476 
The Modus Operandi of Nitre in Thoracic Inflammation 
[From the British and Foreign Review.] 
If the congestion of the lungs be not recent, if effusion have 
taken place, with morbid changes in the blood, in the capillaries 
and in the organs themselves, bleeding is of secondary value, and 
other remedies must be adopted. Nitre and tartar emetic are most 
generally and successfully adopted in Germany. The results of 
experiments shew that the action of nitre on the blood out of the 
body is to prevent its coagulation, to diminish the tendency of the 
blood vesicles to unite, and to contract the membrane of the latter. 
Its chemical relations to fibrin as a solvent have been already 
stated. When taken into the stomach, it is absorbed inter the cir- 
culation, and excites both the capillaries and blood vesicles to 
contract. It hinders the tendency of the fibrin to coagulate, and, 
by rendering the tendency of the effused plasma more soluble, 
promotes absorption. It also renders the absorption of oxygen 
into the blood more active, and so facilitates the decomposition of 
the pseudo-plasma, and its excretion by the kidneys and skin in 
the form of urate of ammonia, &c. 
THE VETERINARIAN, AUGUST 1, 1846. 
Ne quid falsi dicere audeat, ne quid veri non audeat. — C icero. 
THROUGH the favour of our friend, Mr. Field, we are this 
month enabled to present our readers with copies of some manu- 
script papers, curious and valuable in their eyes and ours, from 
being the product of the pen of a man held in Britain, in his day, 
in the highest estimation as a professor and promoter of veterinary 
science. The name of Moorcroft, though carrying with it remi- 
niscences of love and respect everywhere among the senior mem- 
bers of our profession, is not, we suspect, so well known as it 
deserves to be by many of the juniors. They will need to be told 
that Mr. Moorcroft was, at the decease of Sainbel, the first Pro- 
fessor at the Veterinary College, appointed joint-professor with Mr. 
Coleman to that institution ; that he was likewise the founder and 
original proprietor of the large horse infirmary in Oxford-street, 
now the property of Mr. Field ; and that he resigned both these 
