JUICE OF THE PAPAW TREE. 24>7 



of the milky juice in water, extracted from the 

 fruit, to horses, with a view, as they express it, " of 

 breaking down the blood;" and it is a fact, well 

 established, that if given to a horse, whose blood 

 exhibits the cupped bufTy coat, it will, after some 

 time, produce a loose coagulum, and reduce the in- 

 flammatory symptoms which gave rise to it I un- 

 derstood, from my friend, the late X)r Jones of Bar- 

 badoes, well known in this University, by the pub- 

 lication of an ingenious experimental Thesis, that he 

 had ascertained this to be the effect of the papaw 

 juice on a horse, which had cough, and whose blood 

 was bufTy ; and this account has very recently been 

 confirmed to me, by a near connection of Dr Jones's, 

 a gentleman who formerly lived with him, and who 

 is at present a residenter in this city, as a student 

 of medicine. 



That this remarkable effect is independent of pu- 

 trefaction, or of a process verging to putrefaction, is 

 rendered extremely probable, by the fact, that it is 

 not confined to dead muscular fibre, but is produced 

 on the circulating blood ; or, at least, on one of its 

 constituent parts. At the same time, the conse- 

 quence of this effect will no doubt be, by its me- 

 chanical operation, to promote and hasten putrefac- 

 tion, on account of its destroying the cohesion of the 

 flesh, and separating the fibres. This is a fact so 

 well known to the housewives of the colony, that 

 they will not purchase, for salting, pork which has 

 been partly fattened on the boiled fruit of the pa- 



