[ 599 ] 
leave, from the obvious qualities of this medicine, 
and from what has been obferved above, to deduce 
the following corollaries. 
1. That fait of fteel has no deobftruent or aperient 
virtue by any immediate adtion, that it can poflibly 
have on the blood, or other animal fluids, as feme 
have imagined ; but that, on the contrary, it owes 
this quality to its not entering the bloody which it 
would otherwife coagulate, and to its action on the 
folids alone. 
2 . That in difeafes proceeding from a laxity of the 
folids, great care ought to be taken to reflore and in- 
vigorate the prima vise ; fince a medicine (and this 
we may prefume not the only one) whofe immediate 
adtion is confined to thofe parts, is yet found by ex- 
perience to produce fo falutary effedts in fuch dif- 
eafes. 
3. That as this fait does not enter the blood, and 
confequently cannot be in danger of too much ftimu- 
lating or conftridting the veflels, on which it only adts 
by confent, it may, in fmall dofes, be fucceisfully 
ufed in many cafes, where it has been imagined to 
be hurtful, particularly in confumptions of the lungs, 
fo frequent and fatal in this ifland ; which are com- 
monly attended with too great a laxity of the prime ? 
via, and of the folids in general, tho’ they feem 
more immediately to proceed from a laxity and weak- 
nefs of the pulmonary veflels ; in which circumftances 
it muft be of the utmoft confequence to reflore the 
tone of thofe principal organs of chylification, the 
primes vice ; as good chyle not only corredts the acri- 
mony of the blood, which in the advanced ftages 
of confumptions fo much prevails, but likewife laves 
a great 
