HISTORY OF MEDICINE. 413 



of disease ; but I presume, that the state of the simple solid is, 

 upon few occasions, either changeable or actually changed ; and 

 that, in ninety-nine cases out of an hundred, the phenomena 

 attributed to such a change, do truly depend on the state of the 

 solidum vivum, a circumstance which Dr. Boerhaave has 

 hardly taken notice of in any part of his works. How much 

 this shews the deficiency and imperfection of his system, I need 

 not explain. The learned work of Dr. Gaubius, above referred 

 to, as well as many other treatises of late authors, point out suf- 

 ficiently the defects and imperfections of Boerhaave on this 

 subject. 



After Dr. Boerhaave has considered the diseases of the solids, 

 he, in the next place, attempts to explain the more simple dis- 

 eases of the fluids ; and there, indeed, he delivers a more cor- 

 rect doctrine of acid and alkali than had been given before : but, 

 after all, he has done it very imperfectly. We have, indeed, since 

 his time, acquired more knowledge upon the subject of digest- 

 ion ; and so much as to know, that a great deal more is yet 

 necessary, to enable us to understand in what manner the ani- 

 mal fluids are formed from the aliments taken in. And al- 

 though Dr. Boerhaave has fallen into no considerable error with 

 respect to a morbid acidity in the stomach, he could not possi- 

 bly be complete upon that subject; and his notion of the effects 

 of acidity in the mass of blood seems to have been entirely mis- 

 taken, and is indeed not consistent with what he himself has 

 delivered elsewhere. 



His doctrine of alkali is somewhat better founded, but it is 

 probably carried too far ; and the state of alkalescency and pu- 

 trefaction, as well as all the other changes which can take place 

 in the condition of animal fluids, are particulars yet involved in 

 great obscurity, and are therefore still subjects of dispute. 



There is another particular, in which Boerhaave^s doctrine 

 concerning the fluids appears to me imperfect and unsatisfac- 

 tory ; and that is, in his doctrine de Glutinoso spontaneo. 

 The causes which he has assigned for it are by no means pro- 

 bable, and the actual existence of it is seldom to be proved. 

 Some of the proofs adduced for the existence of the phlegma 

 calidum, are manifestly founded on a mistake with respect to 

 what has been called the inflammatory crust, (See Van- Swie- 



