TREATMENT. 131 



the fluidity of the fibrinous and albuminous elements of the 

 blood, and the form and consistence of the blood corpuscles, 

 are impaired. 



At such a juncture (though science may not as yet have 

 demonstrated the order of the successive stages) we may 

 also infer that the transposition of the atoms of nitrogen, 

 which in their allotropic forms make blood, fibrine, &c., com- 

 mences ; the probability being that they take their departure 

 in the form of ammonia, and that some of those subsequent 

 combinations are formed in the body, which have been pre- 

 viously sketched (p. 125). 



We can thus see how the secretions, not as in cholera, 

 largely made up from watery constituents, but surcharged 

 with alkaline carbonates, are poured out upon the mucous 

 surfaces, with excoriating power ; bringing with them the first 

 products of decomposed nitrogenized matter, to be in their 

 turn fresh elements of corruption, if communicated to other 

 animals ; or, if reabsorbed, additional exciters of the putrid 

 fermentation. And we can readily infer, that when the bases 

 (salt, potash, &c.,) of the inorganic constituents are withdrawn 

 from the circulating media in certain*measure, the ferment of 

 the organic elements reaches the stage where putrid exhala- 

 tions, the evidence of their accelerated decomposition, are first 

 the harbingers and then the accompaniment of death. 



But as in organized structures we have not only to consider 

 the play of elementary bodies, such as are reproduced in the 

 laboratory, and thus display the chemical laws to which they 

 are subject ; but also the power, countervailing doubtless in 

 •many ways, which vitalized membranes and structures exert 

 in limiting or enlarging such laws ; and also that mysterious 

 agency lying behind all possible phenomena, the vis vitas 

 itself: so the views we have just advanced on the function 

 of the saline constituents of the blood, and its easy disinteg- 

 ration in their absence, total or partial, need further elucida- 

 tion in the light thrown by physiological research on such 

 topics. We can only glance at one or two illustrations. 



The mineral acids have been generally regarded (p. 12C) as 

 antiseptic agents. But they exert their power in various 



