An analysis of Dr. Rutty's Methodical synopsis of mineral waters : addressed, by way of appeal, to the Royal College of Physicians, London / By C. Lucas.
- Charles Lucas
- Date:
- 1757
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: An analysis of Dr. Rutty's Methodical synopsis of mineral waters : addressed, by way of appeal, to the Royal College of Physicians, London / By C. Lucas. Source: Wellcome Collection.
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![[ 3° ] to confider the fecond. I fhall be as brier as pofll- ble with his natural hiftory, becaufe, bad as it is, it belongs to fomebody elfe, which he either cites or , r O y J fupp relies, as he thinks fit. He begins this book with a chapter on modern nitre or faltpetre : he attempts to draw it’s charac¬ ters, p. 51. Let his criterions of this fait be com¬ pared with thofe of the Essay on Waters, part II. p. 99 to 100. parti, p. 122, 123, &c. and let judges determine which is moil confonant to reafon and truth. But, how far the Doctor’s experiments on this fubjedt may be relied on, is to be judged from the following unfortunate fcholium : The terrejirial mat¬ ter in faltpetre is fo clofely combined with the acid, as not to be feparable by the admixture of any alcali: fory that faltpetre contains a confider able proportion of ter¬ rejirial mat ter y appears from the magnejia albay one of the methods of preparing which is from faltpetre.— Sure, if this great author had had one phyfical friend in Ireland, that would have read his manu- icript, fuch an enormous blunder as this could not have been permitted to come to light. Yet, there were not wanting here, men that upon perufal puffed the performance, as a library book, as much a flandard, with refpedt to waters, as the works of Hippo¬ crates, with refpedt tophyfic ! There is not an apothecary fo ignorant, in Dub¬ lin, as not to know that faltpetre confifts of a fpe*. cific acid and an artificial, vegetable fixed alcali. No man, that knew this, could 'attempt to preci¬ pitate any thing from a folution of faltpetre, with any, and left of all with a fixed, alcali. Pure nitre or faltpetre, which alone is to be called nitre, con¬ tains none earth: it is compofed of the two falts above, the one an acid9 the other an alcali: and none increafe, none excefs, of either can caufe any degree of precipitation in a pure folution. But,](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b30785157_0038.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
