146 On reclaiming IVasie Lands. 



difficult to unravel with certitude the causes which operate 

 to perform an alteration in the state of health or disease. 



On the one hand, physicians have learned, by a long ex- 

 perience, that infusions and extracts of cinchona, prepared 

 after the Garaye process, do not produce in any degree, in 

 fevers, effects proportioned to the quantities of cinchona 

 from which they have been made j and yet these preparations 

 contain the salt in question. 



We know also that alcoholic tinctures of cinchona, in 

 which the salt of M. Dcschamps does not exist, since it is 

 insoluble in this menstruum, iievxrtheless cure intermittent 

 fevers. 



There are, besides, cinchonas which contain infinitely 

 small quantities of this salt onlv ; and there are vegetables 

 which do not contain it at all, and yet they cure fevers. It is 

 not without reason, therefore, that I offer my doubts on this 

 subject; and if it has sometinjcs happened that this salt has 

 cured fevers, we may suppose that it was not perfectly freed 

 from the bitter principle which it forcibly retains. 



To conclude : it is very desirable that physicians should 

 occupy themselves u ith ascertaining this question by means 

 of actual experiments : if resaks are obtained similar to those 

 of the Lyons physicians, ii will be a discovery of great im- 

 portance to mankind. 



XXIV. Oh reclaiming Waste Lands. By Mr. John 

 Wagstaffe*. 



GENTLEMEN, Norwich, June 27, 1801. 



Xi-s your influence for the Inclosure of waste land is con- 

 fessed, and, I conceive, extending within the scope of your 

 society, and it should now seem on the eve of a parliamen- 

 tary encouragement, I ask leave to recite an experiment I 

 made on a portion of land of as obvious sterility as perhaps 

 any present waste within the western counties. 



This was an acclivity which had not been cultivated withia 



• Trom Letters atid Paper- of the Bath /fgriailtiirol Society, vol. x. 



memory : 



