EFFECTS OF SALTS ON THE ORGANISM. 377 



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 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, ani- 

 mal 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 introduced into the stomach, it is ab- 

 sorbed ; but a concentrated saline solution, in place 

 of being itself absorbed, extracts water from the 

 organ, and a violent thirst ensues. Some inter- 

 change of water and salt takes place in the stomach ; 

 the coats of this viscus yield water to the solution, 

 a part of which having previously become sufficiently 

 diluted, is, on the other hand, absorbed. But the 

 greater part of the concentrated solution of salt 

 remains unabsorbed, and is not removed by the 

 urinary passages ; it consequently enters the intes- 

 tines 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 prop- 

 erty shared by all of them; but besides this they 

 exercise a medicinal action, because every part of 

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