334 EREMACAUSIS OR DECAY 



yields products possessed of this property. A small 

 quantity of beer, acescent wine, a decoction of malt, 

 honey, and numerous other substances of this kind, 

 possess the action desired. 



The difference in the nature of the substances 

 which possess this property shows, that none of 

 them can contain a peculiar matter which has the 

 property of exciting eremacausis ; they are only the 

 bearers of an action, the influence of which extends 

 beyond the sphere of its own attractions. Their 

 power consists in a condition of decomposition or 

 eremacausis, which impresses the same condition 

 upon the atoms of alcohol in its vicinity ; exactly as 

 in the case of an alloy of platinum and silver dis- 

 solving in nitric acid, in which the platinum becomes 

 oxidized, by virtue of an inductive action exercised 

 upon it by the silver in the act of its oxidation. 

 The hydrogen of the alcohol is oxidized at the 

 expense of the oxygen in contact with it, and forms 

 water, evolving heat at the same time ; the residue 

 is aldehyde, a substance which has as great an affin- 

 ity for oxygen as sulphurous acid, and combines, 

 therefore, directly with it, producing acetic acid. 



CHAPTER VIII. 



EREMACAUSIS OF SUBSTANCES CONTAINING NITROGEN. 



NITRIFICATION. 



When azotized substances are burned at high 

 temperatures, their nitrogen does not enter into 

 direct combination with oxygen. The knowledge 

 of this fact is of assistance in considering the pro- 

 cess of the eremacausis of such substances. Azotized 

 organic matter always contains carbon and hydrogen, 

 both of which elements have a very strong affinity 

 for oxygen. 



Now nitrogen possesses a very feeble affinity for 



