EFFECTS OF SALTS ON THE ORGANISM. 35" 



tions of common salt, nitre, ferro-cyanuret of potassium, sulpho- 

 cyanuret of potassium, sulphate of magnesia, chloride of potas- 

 sium, and sulphate of soda. These solutions run off its surface 

 in the same manner as water runs from a plate of glass be- 

 smeared with tallow. 



Fresh flesh, over which salt has been strewed, is found, 

 after 24 hours, swimming in brine, although not a drop of water 

 has been added. The water has been yielded by the muscular 

 fibre itself, and having dissolved the salt in immediate contact 

 with it, and thereby lost the power of penetrating animal sub- 

 stances, it has on this account separated from the flesh. The 

 water still retained by the flesh contains a proportionally small 

 quantity of salt, having that degree of dilution at which a saline 

 fluid is capable of penetrating animal substances. 



This property of animal tissues is taken advantage of in 

 domestic economy for the purpose of removing so much water 

 from meat that a sufficient quantity is not left to enable it to 

 enter into putrefaction. 



In respect of this physical property of animal tissues, alcohol 

 resembles the inorganic salts. It is incapable of moistening, that 

 is, of penetrating, animal tissues, and possesses such an affinity 

 for water as to extract it from moist substances. 



When a solution of a salt, in a certain degree of dilution, is in- 

 troduced into the stomach, it is absorbed ; but a concentrated 

 saline solution, in place of being itself absorbed, extracts water 

 from the organ, and a violent thirst ensues. Some interchange 

 of water and salt takes place in the stomach ; the coats of this 

 viscus yield water to the solution, a part of which, having pre- 

 viously become sufficiently diluted, is, on the other hand, ab- 

 sorbed. But the greater part of the concentrated solution of salt 

 remains unabsorbed, and is not removed by the urinary pas- 

 sages ; it consequently enters the intestines and intestinal canal, 

 where it causes a dilution of the solid substances deposited 

 there, and thus acts as a. purgative. 



Each of the salts just mentioned possesses this purgative 

 action, which depends on a physical property shared by all of 

 them ; but, besides this, they exercise a medicinal action, be. 



