296 EXCRETION OF SUPERFLUOUS NON-AZOTIZED NUTRIMENT. 



349. Hence the radical cure of these diseases, in most 

 persons who have a sufficiently vigorous constitution and firm 

 resolution to adopt it, is abstinence from all azotized nutri- 

 ment whether contained in animal flesh, bread, or other 

 articles of vegetable diet, save such as is required to supply 

 the wants of the system. If such abstinence be carried too 

 far, however, it will produce injurious instead of beneficial 

 results, weakening the fabric, and impairing the digestive 

 powers ; and if food be employed of a kind which is liable to 

 produce lactic acid (the acid that appears in milk, when it turns 

 sour), much disorder may still remain, which must be avoided by 

 using the kind of diet that is least liable to undergo this change. 



350. Again, if more non-azotized food is taken into the 

 system than can be got rid of by Eespiration, it must either 

 be deposited as fat, or it must be separated from the blood, 

 and carried-off by the excretion of the Liver. But if too 

 much work be thrown upon this organ, its function becomes 

 disordered, from its inability to separate from the blood all 

 that it should draw-off ; the injurious substances accumulate 

 in the blood, therefore, producing various symptoms that are 

 known under the general term of bilious ; and to get rid of 

 these, it becomes necessary to administer medicines (especially 

 those of a mercurial character) which shall excite the liver to 

 increased secretion. The constant use of these medicines has 

 a very pernicious effect upon the constitution; and careful 

 attention to the regulation of the diet, and especially the 

 avoidance of a superfluity of oily or farinaceous matter, will 

 generally answer the same end in a much better manner. 



351. That the materials of the Biliary and Urinary excre- 

 tions pre-exist (like the carbonic acid thrown-off by respiration) 

 in the blood, in forms which, if not identical, are at any rate 

 closely allied to those under which they present themselves 

 in the bile and urine, has now been fully proved. The 

 quantity of them present in the circulating fluid, however, is 

 usually very small ; for the simple and obvious reason that, 

 if the excreting organs are in a state of healthy activity, these 

 substances are drawn-off by them from the blood, as fast as 

 they are introduced into it. But if the excretions be checked, 

 they speedily accumulate in the blood, to such a degree as to 

 be easily detected by the Chemist, and also to make their 

 presence evident by their effects upon the animal functions, 



