INTUMESCENTIjK. 573 



this, and it must be left to their lot to be smothered in their 

 own grease, or to fall victims to the other diseases to which they 

 may be subjected." 



MDCXXV. As these, though the only effectual measures, 

 are often difficult to be admitted or carried into execution, some 

 other means have been thought of and employed for reducing 

 corpulency. These, if I mistake not, have all been certain 

 methods of inducing a saline state in the mass of blood ; for 

 such I suppose to be the effects of vinegar and of soap, which 

 have been proposed. The latter, I believe, hardly passes into 

 the blood-vessels, without being resolved and formed into a 

 neutral salt with the acid which it meets with in the stomach. 

 How well acrid and saline substances are fitted to diminish 

 obesity, may appear from what has been said above in MDdXVI. 

 What effects vinegar, soap, or other substances employed, have 

 had in reducing corpulency, there have not proper opportuni- 

 ties of observing occurred to me : but I am well persuaded, that 

 the inducing a saline and acrid state of the blood, may have 

 worse consequences than the corpulency it was intended to cor- 

 rect ; and that no person should hazard these, while he may 

 have recourse to the more safe and certain means of abstinence 

 and exercise. 



CHAP IL OF FLATULENT SWELLINGS. 



MDCXXVI. The cellular texture of the human body very 

 readily admits of air, and allows the same to pass from any one 

 to every other part of it. Hence Emphysemata have often ap- 

 peared from air collected in the cellular texture under the skin, 

 and in several other parts of the body. The flatulent swellings 

 under the skin have indeed most commonly appeared in conse- 

 quence of air immediately introduced from without : but in some 

 instances of flatulent swellings, especially those of the internal 

 parts not communicating with the alimentary canal, such an 

 introduction cannot be perceived or supposed ; and therefore, 

 in these cases, some other cause of the production and collec- 

 tion of air must be looked for, though it is often not to be clear- 

 ly ascertained. 



