THE PRINCIPLE OF VITAL AFFINITY. 323 



pears to me peculiarly important in this inquiry. If we suppose that the imme- 

 diate cause of the diminution of the albuminous matter in the blood, which takes 

 place in that disease, is the action which the oxygen exerts on that matter, — in 

 consequence usually of the small proportion of non-azotised matter which it finds 

 in the blood, — and if the animal system has no power of forming albumen, we 

 do not see how the increased introduction of oxygen should have any but an in- 

 jurious effect ; but if by means of it a part, even a small part, of the blood, con- 

 sisting of amylaceous and oily matter, can be made to yield albumen, at the same 

 time that it gives out carbonic acid and water, we can distinctly understand how 

 the accession of scurvy should be retarded or prevented. And, in fact, we find 

 that this effect is very generally observed, as the result of habitual and invigora- 

 ting exercise. 



It is stated by Sir E. Paery, that in Greenland the scurvy seldom makes its 

 appearance among the natives until they confine themselves in their close huts 

 for the winter, although the diet which they use when thus confined is the same 

 as when they are moving about. 



In our own country we have had various examples, on a large scale, of scurvy 

 affecting prisoners long confined, although the diet on which they lived would not 

 appear to have been materially different from that on which many of the lower 

 ranks, particularly in Scotland, when at large, preserve their health, and are fit 

 for much muscular exertion. Thus the diet of the prisoners at the Millbank 

 Penitentiary in 1822, on which more than half of them became scorbutic (^indeed 

 three-fourths of those above three years confined), consisted of 1^ lb. of brown 

 bread daily, with one quart of soup, which soup had been made with from 2 to 3 

 oz. of the meat of ox-heads, with 3 oz. of garden stuffs, and was farther thickened 

 with peas or barley ; and at Coldbathfield Prison, about the same time, scurvy ap- 

 peared pretty extensively within a few weeks after the diet had been reduced to 

 1^ lb. of white bread, with 1 pint either of soup or gruel in the day, and | lb. of 

 beef on Sunday.* Comparing this diet with that of many labouring men in Scot- 

 land, consuming about 1^ lb. of oatmeal, and perhaps 1 pint of mUk daily, we can 

 hardly doubt that the air and exercise of the latter exert an influence to improve 

 the condition of the blood ; whereas, upon the supposition that the oxygen of the 

 air can give no help in forming albumen, that influence, in so far as the produc- 

 tion of scurvy is concerned, should be only injurious. 



2. AU the phenomena of Scrofulous disease appear clearly to indicate that 

 what we call the scrofulous diathesis, is necessarily connected with a deficiency 

 in the nutritious or albuminous constituents of the blood ; and we can now put 

 that proposition in a definite and tangible form, in consequence of the important 

 observation of Andral, — that in numerous trials made on the blood of persons 



* See HoLFORD's Second Vindication, &c. &c., pp. 4, 5, 10. 



