[ 3°3 1 
fcience of medicine, we find feveral who 
have retained fpme of their ancient preju¬ 
dices, and talked of acrimony in the blood, 
in the fame way as it was fpoken of in the 
old fchool. 1 cannot avoid comparing 
thefe phyficians to apoftates in religion, 
who always retain fome maxim of that in 
which they were educated. 
I do not mean to deny the exiftence of 
acrimony altogether. Acrimonies exift, 
but they are always in their origin the re¬ 
fill t of a vitiated fecretion—Analogy, a 
great number of fadts and obfervations 
ferve as a bafis for this opinion. My Eflay 
on Chronic Difeafes (Saggio fopra diverfe 
Malattie croniche—Edizione di Pavia, An. 
1792) has this principle for its foundation. 
Thus I am of opinion, that in phthifis 
pulmonalis, the lungs themfelves form an 
acrimony of a particular kind; that in the 
rickets, the blood-veffels, which are in¬ 
tended to nourifh the bones, fecrete a 
tnenftruum 
