[ 59 § ] 
which nature, by precluding aftringents from enter- 
ing the ladteals, has carefully and wifely avoided. 
Salt of fteel, taken internally, muft retain its 
aftringency until it be precipitated ; which can fcarce. 
ever fail to happen in the great guts, from the putrid 
faces they contain, which are always obferved to be 
tinged of a black colour from the metallic bafis of 
the fait, part of which, as it has little or no aftrin- 
gency, may, no doubt, enter the blood, as Signor 
Menghini obferved of the crocus , which is the fame 
iubftance ; and we know, from the experiments of 
Lifter and Mufgrave -f-, that particles much grofler 
than thofe of the white -chyle, provided they be not 
aftringent, or very acrid, are conveyed by the ladteals. 
But the metallic bafis being feparated from its acid, 
and thus reduced to a mere calx or earth, can fcarce 
be fuppofed to have any medicinal quality whatfo- 
ever, or at leaft to have any fhare in the virtues juftly 
attributed to fait of fteel. 
As this fait is not only aftringent, and confequently 
a ftrengthener, but at the fame time adts with a gentle 
Jiimulus , all its virtues (which are known to be very 
great in difeafes, where the fluids are either vifcid, 
cold, and phlegmatic, or diflolved and watery, from 
a laxity of the folids) may be accounted for from its 
immediate effedts on the ftomach and primce via, 
and on the fyftem of the folids in general by confent ; 
which it would be needlefs to illuftrate by fimilar 
examples, becaufe well known to every one the leaft: 
verfed in medical ftudies. I fhall therefore only beg 
t Phil. Tranfaft. by Lowthorpe, vol. iii. p. 102. edit. 1749. 
the fame by Jones, vol. v. p. 259. 
leave, 
