122 RINDERPEST. 



blood-fluids. It could only be exhibited in dilute form in 

 small doses, frequently repeated ; as in a concentrated 

 solution it rapidly destroys the coats of the stomach, inducing 

 gangrene — or aflPecting the brain by sympathy — convulsions 

 and rapid dissolution. But we only design to indicate it to 

 be worthy of provings such as we have previously suggested; 

 with the caution applicable alike to most acids and corrosive 

 drugs; that in its administrative trials every effort should 

 be made to avoid as far as possible those local lesions in the 

 digestive canal, which induce death before the general con- 

 stitutional disturbance is produced ; for it is this alone which 

 it is of importance carefully to study, both in the consequent 

 changes induced in the lining or enveloping tissues of the 

 principal organs — in their substance, and in that of the fluids 

 of the body. 



Acidum aceticum {radical vinegar, as it was formerly called), 

 may prove of more value than any other acid in this disease, 

 and, if so, is of ready use in domestic vinegar. By doses of 

 four tablespooufuls a day of the latter given to adults, Dr. 

 Parrot, of Dorpat, Russia, successfully treated many cases of 

 epidemic typhus in 1812 ; and this where the fever was accom- 

 panied with obstinate diarrhoea. In this latter symptom its 

 use is always admirable. 



Dr. Thomson says that it has been administered in com- 

 bination with salt in dysentery, checking the purging and 

 correcting the foetor of the stools.* 



Its existence in the sweat has been shown by Thenard, 

 and when the acid is combined with a base, the addition of 

 the perchloride of iron to a solution of the salt, produces a 

 deep blood red color, an effect not observed, when the free 

 acid is alone employed.! 



In this view, as well as of the combination commended by 

 Dr. Thomson, its use would be more efficacious in a Zymotic, 



* Materia Medica, Vol. II, p. 56. In the proeencc of the more fashionable remedies of the age, 

 this has almost passed into oblivion as an efficient agent in Ththlsis, for which Galen prescribed 

 It, and Oriental physicians now use it. In the form of vinegar its use is mostly confined to 

 domestic cooking, unless when some young female, ashamed of her obesity, usei it so Areely as to 

 induce haemoptysis and consumption. 



t Simon's Chemistry, Vol. I, p. 86. 



