SECT. XXIX. 4. RETROGRADE ABSORBENTS. 371 



4. Water eleven pints : twitchings lefs ; takes 

 five fcrupl'is for a dole. 



8. Water ten pints: has had many (tools, 



12. Appetite lefs : purges very much. 



After this the roiin either purged him, or would 

 not ftay on his ftomat h ; and he gradually relapfed 

 nearly to his former condition, and in a few months 

 funk under the difeafe. 



October 3, Mr. Hughes evaporated two quarts 

 of the water, and obtained from it four ounces and 

 half of a hard and brittle faccharine rnafs, like trea- 

 cle which had been fome time boiled. Four ounces 

 of blood, which he took from his arm with defign. 

 to examine it, had the common appearances, ex- 

 cept that the ferum refembled cheeie-whey ; and 

 that on the evidence of four perfons, two of whom 

 did not know what it was they tailed, the ferum had 

 aj'iltijh t-ifte. 



From hence it appears, that the faccharine matter, 

 with which the urine of thefe patients fo much 

 abounds, does not enter the blood-veflels like the 

 nitre and afparagus mentioned above ; but that the 

 proceis of digeftion relembles the procefs of the 

 germination of vegetables, or of making barley into 

 malt; as the vait quantity of fugar found in the 

 jurine mud be made from the food which he took 

 (which was double that taken by others), and from 

 the fourteen pints of fmall beer which he drank. 

 And, fecondly, as the ferum of the blood was not 

 fweet, the chyle appears to have been conveyed to 

 the bladder without entering the circulation of the 

 blood, lince fo large a quantity of fugar, as was 

 found in the urine, namely, twenty ounces a day, 

 could not have previoufly exifted in the blood with- 

 out being perceptible to the tafte. 



November i. Mr. Hughes diflblved two drams 

 of nitre in a pint of a decoction of the roots of 

 afparagus, and added to it two ounces of tincture 



of 



