294 



establishes their superiority over the different alkaline and 

 other remedies, hitherto in use; not excepting AVhyte's 

 oyster-shell lime-water. Now, the lime in these being car- 

 bonated, and only kept in solution by their highly aerated 

 state, we can be at no loss, in those days, to attribute their 

 superior agency to the alkaline impregnation, assisted by so 

 high a temperature. Klaproth affirms, that a person, who 

 drinks these waters, in the usual quantity, for twenty-six 

 days, takes of mild mineral alkali 3913 grains, or 8 ounces, 

 1 drachm, and 13 grains; which amounts to two and a half 

 drachms per day, besides the other saline ingredients. 



Doctors Rutty and Smyth, who gave us a valuable ex- 

 tract from this publication, in the Memoirs of the Me- 

 dical and Philosophical Society of this city, (now in the 

 library of the Royal Irish Academy, but which, we have 

 sincerely to regret, were never published, and are now dis- 

 continued,) conclude their account by the following query. 

 " May not some alkaline lixivium be contrived by art, 

 " that would possess similar effects with these waters?" 

 And has not this partly taken place, in the instance of 

 our soda waters? But may we not make a nearer approx- 

 imation, by a solution of the above specified proportion 

 of mineral alkali, in the relative quantity of water, with 

 the addition or omission of the carbonic acid, and the 

 other saline ingredients, as may be thought proper; after- 

 wards heating, however, each separate dose to 160 degrees? 



We find, then, the alkaline carbonates, in the great 

 laboratory of nature, as well as in our experiments, exerting 



considerable 



