LECTURES ON CHEMISTRY. 
7G9 
this to take place in the stomach and alimentary tube — and this 
may be readily conceded, since the heat of the interior of the body 
is nearly that which, out of it, would be employed to excite this 
change in vegetable matter — then we shall have an acid eli- 
minated. We have now gained one principle or constituent; and, 
as for the second, the vegetables themselves abound with a base 
for this acid, for in such as grow inland the alkali potassa is 
found in abundance, and more especially in those in which any 
decomposition has taken place. We have thus formed an 
acetate of potassa in the stomach and intestines — a soluble salt, 
which, being taken up by the lacteals, is conveyed to the kid- 
neys, and excites them to increased action, and thus becomes 
the cause of the disease. I would ask, am I right in this con- 
jecture ? or is the disease attributable to a derangement in func- 
tion, merely, of the organs of digestion, by which the blood be- 
comes vitiated, and, the kidneys being emunctories for throwing 
out such matters as would prove prejudicial to the system, they 
are thus called into exercise, and the secretion from them neces- 
sarily becomes altered in its character? 
If the latter be the right view of the matter, take the following 
elucidation of our subject : — 
The French veterinarians ascertained that the peasants in Nor- 
mandy were in the habit of curing cattle labouring under red- 
water (haematuria), by giving them wheat in which the putre- 
factive fermentation had been set up. The French school hear- 
ing of this instituted an inquiry, and, investigating the nature 
of the compound, ascertained that the active medicinal agent w'as 
ammonia : since which time, they have given as their medicinal 
compound the water of ammonia with success in such cases. 
Take another illustration: — Most of our patients feed on 
vegetable matter, and frequently, from the stomach’s function 
being deranged, much flatus is disengaged, generating the 
disease termed hooen in cattle, and tympanitis in the horse. 
Bearing in mind the changes which vegetable matter undergoes 
when not under the control of the vital principle, we have a 
clue to what here takes place. The order of fermentation has 
been already adverted to. We have, first, the vinous , secondly 
the acetous, and thirdly the putrefactive stage ; each of which 
is accompanied by its peculiar phenomena. Should the first 
exist, we have gaseous carbonic acid in abundance given oft ; 
and if called upon in this the first and early stage of the disease, 
our remedy would be some agent that would combine with 
this acid and condense it : this we have in ammonia, and the 
compound formed would prove salutary by acting as a gentle 
stimulus to the stomach to propel forwards its contents. Un- 
vol. xiv. 5 1 
