376 POISONS, CONTAGIONS, MIASMS. 



their acids, and thus be prevented from performing 

 its usual office. The immediate consequence of this 

 must be the formation of arterial blood in less quan- 

 tity, or in other words, the process of respiration 

 must be retarded. 



Neutral acetates, tartrates, and citrates placed in 

 contact with the air, and at the same time with 

 animal or vegetable bodies in a state of eremacausis, 

 produce exactly the same effects as we have de- 

 scribed them to produce in the lungs. They partici- 

 pate in the process of decay, and are converted into 

 carbonates just as in the living body. If impure 

 solutions of these salts in water are left exposed 

 to the air for any length of time, their acids are 

 gradually decomposed, and at length entirely disap- 

 pear. 



Free mineral acids, or organic acids which are not 

 volatile, and salts of mineral acids with alkaline 

 bases, completely arrest decay when added to decay- 

 ing matter in sufficient quantity ; and when their 

 quantity is small, the process of decay is protracted 

 and retarded. They produce in living bodies the 

 same phenomena as the neutral organic salts, but 

 their action depends upon a different cause. 



The absorption by the blood of a quantity of an 

 inorganic salt sufficient to arrest the process of 

 eremacausis in the lungs, is prevented by a very 

 remarkable property of all animal membranes, skin, 

 cellular tissue, muscular fibre, &c. ; namely, by their 

 incapability of being permeated by concentrated 

 saline solutions. It is only when these solutions 

 are diluted to a certain degree with water that they 

 are absorbed by animal tissues. 



A dry bladder remains more or less dry in satu- 

 rated solutions of common salt, nitre, ferro-cyanuret 

 of potassium, sulpho-cyanuret of potassium, sulphate 

 of magnesia, chloride of potassium, and sulphate of 

 soda. These solutions run off its surface in the 

 same manner as water runs from a plate of glass 

 besmeared with tallow. 



