the general 

 anxiety of mankind to discover a solvent of these concre- 

 tions, the active agency of alkaline matters could not be 

 ovei-looked. We accordingly find, that, from the remotest 

 antiquity, up to this day, they Avere, and still are, though 

 under various modifications, chiefly resorted to. Our an- 

 cient physicians prescribed waters with rhineral alkaline 

 impregnation; such as Seltzer, Carlsbad, and others: and, 

 in latter times, we find our own countrymen more parti- 

 cularly engaged in these pursuits. Lime-water, I'ecom- 

 mended by White, (to whose numerous and interesting ex- 

 periments 1 must beg leave to refer): lime, and pure al- 

 kaline matter, forming the bases of the celebrated reme- 

 dies of Madam Stephens, Hartley, and others. And, in 

 our own days, the caustic lixivium, again forgot, to make 

 room for the more modem and fashionable introduction of 

 both our alkaline, sub and super-carbonates; the vegeta- 

 ble, as in Faulknor's mephitic alkaline water,- or in the 

 crystallized carbonate of potash; the mineral, in a desic- 



' cated 



