DR. PROUT ON ANIMAL CHEMISTRY. 577 
constitutional disturbances connected with this form of disease 
are too w ell known to require description here ; and every one must 
have noticed the strong sour smell of the perspired fluid which is 
sometimes thrown off by the skin in the colliquative sweatings, 
and which is produced by acetic acid. Occasionally all the se¬ 
cretions contain more or less of this acid ; and I have more than 
once smelt even the breath impregnated with vinegar, and found 
the saliva strongly acid from the same cause, a short time before 
the death of a patient. 
I have been informed that the fluid thrown from the stomach in 
yellow fever, and termed the black vomit , is often strongly acid; 
and some circumstances induce me to believe that the acid is, in 
part at least, the acetic, but I have had no opportunity of verifying 
this notion. 
Such are a few of the most usual and important diseases con¬ 
nected with derangements of the saccharine radical. There are 
many others of a less obvious character; but, perhaps, it may be 
observed that, in general, almost all the more important organic 
diseases, of a chronic and malignant character, are more fre¬ 
quently connected with this principle than with either of the 
others; probably no less from the nature of the matters generated 
than from the originally less vital character of the textures them¬ 
selves, in which this principle predominates. 
Of Diseases connected with the Oleaginous Principle .—Two in¬ 
stances have come to my knowledge in which large quantities of 
fatty matter have been given off from the bowels. These, of 
course, have been passed in the fluid state, but on cooling have 
become solid, and assumed the usual appearance of stearine. In 
both these cases the intestinal canal was found diseased after 
death. In the one case the colon was particularly affected ; in 
the other, the duodenum. The last case occurred to Dr. Elliotson 
at St. Thomas's Hospital, to whom I am indebted for the parti¬ 
culars. The patient was diabetic, and latterly phthisical. This 
affection may be considered, in some degree, as analogous to dia¬ 
betes, the oleaginous being substituted for the saccharine radical. 
Indeed, in diabetes the fat often undergoes a remarkable change 
in its appearance. 
I need scarcely more than allude to the well-known fact of 
the frequent existence of steatomatous or fatty tumours, the oc¬ 
currence of which in various parts of the body may be considered 
as morbid depositions, little connected with life, and generally 
quite free from malignant tendency. When they occur, however, 
in habits in which the saccharine radical is likewise affected, tliev 
often appear to add to the malignancy of the aff ection ; and under 
these circumstances great quantities of fatty, brain-like matter, 
