122 On the FeaiLi of Green Plants. 



been prevented forming, and he has continued free from 

 asthma daring the rest of the vear. 



Observation. — It is surprising that a remedy which is so 

 safe, pleasant, and efficacious, and which recommends it- 

 self so strongly bv innumerable facts, and the analogy of 

 ordering sick people into the country, should not have- 

 made more progress in the medical world, especially in cases 

 of asthma, which is so matcriallv affected by changes in' 

 the atmosphere. At this time I shall only add another, 

 case. 



Miss was recommended to my care by the late 



Jtlr. Cruikshank tor a humour she had been afflicted with 

 upwards of twenty years. It was not an ordinary case, for 

 llie tumefaction of the legs was such as to make the leg the 

 thickness of one's thigh ; and so great was the discharge 

 from this part, and the whole body, that the servant has 

 been known to come in the morning w 1th the mop, to mop 

 under the bed, the whole of the under part of the bed being 

 wet through. For more than two years this amiable lady 

 daily inhaled the vital air, and the benefit was progressive 

 until a complete cure was accomplished. This was more 

 than five years ago, aiad the patient has since continued in 

 perfect health. 



At another opportunity I will trouble the readers of your 

 Magazine with other facts of the same sort. 



XXI. An Essay mi the Ferula of Green Plants. Btf 

 Professor Peoust *. 



XI. RouELLE was the first who discovered in fccula a sub- 

 stance analogous to the gluten of farina. This substance 

 since that time appeared problematical, only because few 

 chemists tried to ascertain its real characters. The fecula 

 of which it is the basis is, according to Fourcroy, cither a 

 supposed substance, or a substance too little examined to be 

 placed among the number of the immediate products of ve- 

 getables. He even goes so far as to suppose that albumen, 

 an animal substance which no one bei'orc him had supposed 

 to exist in plants, is that which ought to be substituted for 

 the glutinous part of green fecula. 



Are albumen and fccula, then, found together or separate 

 in the juice of plants ? vSuch is the question I have pro- 

 posed to myself, and which I shall endeavour to resolve h\ 



* From the Journal de Pbyjique, Pluviosc, an ii. 



the 



