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
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

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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    colour to sugar of milk, resembles in its composition that whicll is found in the juices of meat and in urine, and consists of the lactic acid, together with lactated and muriated alkali, and the extractive matter soluble in alcohol, which usually accompanies these substances. [The lactate is only purified by being boiled with fresh lime, and digested for 24 hours with levigated car- bonate of lead, which would decompose an acetate. Afh. Ill, 13.] I have examined most of the salts formed by the lactic acid, and I hope I have fully proved, that it cannot be either the acetic, or any other of the vegetable acids, but that it must be a peculiar and very remarkable acid, which is found not only in milk, but, in equal or still greater quantities, in other animal fluids ; and I have restored to our immortal countryman Scheele the honour of never having advanced an incorrect statement, in any part of chemical science. [Since the milk contains three characteristic substances, totally different from each other, it is aot improbable that each of these is afforded by its peculiar vessels : although in some cases the formation of heterogeneous secretions may perhaps proceed collaterally, as in the chemical process for the formation of nitric ether, which is accompanied by thatof tho malic acid. Afh. III. 6.] By following the mode, which I have adopted, of Viewing ani- mal chemistry rather as immediately connected with physiology, than as a department of general chemistry, I presume that abler men than myself, who may hereafter employ themselves in si- milar researches, may extend the science to a degree of perfec- tion, which, to judge from its present state, could scarcely be expected, or even hoped.