7 DISEASES CLASS I. 2. 2. 14. 



ciency of phosphoric acid; which is probably produced by oxy- 

 gene in the act of respiration. 



Mr. Bonhome, in the Chemical Annals, August, 1793, sup- 

 poses the rickets to arise from the prevalence of vegetable or 

 acetous acid, which is known to soften bones out of the body. 

 Mr. Dettaen seems to have espoused a similar opinion, and both 

 of them in consequence give alkalies and testacea. If this theory 

 was just, the soft bones of such patients should shew evident 

 marks of such acidity after death; which I believe has not been 

 observed, Nor is it analogous to other animal facts, that nutri- 

 tious fluids secreted by the finest vessels of the body should be so 

 little anirnalized, as to retain acetous or vegetable acidity. 



The success attending the following case in so short a time as 

 *a fortnight I ascribed principally to the use of the warm bath; 

 in which the patient continued for full half an hour every night, 

 in the degree of heat, which was most grateful to her sensation, 



which might be I suppose about 94. Miss , about ten years 



of age, and very tall and thin, has laboured under palpitation of 

 her heart, and difficult breathing on the least exercise, with oc- 

 casional violent dry cough, for a year or more, with dry lips, 

 little appetite either for food or drink, and dry skin, with cold 

 extremities. She has at times been occasionally worse, and been 

 relieved in some degree by the bark. She began to bend for- 

 wards, and to lift up her shoulders. The former seemed owing 

 to a beginning curvature of the spine, the latter was probably 

 caused to facilitate her difficult respiration. 



M. M. She used the warm bath, as above related; which by 

 its warmth might increase the irritability of the smallest series 

 of vessels, and by supplying more moisture to the blood might 

 probably tend to carry further the materials, which form calca- 

 reous or bony particles, or to convey them in more dilute solu* 

 tion. She took twice a day twenty grains of extract of bark, 

 twenty grains of soda phosphorata, and ten grains of chalk and 

 ten of calcined hartshorn, mixed into a powder with ten drops of 

 laudanum; with flesh food both to dinner and supper; and port 

 wine and water instead of the small beer she had been accus- 

 tomed to; she lay on a sofa frequently in a day, and occasionally 

 used a neck-swing. 



There is no situation, w T here the softness of the bones and 

 consequent deformity of them is so frequently attended with 

 calamitous consequences, as when it affects the bones of the 

 pelvis, so as to contract the form of it; whence many unfortu- 

 nate women have lost their infants, or perished themselves. In 

 this miserable situation of the pregnant uterus, some have de- 

 stroyed the child, others have undergone the Caesarean operation. 



