AGRICULTURAL CHEMISTRY. 



61 



vail; these are the periods of vigour, and produces languid motions, and functions, 

 the era of inflammatory disease. . In old and requires excitement for its cure. The 



age the stamina are worn, the excitabil 

 ity is exhausted, the common stim- 

 uli have lost their power, and the sys- 

 tem begins to decline; we have weakness 

 of body, imbecility of mind, and asthenic 

 diseases. We may last of all, have i-e- 

 course to more generous diet, and raise 



second is a strong state of the system, 

 wound up to too high a degree of excite- 

 ment. It is an exuberance of health and 

 strength. It is marked by violent move- 

 ments, and is cured by extraction of 

 stimuli. Thus are all our maladies either 

 diseases of weakness or of excessive 



the stimulant powers by substituting wine ' strength; and thus is the foundation of the 



to water, or brandy to wine; thus perhaps 

 excitement may be awhile supported and 

 life prolonged; but in a few years, these 

 also fail. 



This doctrine further teaches that our 

 body is never moved but by exciting pow- 

 ers. None but stimuli affect our system. 

 That there are direct sedatives, in nature 

 is esteemed an unphilosophic, and vulgar 

 error. In stimuli there is a gradation 

 which being relative to the S3'stem de- 

 ceives our senses; for as some stimuli are 

 powerful and others weak, a low stimulus 

 applied after a more powerful one, will 

 stimulate less than the former, will allay 

 the motions which the former had excited, 

 and will therefore be named a sedative. 



Take heat as an example of this: cold 

 is but an abstraction of heat, yet it is 

 thought a positive existence ; and cold is 

 named a sedative and heat a stimulant 

 power. To detect this deception of sense, 

 plunge the right hand into water at the 

 heat of one hundred and fifty degrees, the 

 left hand into melting snow; withdraw 

 both and plunge them at once into water 

 at 100°, it will prove at once stimulant and 

 sedative; cold or sedative to therighthand, 

 and hot or stimulant to the left; so is fast- 

 ing an abstraction of the wanted stimulus 

 of food, bleeding of the usual stimulus of 

 blood, and so on. Health is then the due 

 operation of stimuli on a well regulated 

 excitability, producing a moderate excite- 

 ment, and a pleasant sensation, moving 

 the whole system with a just degree of 

 power, and giving all the functions their 

 due energy and tone. Asthenic disease, 

 disease of debility or of weakness, is the 

 result of stimuli applied in a low degree, 

 or of the system less easily excited; 

 asthenic disease, or disease of strength, is 

 the result of stimuli applied in too great a 

 degree, or of a system too susceptible of 

 excitement. The first is depression of 

 excitement below the healthy state; it 



Brunonian scale, which has for its middle 

 point, health; below that are arranged the 

 diseases of weakness; above it the diseases 

 of excessive strength; and in both divi- 

 sions of the scale, diseases are so arranged, 

 that the worst forms are set off at the 

 greatest distance from the middle point, 

 to mark them as the widest deviations 

 from the healthy stale, 



[To be continued.) 



PROCESS TO PRESERVE BEEF AND PORK. 



To the Hams and Shoulders of ISOOlbs. 

 of Pork apply one pint of saltpetre finely 

 pulverized and one gallon of molasses — 

 and to any other quantity in the .same re- 

 lative proportions. 



The saltpetre and molasses are first 

 mixed together and then rubbed over the 

 hams and shoulders, they are then imme- 

 diately packed away in barrels or other 

 water-tight vessels, with the skin doivn. 



The next day they are to be covered 

 with a brine that will bear an egg. 



In about six weeks or two months 

 smoke them as usual in a smoke house in 

 which air is allowed to circulate, and flies 

 prevented from entering, by a wire or 

 other screen. 



If the pickle becomes mouldy put a few 

 handsfull of salt on a board, the upper 

 surface of which is just below the surface 

 of the fluid brine, and if mould appears at 

 any time afterwards in the brine add more 

 salt. — Beef is treated exactly as the pork. 



From Sir Humphrey Davy's Elements of Agricultural 

 Chemistry. 



AGRICULTURAL CHEMISTRY. 



Continued from page 48. 

 That gentleman fixed some seeds of the 

 garden bean on the circumference of a 

 wheel, which in one instance was placed 

 vertically, and in the other horizontally, 

 and made to revolve, by means of another 

 wheel worked by water, in such a manner, 



