EFFECTS OF SALTS ON THE ORGANISM. 333 



Free mineral acids, or organic acids which are 

 not volatile, and salts of mineral acids with alka- 

 line bases, completely arrest decay when added to 

 decaying matter in sufficient quantity ; and when 

 their quantity is small, the process of decay is pro- 

 tracted and retarded. They produce in living 

 bodies the same phenomena as the neutral organic 

 salts, but their action depends upon a different 

 cause. 



The absorption by the blood of a quantity of an 

 inorganic salt sufficient to arrest the process of 

 eremacausis in the lungs, is prevented by a very 

 remarkable property of all animal membranes, 

 skin, cellular tissue, muscular fibre, &c. ; namely, 

 by their incapability of being permeated by con- 

 centrated saline solutions. It is only when these 

 solutions are diluted to a certain degree with water 

 that they are absorbed by animal tissues. 



A dry bladder remains more or less dry in satu- 

 rated solutions of common salt, nitre, ferro-cyanuret 

 of potassium, sulpho-cyanuret of potassium, sul- 

 phate of magnesia, chloride of potassium, and sul- 

 phate of soda. These solutions run off its surface 

 in the same manner as water runs from a plate of 

 glass besmeared with tallow. 



Fresh flesh, over which salt has been strewed, is 

 found after 24 hours' swimming in brine, although 

 not a drop of water has been added. The water 

 has been yielded by muscular fibre itself, and having 



