52 



this acid, and VON CREI/L wrote an explicit 

 treatise upon it, in which he examined its proper- 

 ties, and gave it the name of sebacic acid. Se- 

 veral Chemists afterwards proposed new methods 

 of preparing- it. THENARD shewed at last, that 

 this acid consisted of the acetic and muriatic acids, 

 together with an empyrenmatic oil, of a highly 

 offensive smell, which was dissolved in it. On 

 the other hand, he found in this very oil an acid, 

 which might be extracted by boiling it in water, 

 and which, during the cooling of the water, pre- 

 cipitated itself in small light granular crystals, 

 which he considered as a peculiar acid and called 

 it sebacic acid. I have myself since found, in 

 the same acid, with the exception of a few ex- 

 ternal characters, all the properties of benzole 

 acid, and from this I consider THENARD'S seba- 

 cic acid as benzoic acid, impregnated with the 

 residuum of other products of distillation, which 

 evidently impart a smell, both to the acid and to 

 its salts, and which modify their taste. 



When any part of the cellular texture is infla- 

 med, that kind of inflammation takes place which 

 is called phlegmonic. When this is suffered to sup- 

 purate, the greatest part of that which is inflamed 

 changes itself into a peculiar humour, called pus ? 



