286 



ON THE UNCOMEINED ALKALI IN ANIMAL FLUIOS. 



public ; confiding, as he says, Mr. Editor, that you will 



assent, that the evidence offered " must entirely set the question 



at rest." 



Statement that One authority declaring the question to be entirely set at 



fnsTead'^of con- ^^^^' ^"^^ ^^^® oiher affirming that every shadow of doubt is 



elusions sup- now removed, aUhough I was not ready to believe, as I have 



ported by au- j^^j occasion to assert, that more than provisional conclusions 

 tnonty, cfught - ^ 



to have been are likely to be obtained, I at least expected to find some new 

 produced. contravening testimony. This I was prepared to acknowledgie 5 

 for, reasoning merely from the known facts, I should have felt 

 no humiliaiion if new evidence indicated adverse conclusions — 

 *' Nos non judicis sed indicis personam sustinemus," (Bacon.) 

 But on examining the evidence, which it is asserted has pro- 

 duced conviction, " removed every shadow of doubt," and 

 " set the question at rest," I was unable to perceive any new 

 facts to alter my former conclusions j hence I might have 

 replied merely by a^ counter-declaration and reference to my 

 unanswered experiments and inferences. As, however, this 

 mode of procedure may be deemed neither decorous to my 

 opponent, and the testimony produced of respectable personal 

 authority, nor satisfactory to the public, I respectfully offer the 

 foUov/ing brief exposition and remarks. 

 D M t' '^^^ process, which Dr. Marcet says authorises his confidence 

 piocess stated, in former conclusions, was this. The saline matters of the 

 serum of blood were procured by evaporation to dryness, inci- 

 neration, dissolution in water, filtration, evaporation again to 

 dryness, dissolution in acetic acid, dissolution again of the desic- 

 cated acetic compound in alcohol ; evaporation of this to dry- 

 ness, and fusion. The fused mass, amounting to about four 

 grains, was divided into four parts, a, b, c, d. 



1. a. 1. ** contained abundance of muriatic acid," 



2. Dissolved in water, apd suffered to evaporate sponta- 

 neously, an efBorefiC(?nt mass of feathery crystals was afforded. 



3. Tartaric acid and oxymuriate of platina manifested the 

 presence of potash. 



Now, I can only infer from these experiments, that a mu- 

 riate was present, probably either of soda, or of potash, or of 

 both — that potash was present combined, but with what sub- 

 stance is quite equivocal ; being only a small fractional part of a 

 / g»ain> it may be united to a double salt, although weakly, yet so as 



to be 



