460 



Report of Chemistry and Experimental Philosophy. [June I, 



of agglutinating lymph upon or between 

 membranes, and thus to lay the foundation 

 for chronic impediments in breathing ; to 

 engender purulent formation of an ordi- 

 nary or consumptive kind, or to wear away 

 the body and substance of the lung by a 

 species of schirrous wasting? Do the 

 cough and disturbed respiration depend 

 upon disorder originally in the chest, or is 

 the source of the mischief at a distance ? 

 May not the state of the stomach, or the 

 liver, or the intestinal canal, or the nerves, 

 be the primum mobile, or actual essence, of 

 the whole disturbance ? Finally, may not a 

 little from one, and a little from another, 

 cause, make up by items the sum and sub- 

 stance of the atfection ? and here, as it ap- 

 pears to the Reporter, is mistake most 

 usually committed. In our desire for de- 

 cision, and rage for simplicity, we will have 

 one principle to guide our pathology, and 

 one defined disease to regulate our prac- 

 tice. As for stetlioscopical trials and Gal- 

 lic thumps on the chest, let them avail as 

 far as they are available ; but the writer 

 confesses himself to possess rather too 

 much EngUsh scepticism respecting French 

 tact, not to fear that the information 

 which these boasted methods of investiga- 

 tion give, is rather of the ex post facto 

 kind. 



It is not, however, pulmonary affections 

 alone, about which erroneous decisions are 

 liable to bu made. Tlie stomach is fre- 

 quently the seeming, while the nervous 

 system is the actual, source of disease ; 

 and correctives are substituted for radicals. 

 The secretions are irregular, the discharges 

 are unhealthy : granted ; but these secre- 

 tions and these discharges are rather the 

 consequences than the causes of the com- 

 plaint.* A piece of afflicting news will 

 put a stop to appetite, and give an offen- 



* The Reporter has this moment heard 

 a curious statement of ultra-stomachism. 

 A friend asked his hair-dresser whether 



sive character to the breath ; but in this 

 case is a stomach or a chest disorder in- 

 duced? No: it is the nervous organiza- 

 tion that has received the shock ; and to 

 reproduce a desire for food, or overcome 

 the foetor of the exhalation, you must first 

 bring the nerves into a better state of be- 

 ing. You nmst, in other words, act upon 

 the secretions through the medium of the 

 organs upon which the secretions are de- 

 pendant ; and here lies a great deal of the 

 secret connected with the varied success 

 of the same medicinal as prescribed by 

 different persons ; and of the positive good 

 occasionally produced by such artifices as 

 metallic tractors : it is the traclabUily of 

 the patient, not of the disorder, upon 

 which they operate ; it is the confidence 

 that is placed in quackery that constitutes 

 the virtue of quack medicines ; and let it 

 be so ; — where ignorance is good, 'tis folly 

 to be wise. What does it matter, pro- 

 vided no mischief be done in the process, 

 whether a patient be cured '' through the 

 medium of his imagination or his stomach?" 



The writer has lately recommended to 

 some of his patients the nilro-muriatic 

 bath ; and in one instance, in particular, 

 he has found it demonstrably serviceable, 

 after the unsuccessful employment of sto- 

 machic alteratives. This is a case which, 

 in the writer's mind, is nervous, rather 

 than ventricular. 



Disease has in some measure spent its 

 rage. The last month has been compara- 

 tively healthy. In the calm, however, 

 which now succeeds the storm, wrecks are 

 to be seen in abundance, 



Bedford-row; D. UwiNs, m.d. 



May ■20, 1823. 



he could account for the fact, that bald- 

 ness on the crown of the head is more com- 

 mon in the present day than formerly. 

 " Clearly, sir, (replied the hair-drester,) it 

 is owing to the stomach.'' 



REPORT OF CHEMISTRY AND EXPERIMENTAL PHILOSOPHY, 



IT is not known, perhaps, si generally as 

 it ought, that apples make an excellent 

 jelly. The process is as follows : — They 

 are to be pared, quartered, the core com- 

 pletely removed, and put into a pot with- 

 out water, closely covered, placed in an 

 oven, or over the fire. When pretty well 

 stewed, the juice is to be squeezed out 

 through a cloth, to which a little white of 

 egg is added, and then the sugar. Skim it 

 previous to boiling, then reduce it to a 

 proper consistence, and an excellent jelly 

 will be the product. 



The very interesting fact, of some few 

 perfeotly-sound silicious crystals being 

 seen to contain cavities within them, partly 

 filled with a clear fluid, has attracted the 

 attention of Sir H. Davy, who, by a se- 



ries of well-conducted experiments, which 

 are detailed in the lately-published " Phi- 

 losophical Transactions," has shown that 

 in general a partial vacuum obtains in 

 these cavities, and that azote and oxyge- 

 nated water are the only substances they 

 usually contain; and these he supposes to 

 have been atmospheric air and water, 

 when first inclosed, but that the confined 

 water has absorbed all the oxygen present : 

 in one only of the crystals, on which Sir 

 Humphrey experimented, was the included 

 air compressed, and this was to the proba- 

 ble extent of one-eleventh part of its ori- 

 ginal bulk. The plutonic speculations of 

 the worthy President hereon we gladly 

 pass by, as like those formerly built on his 

 discovery of sodium and potasium, and 

 appearing 



