55 



sary for forming a correct judgement of what we 

 see; these analytical investigations have not been 

 productive of the information which one might 

 have expected, if made hy a Chemist who had 

 also examined other animal fluids. However, 

 among the results of his experiments, there is 

 much that deserves to be noticed. In the mu- 

 cous matter, which is expectorated in long catar- 

 rhai coughs, he found, when diluted with water 

 and observed with a good miscrocope, heaps of 

 small globular bodies, which were carried to and 

 fro, as it were, with a spontaneous motion. 

 These globules were somewhat larger than the 

 globules of the colouring matter in the blood, and 

 could not be destroyed,, either by trituration or 

 boiling, nor by drying or - re-dissolving, neither 

 by coagulation with mineral acids, alcohol, 

 rether, alum, or tanning principle, nor by an 

 addition of so small a quantity of caustic alkali, 

 that the humour still kept itself turbid, and even 

 a commencing putrefaction did not break them 

 down ; but they were destroyed by concentrated 

 sulphuric acid, and by employing so much caus- 

 tic alkali, as to render the solution clear, or by 

 heating the dried matter until it began to be char- 

 red. He found these globules also in expectorated 

 pus in .a decided case of consumption; but his sup- 



