COHESION OF LIQUIDS. 153 



quantities of caloric during combustion, and are 

 very bad conductors of heat and electricity. 



Query. May not the mild and un irritating pro- 

 perties of the fixed oils depend chiefly on the size 

 of their proximate atoms, by which they retain 

 around them their latent caloric, so that when 

 taken into the stomach, they produce no burning 

 sensation or inflammation? And may not their 

 refusal to combine with cold water be owing to 

 the same cause ? for it will be seen hereafter that 

 no chemical combination ever takes place without 

 a transition of caloric from one body to another. 



It would be a matter of the highest interest and 

 importance to ascertain the cause which deter- 

 mines the specific agencies of the aethers, alcohol, 

 and its combinations with water, as brandy, gin, 

 &c. on the living body, what gives them their 

 tonic and exhilarating properties why the vola- 

 tile oils are pungent and aromatic, while the fixed 

 oils are bland, producing no sensation of heat 

 when taken into the stomach. The modus ope- 

 randi of hydro-cyanic, oxalic, nitric, and sul- 

 phuric acids, together with all active medicines, 

 which are poisons, is still involved in profound 

 darkness. A thorough investigation of this whole 

 subject, physiologically and pathologically, under 

 the guidance of broad and fundamental principles, 

 would create a new era in medical science, and 

 rescue it from the opprobrium of mysticism and 

 uncertainty which have long rendered its utility 



