654 PRACTICE OF PHYSIC. 



With this view, I must observe, that the animal economy has 

 a singular power of changing acescent aliments, in such a man- 

 ner as to render them much more disposed to putrefaction : and 

 although in a living state they hardly ever proceed to an ac- 

 tually putrid state, yet in man, whose aliment is of a mixed 

 kind, it is pretty certain, that if he were to live entirely upon 

 animal food, without a frequent supply of vegetable aliment, his 

 fluids would advance further towards putrefaction than is con- 

 sistent with health. This advance towards putrefaction seems 

 to consist in the production and evolution of a saline matter 

 which did not appear in the vegetable aliment, and could not 

 be produced or evolved in it, but by carrying on its fermenta- 

 tion to a putrefactive state. That this saline state is constantly 

 in some measure produced and evolved by the animal process, 

 appears from this, that certain excretions of saline matter are 

 constantly made from the human body, and are therefore pre- 

 sumed necessary to its health. 



From all this, it may readily be understood, how the contin- 

 ual use of animal food, especially when already in a putrescent 

 state, without a mixture of vegetable, may have the effect of 

 carrying the animal process too far, and particularly of produc- 

 ing and evolving a larger proportion of saline matter. That 

 such a preternatural quality of saline matter does exist in the 

 blood of scorbutic persons, appears from the state of the fluids 

 above mentioned. It will be a confirmation of all this to ob- 

 serve, that every interruption of perspiration, that is, the reten- 

 tion of saline matter, contributes to the production of scurvy ; 

 and this interruption is especially owing to the application of 

 cold, or to whatever else weakens the force of the circulation, 

 such as the neglect or want of exercise, fatigue, and despond- 

 ency of the mind. It deserves indeed to be remarked here, that 

 one of the first effects of the scurvy once induced, is very soon 

 to occasion a great debility of the system, which occasions of 

 course a more rapid progress of the disease. How the state of 

 the fluids may induce such a debility is not well understood ; 

 but that it does depend upon such a state of the fluids, is ren- 

 dered sufficiently presumable, from what has been said above 

 with regard to both the causes and the cure of scurvy. 



MDCCCXIII. It is possible that this debility may have a 



