\OL. XLVI.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 6l 



stance at all dissolved, but was of such a consistence as might be expected from 

 common brine.* And lest it might be suspected, that the flesh in the gallypots 

 by being more exposed to the air than that in the phial, became sooner putrid, 

 he afterwards inclosed flesh in phials, as that with the hartshorn, and found the 

 confinement rather hasten the putrefaction. 



Now, by these and many other experiments of the kind, finding that volatile 

 alkaline salts not only do not dispose animal substances to putrefaction out of the 

 body, but even prevent it, and that more powerfully than common sea-salt, we 

 may presume that the same taken by way of medicine, will, caeteris paribus, 

 prove antiseptic; at least we cannot justly suppose them corrupters of the hu- 

 mours more than fermented spirits or sea-salt ; which taken in immoderate quan- 

 tities may raise a fever, and thus accidentally be the occasion of corruption. 



4. He had likewise made several experiments with the fixed alkaline salts, which 

 have no less antiseptic power than the volatile. The trials were made both with 

 the lie of tartar and salt of wormwood. But here we must not confound a dis- 

 agreeable smell of such mixtures, with one that is really putrid ; nor the power 

 those lixivials have of dissolving animal substances, with putrefactioni 



5. From these experiments it was natural to conclude, since acids by them- 

 selves were amongst the most powerful antiseptics, and the alkaline salts were 

 likewise of that class, that the mixtures of the two to saturation would resist pu- 

 trefaction little less than the acid alone. But in the trials he made on flesh with 

 a spiritus mindereri, composed of vinegar saturated with salt of hartshorn, and 

 also with the juice of lemons saturated with the salt of wormwood, he found 

 the antiseptic virtue considerably less than when either the acids or alkalis were 

 used singly. 



6. As for the comparative virtues of these salts on flesh, he found 4. oz. of 

 lemon-juice saturated with 1 scr. of the salt of wormwood resisted putrefaction, 

 nearly as much as 15 grains of nitre ; but when the trial was made with ox's gall, 

 2 drs. of this mixture were more antiseptic than 1 scr. of that salt. Again, nitre 

 compared with the dry neutral salts, weight for weight, is more antiseptic than 

 any, in preserving flesh he had yet tried. Crude sal ammoniac came next to it 

 and even exceeded it in the experiment with ox's gall. After these the sal diure- 

 ticus, tartarus solubilis, and tartarus vitriolatus, seemed to have nearly the 

 same power. 



He had mixed vinegar with a large quantity both of chalk and crabs-eyes, in 

 order to neutralize it ; but, though seemingly saturated, by the effervescence 

 ceasing, it still retained an acidity, and was found much more antiseptic than 



• The same piece after being kept dry a twelvemonth, was untainted, and as firm as at first. — Orig. 



