[ 338 ] 
afide their ftimulating quality, which irmfl: prevent 
their ufe in moft of the putrid difeafes, they would 
increafe the morbific matter, by being intimately 
mixed by circulation with phlogiftic matter, which 
they find in abundance in fuch bodies. It has been 
objefled to this, that the exhalation of ftale urine, 
though fhewing a great quantity of volatile alcali, is 
inoffenfive to health [^] ; and that fome perfons have 
taken the volatile alcali in very great quantity, with- 
out its bringing on a putrid difeafe [/j] : but there 
ftances : I once thought, that as the ammoniac fait, nitre, 
bring clown the thermometer feveral degrees, perhaps all thefe 
falts a£ied by inftantly abforbing the heat producect by the 
beginning inteftine motion ; and that, as a certain degree of 
•warmth is necefl'ary to putrefadlion, in preventing this degree 
from coming on, it might hinder the whole operation. To fee 
by experiment how far this might be true, I put into phials a 
certain quantity of water, with that proportionate quantity of 
alcalies, fixed and volatile, fal ammoniac. See. which Sir John 
Pringle had found (Append, p. xvi. xvii.) to be antifeptic ; and in 
one as much pure water as * a ftandard. I flopped every 
one of them with a cork., in which 1 had made a hole for a 
thermometer of Fahrenheit. I expofed all thefe phials to the 
fiime heat ; Sir John had ufed about 1 12 "; but I found, that both 
thofe with the falts and that without it marked the fame degree 
of heat ; and that therefore the abforption of heat can by no 
means be the reafon of the putrefarStion being flopped. May 
this phtenomenon not depend upon the falts penetrating the 
body, and giving to the particles more puu£Ja contadlus (accordir.g 
to their greater or lefs affinity}? and may not thefe falts, in aug- 
menting cohefion, hinder *the fluids from feparating themfelves 
trom one another, and, in confequence, prevent intefline mo- 
tion ? Is this not fomewhat confirmed by the adlion of ad- 
llringents ? and by the niofl powerful aiSlions of metallic falts, 
as being of the greatefl fpeciflc gravity? 
[if] Sir J. Pringle, Append, p. vi. 
[A] Id, ibid. p. xcii. 
are 
