66 Memoir on ike Incombustible Man, &>c. 



sufficient to bathe it first with the above solution of alum, 

 and afterwards covering it with a thin stratum of sugar in 

 fine powder, and also rubbing it often with a piece of hard 

 soap. If the tongue, after being bathed in the solution of 

 alum, is rubbed with a piece of lump sugar, it will have the 

 same effect as if covered with the powder of the same sugar. 

 If this preparation is performed with care, a piece of red-hot 

 iron may be often drawn successively across the tongue 

 without experiencing the least sensation of heat. The tongue 

 prepared in this manner will be very able to sustain the ac- 

 tion of a little very hot oil, or a little melted lead, if the 

 operator has the dexterity to make it fall precisely on the 

 part prepared. 



Here then the mystery of the pretended incombustibility 

 is unfolded, and also the means by which any one may at 

 pleasure become incombustible, if the state of preparation 

 which I have described, and with which one can suffer only 

 for a certain time the action of fire, merits the epithet. 

 Hence every one may easily know, that by chemical means 

 only we could not explain with sufficient facility the afore- 

 said phaenomena, if it were wished to exclude the insensi- 

 bility which the nerves of the skin in such experiments must 

 necessarily acquire, especially by the known nieans fit to 

 repel the force of the caloric after their first application. 

 Were they employed at the time of the experiment, they 

 would be so easily recognised as to destroy the necessary il- 

 lusion. 



In this first essay I did not wish to enterat greater length 

 into a chemico-physiological examination which such an 

 interesting phaenomenon indeed merits, designing rather to 

 notice facts. In a second essay, however, I can with greater 

 advantage occupy myself with the chemical philosophy, as 

 ■well as that which belongs to animal life, more diffusely ; 

 and with greater precision treat of this subject, which has 

 deservedly excited universal attention. 



VII. Ana- 



