An introduction to medical literature, including a system of practical nosology : intended as a guide to students, and an assistant to practitioners / by Thomas Young.

Thomas Young

Date:: 1813

Credit: An introduction to medical literature, including a system of practical nosology : intended as a guide to students, and an assistant to practitioners / by Thomas Young. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by King’s College London. The original may be consulted at King’s College London.

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$the acid remained the same, I afterwards tried vinegar, but with no greater success. Brande has lately attempted to show the inefficacy of alkalis in the uric calculus. Dr. Henry, find- ing that the urates do not form a precipitate with the muriate of magnesia, and concluding that the urate of magnesia must be a soluble salt, advised a trial of this earth, which, according to Brande's report, has completely succeeded, so that after 15 or 20 grains of magnesia had been taken morning and evening for a fortnight, all the superfluous uric acid was carried oflf, and th* patient was completely cured. Vauquelin has examined the nature of the seminal fluid ; it gradually deposits [crystals of] bone earth, which are pro- bably a product of its decomposition. Its characteristic sub- stance, which was at first viscid, becomes in a short time fluid, even when the air is excluded; and instead of being alkaline, it becomes acid. [In the first state it is insoluble in water, and is hardened by boiling, afterwards it is soluble, and not coagulable by heat. Af h. III. 10.] In the soft I'ocs of fishes, examined by Fourcroy and Vauquelin, a remarkable substance was found, in- soluble both in water and in alcohol, affording, by distillation in close vessels, phosphorus, partly uncombined, and partly dis- solved in the empyreumatic oil which is formed ; while the sub- stance itself contains neither phosphoric acid uncombined, nor any kind of phosphate. The liquor amnii has been analysed by Vauquelin and Buni\'a, and appears to resemble the fluid of the serous membranes, and the humours of the eye, containing from 1| to Ig per cent, of solid matter. De Zondi has lately shown, that the supposed difference of the liquor amnii of quadrupeds from the luuuan, de- pends only on the mixture of the contents of the allantoid mem- braneofthequadrupcdswith it, at the time of birth. Vauquelin and Buniva found in this mixed fluid a peculiar acid, difl^icult of so- lution, and crystallizable, which they called the amnic : it much$