when treated ultk Nitric Acid. 331 



yellow matter furnished by the action of nitric acid upon 

 niuscular flesh. 



They obtained from the urine of a young man labouring 

 under 'slight jaundice, a red substance, having an ahnost 

 exact rcfieniblance to the matter atibrded by muscle and 

 nitric acid. It was procured by treating with alcoliol a 

 quantity of urine which bad been evaporated to tliC con- 

 sisKuicc of honey. The alcohol contained the red matter 

 which they sought, besides a large quantity of urea, of sal- 

 ammoniac' and of acetate of soda, which the patient had 

 been using internally. 



These experiment's, executed with that admirable talent 

 and ingenuity wliich ^be celebrated authors of this memoir 

 manife'st in all their inquiries, would uidure us to conceive, 

 with them, that jaundice is produced by the superabundant 

 quantity of this iiiatter, and its consequent introduction into 

 the system of the cutaneous absorbents : that it is this sub- 

 stance which communicates a yellow colour to the bile and 

 to the biliary calculi, wliich afford, on analysis, evidence of 

 its presence : that this yellow acid is formed in the animal 

 gecononiy either bv the oxygenation of the muscular fibre, 

 or of the fibrine of the blood. 



Does there not appear to be a decided similarity between 

 tbis yellow acid matter and the acid which is found in fat 

 that has been long exposed to the air, as well as in that 

 which has acquirt-cl a yellow colour from diocase, and in 

 the fat treated with nitric acid so as to foim oxygenated 

 ointments ? 



Are we not forced to acknowledge that these ideas ac- 

 quire great additional probability from considcTiug that the 

 acetate of soda, the alkaline carbonates, the yolks of eggs, 

 are at once the remedies which are most successiul in the 

 treatment of jaundice, and ihc best chemical solvents of the 

 yellow acid, or of that fatly and acid matter which so evi- 

 dently is present in icicrusr' 



And lastly, Can we still remain in the opinion that the. 

 expectation of deteraiiniug the proximate cause of diseases 

 is founded on a mere chimera; and that the discoveries of 

 chemistry, or suree.'^sful researches into animal substances, 

 will fail to throw the most important light upon the nature 

 of dise;ises, and the mode of their ciue i" 



LXIII. A Me- 



