VOL. XV.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRAKSACTI0N8. 13] 



spirits are of an equal purity; he thinks in that of nitre there is something of an 

 urinosum ; in the oil of vitriol none at all. As to the experiment of flame, 

 produced by oil of vitriol and sp. of wine, he tells him that he read it out of an 

 author, but it never succeeded. 



Since sp. of wine is an oily body, the author of the letter makes a question, 

 how it comes to pass, that it makes no ebullition, and gives no colour to any 

 spirit, except that of nitre ? to which Dr. Voight answers, because it causes no 

 more ebullitions, for that reason it approaches the nature of oris ; for acidum et 

 urinosum only excite those ebullitions. He answers further, that it does indeed 

 make ebullitions, both with sp. of nitre, and of salt, but that it does not so by 

 reason of any urinous salt it contains. 



To this M. Kunkel thinks, he has copiously answered. 



In the epistle. Dr. Voight answers to this objection, that if sp. of wine were 

 an oleosum, why it would not mix with oil : he answers it by proving the con- 

 trary, that if you put into highly rectified sp. of wine, oil of fennel, or anniseeds, 

 it will dissolve. 



M. Kunkel replies, that it retains some few drops of this oil, by reason of 

 that small quantity of acidum in the spirit ; but if you impregnate it with more 

 salts, it will take up and dissolve more oil. Also that it easily parts with this 

 imbibed oil again : but true oils do all equally and thoroughly mix. 



The author of the letter having put another query, about the causam ebrie- 

 tatis, viz. whether it depended on a body, as oleaginous, or as sweet, urinous 

 alkalisate, answers propter acidum ? To which. Dr. Voight demands of him to 

 show an acidum inflammabile taken out of sp. of wine. He proceeds then him- 

 self, to give an account of drunkenness : that wine affects the animal spirits, 

 ratione olei, rather than salis acidi. 



The author of the letter will not allow it to produce drunkenness as an oil : 

 he quite divests oils of that quality, having never heard of any that got fuddled 

 by drinking oils : but that oils have been taken into the body as preservatives 

 against drunkenness. M. Kunkel concludes with his address to the Royal So- 

 ciety, excusing himself on the consideration of the great necessity of knowing 

 the true nature of things, particularly of heat and cold : and that without a true 

 account of the nature of salts, the harvest of chemistry will be very poor. 



He selects an observation or two, wherein he has particularly observed, that 

 a calidum et frigidum are to be found in a fulminating and combustible body. 

 He will also be glad to be informed of the contrary by any chemist in Europe, 

 if he can find out any body, that by a fair chemical examen, does not contain 

 calidum et frigidum, except the true oil of vitriol, which, as already said, has 

 only so much frigidum as it contains humidum or common water, which is so 



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