Considerations on the medicinal use of factitious airs and on the manner of obtaining them / [Thomas Beddoes].

  • Thomas Beddoes
Date:
[1794?]-1796
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Considerations on the medicinal use of factitious airs and on the manner of obtaining them / [Thomas Beddoes]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    ( go ) contagion. They properly employ a loofe exprefiion. I] paréit tres-vraifemblable, d apres les nouvelles con~ noiffances fur la nature des gaz, que dans les falles fufpeciées a’ infalubrité, les miafmes putrides font tou-~ jours accompagnés d? une aflez grande guantit€ d’ acide carbonique. (p. 170.) They feem here to hold in view places, where animal fubftances have fer- mented, full as much as thofe where the fick breathe ; and it is true that in both there will be ‘* a good deal” of carbonic acid air, particularly in the former, as the meritorious refearches of Mr. Lavoitier have fo fully proved. 3 | The foreign philofophers will affuredly not deem it worth while to examine the book of their wou/d- be-critic with a prying pick-fault eye. But they will {mile to find one who is perpetually either ignorant or miftaken concerning familiar chemical facts, prefuming upon *‘ thofe improvements, which a more “© accurate chemistry, and a long attention to the fub- ‘¢ teét have fuggefted to him.” (On Jail-diftemper, p. 181.) The uninftru@ed imay be amufed by. ob- ferving how he hunts overfights, fplits hairs, pub- lifhes what he acknowledges to be a fuperfluous exhibition of his own merits,* and anxioufly calls to his.aid every little art, by which the intereft of his vanity may be promoted. ‘The fubftitution of nitre for common falt was a good, though obvious, thought, and feems to have anf{wered excellently. But what there is of difeovery—viz. the having ftrictly afcer- tained that acids will deftroy ¢ontagion, and the procefs for extricating the fumes—properly belongs to Mr. Morveau. Otherwife, fhould any one try fumes of acetic acid, if he finds the progrefs of infec- - tion ftopped, he too, if he fhould chufe to afflume a felf-trumpeting tone, may claim to be a difcoverer ; and he would have to fay that his predeceffors f{trangely overlooked acefic acid, though’of all acids the molt agreeable and reviving to the fick. * Memoria! to Lord North (p. 227), of which he fays, ‘* others (befides his friends) ‘* may confider it as fo many blank pages,”? and in which he tells Lord North “* how during the intervals of the ‘© operation of a violent emetic, he continued to di€tate inftruc- ‘* tions to the furgeon ..... being apprehenfive left the. ‘fever fhould feize his head. (p. 234.)
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