110 On the Use of Phosphoric Acid in Jaundice. 
tures. On further inquiry, I found the conger eel to be a regu- 
lar breeding fish with special sexual organs, It is therefore more 
than probable that the conger is the breeding eel, and that it 
never returns into fresh water after its entrance into the ocean. 
This peculiarity is different from the salmon, which alternates its 
periodical visits between the rivers and sea for breeding pur- 
poses: but Nature observes general, and not universal rules. 
When at Hastings several years ago, | put small eels caught from 
a neighbouring brook into sea-water, and they enjoyed apparent 
vigour for many days successively. I have also,, when a boy, 
frequently caught river eels on the salt-water side of a marsh 
sluice at the mouth of the river Tees. 
Any persou resident on the coast might easily determine the 
leading facts respecting the identity, or otherwise, of conger and 
river eels. I suspect the latter require some years of sea growth 
before they acquire the sexual parts, but no degree of fresh water 
growth ever develops those organs in a river eel. 
Dear sir, 
Your obliged servant, 
3, Langham Place, Cavendish Square, ANTHONY CARLISLE. 
Jan. 12, 1822. 
7 
XXV. On the Use of Phosphoric Acid in Jaundice. 
By Dr. Cates MILLER *, 
To Prof. Silliman, 
Bristol, (R. I.) April 28, 1821. 
DEaR Sin,—Seemne in your Journal that you solicit commu- 
nications, for the promotion of the Arts and Sciences, from the 
effects I have seen produced from the phosphoric acid in the cure 
of the jaundice, | am induced to say something of what I know, 
as I have not seen any mention of this acid as a remedy in that 
disease. ; 
About six years ago I had a very obstinate case that resisted 
the common remedies. I was led to use the phosphoric acid on 
the principle that the acids decompose the bile. I made choice 
of this on account of its existing in a separate state in the 
blood. 
I directed a large spoonful of the acid as prepared in Murray’s 
Materia Medica in a pint of balm tea to be taken as fast as the 
stomach would bear it, till it should operate as a diuretic. In 
twenty-four hours the patient had taken eight pints, and it had 
operated powerfully as a diuretic. Neither the urine nor: the 
white of the eye was as yellow as before, by a very obvious dif- 
* From Silliman’s Journal, No. IX. J added 
ference, 
ee 
