NATURAL 
a person of skill on the subject, 1” 
wrote to my late worthy and inge- 
nious friend Dr. M‘Bride, and ac- 
quainted him with the preparation 
1 had made, and che intention of 
it. In his answer, he was pieased 
to say he approved of the idea, and 
wou.d make some of the liquor I 
described, and let me know what 
he thought of it. “He afterwards 
Wrote to me, and said he had 
tried. the aikeline liquor, and 
thought it might prove: an useful 
Medicine, particularly as it might 
be mixed with milk and given to 
children, who have often acids in 
their stomachs. ‘Ie a!somentioned 
a physician, then in Dublin, to 
whom he had recommended the li- 
quor, and who had found great be- 
nefit from it. I first made. this 
liquor in the year 17713 and, in 
the year 1777, being then in Bath, 
I met with an account of some ex- 
periments made by Mr. Bewly, an 
Ingenious chemist, which plainly 
proved that fixed air is an acid, 
and saturates alkalinesalts; this at 
once intormed me what it was, in 
the flesh of an animal, thet al- 
kaline salts had such a_ strong 
affinity to. At the same time 
1 got from London one of Dr. 
Nooth’s glass machines, for im- 
pregnating water with fixed air, 
and to the water I added salt of 
tartar; after this, I thought no 
more of my alkaline broth, having 
got a way of obtaining what I 
wanted in a much more elegant 
manner, 
The only thing now worth 
attention in the experiment I have 
related, is, that it discovered a 
power in even caustic alkaline salts’ 
to preserve flesh, I may say, incor 
Tuptible ; though it has been gene. 
HISTORY. [407 
rally imagined “that such salts 
would ‘consume it. I have some 
flesh prepared with these salts in 
the year 1772; for finding some 
bits made the year before had con. 
tinued unaltered, I made some 
more, and laid it by, to see how 
long it would keep, and what al- 
teracions it would undergo. I 
made it into a cake, and, when 
quite dry, I cut it into round 
bits, about the size of half-a-crown, 
and put them into a drawer in my 
desk : I shewed some of them to 
Mr. Kirwan thesummer before last, 
when I had the honour of receiving 
a visit from him at Armagh; and 
a few months ago [ found some 
Pieces in another drawer, where, 
they have lain near two and twenty 
years, and remain unaltered: When 
these pieces are broken, they hang 
toyrether by fibres, and look like a 
piece of plaster taken from a wail; 
the fibrous or stringy parts of the 
flesh do not seem to have been cor- 
roded or dissolved by the salt. 
After I knew that fixed air was 
an acid, and saturated alkaline 
salts, I began to form conjeCtures 
about the means by which these 
salts had so entirely prevented pu. 
trefaction in the flesh to which they 
were united. Animal substances 
afford much volatile alkali, and 
now they are known to contain 
alsoa volatile acid gas. While these 
two volatile principles ‘continue 
united with each other, they may 
prevent any material change from 
taking place in the substance ; 
but, if one of them by any means 
escapes, the other will follow ; the 
acid seems to be the most volatile, 
and escapes first, though we may 
not be sensible of its escape, be- 
cause it has no such strong smell as 
Dd4 the 
