W


 
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
*>  *   .
FOUNDED 1836
WASHINGTON,  D. C.
B19574
 
 
 
                    COLLECTION OF REPRINTS


                              BY


                         ROBERT PETER
                                tu





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             TABLE OF CONTENTS

1.  An account of the vegetable alkalies.

2.  On the mode of collecting and preserving
    objects of natural history.

3.  Thoughts on some of the applications of
    chemistry to medicine.

It.  Notice of the Crab Orchard mineral
    springs.

5>.  Remarks on the functions of respiration
    in animals, and on ventilation.

6.  On the application of galvanic electric-
    ity to medicine.

7.  On the influence of caloric on the
    living animal body.
i.3?^ 
 
             THE TRANSYLVANIA
JOURNAL  OF   MEDICINE,
                         AND
          anfte  fSUm&ate  Sciences.
FOR  APRIL, MAY  AND  JUNE.   ,,
ORIGINAL  COMMUNICATIONS.
Article I.—An account of the Vegetable Alkalies, including
  their Therapeutic action when applied internally, or by the En-
  dermic Method.  By Robert Peter, M. D. of Lexington
  Kentucky.*

  AMONG the improvements which the researches of phi-
losophers have, during the last thirty years, introduced into
the  sciences of chemistry and  medicine, few perhaps are
of greater importance than the discovery, and the application
to the cure of diseases of the  new alkaline  bodies,  called
now the  Vegetable Alkalies.   In the days of our fathers
in  chemistry very  little was known  of those principles, or
constituents, of vegetable  substances, on which their active
properties depended.   Some of the  proximate  elements of
vegetables must have been  known at a very early period;
 such,  for example, as were very obvious, or which were  easily
 separated, as sugar, starch, gum, resin, &c; but the means
 of analysis used in those days  were but little calculated to
 throw much light on  the  subject of vegetable chemistry.
 Vegetables were introduced into a retort, heat was applied,
 and the products of the process were condensed in a receiv-
   *  Submitted as an Inaugural Thesis, to the Trustees and Medical Profewori
 of Transylvania University, February 20th, 1834.
   Vol. 7—No. 2.             20 
 158           Peter on the Vegetable Alkalies.
 er.   These, of course, were water, empyreumatic oil, and in
 some cases, ammonia;  and in the retort there remained  more
 or less carbon.  The  gaseous products were  not collected,
 for in those days the idea  of coercing or examining air had
 not entered the brain  of the philosopher.  Thousands of
 plants were  subjected to this ordeal, by some of the industri-
 ous eperimenters, with so little difference in the results, that
 they could not, by  this means, distinguish the rank and pois-
 onous Hemlock from the bland  and  innocuous Cabbage,
   Later years have brought  with them the knowledge of
 the art of examining and separating, without destroying, the
 proximate elements of vegetable substances.  To the French
 chemists we are indebted, more than to any others, for the
 light thrown on this  interesting  department of nature, al-
 though those of the other nations of Europe, and even of
 America, have contributed to the mass.
   The term  alkali  has  been  applied for  a great length of
 time to those bodies which possess the  property of uniting
 with acids, so as to destroy, or neutralize, their acid proper-
 ties,  and of  forming  compounds  with them,  called  salts:
 this is the most important  distinctive character of an alkali.
 Another property which they all possess, is that of changing
 delicate vegetable blue colours, such as  that of violets, to
 green.  They all dissolve in  water and in alcohol, and this
 character is sufficient to  distinguish  them from another set
 of bodies, called alkaline earths, such as lime, barytes, &c,
 which, though they  neutralize acids, and form salts with them,
 and  change vegetable colours as the alkalies proper do, yet
 are sparingly soluble in water, or in alcohol.
  Until the year 1816, when Sertuerner announced the dis-
 covery of morphine, the  existence of but three alkalies prop-
 er was known,  viz.  soda, potash  and ammonia.   The  for-
 mer was denominated mineral alkali, the latter volatile alka-
li; and potash,  because it was obtained only from the ashes
of burnt vegetables, was called vegetable alkali.   The  newly
discovered alkalies  possess no other analogies with the  old
alkalies proper  than those of  their solubility in alcohol, their 
              Peter on the Vegetable Alkalies.          159

 reaction with acids and with vegetable blues, as will present-
 ly be seen.
    Chemists had  been  so  long accustomed  to believe that
 there was but one vegetable alkali, that when others were
 presented, even to their senses, the lapse of some years was
 required to  familiarize them to  the  unexpected discovery.
 Thus, in 1803 M. Derosne, apothecary of Paris, in the course
 of some experiments on opium, separated a white crystalline
 substance, of which he remarks, " its solution changes the blue
 colour of syrup of violets to green" a  known  property of the
 alkalies; yet the observation  of this reaction did not suggest
 to him the probability of its real nature, nor did it induce him
 to extend his  researches.   He was thus on the very thresh-
 old of a most brilliant discovery, the promulgation of which
 was reserved for another more fortunate enquirer, Sertuerner,
 who, though he asserts  that  he  made  the discovery about
 the same time,* did not venture to announce the existence of
 a new vegetable alkali until thirteen years afterwards.
   Vauquelin, in 1808, while analyzing several  plants of the
 genus Daphne, (D. thymelea, D.  alpina, and  D. gnidium,)
 discovered a substance which he described as follows; "very
 volatile; acts on vegetable colours like the alkalies" About six-
 teen years afterwards, when publishingan account of the same
 substance, as a new vegetable alkali, by the name of Daph-
 nine, he adverted  to  this circumstance, adding, that as at
 the time of his  previous publication, "the  existence of an
 alkali of a vegetable nature  was  not  known, I did  not ven-
 ture to affirm that it really was  a vegetable alkali."
   The attention of philosophers was first aroused to  this sub-
ject by the announcement of the  discovery of  a new alkali
in opium by  Sertuerner, in 1816.  The discovery was soon
confirmed by Robiquet, but so great  an  apathy existed in
the minds of chemists relative to  this  subject, that but little
notice was taken  of the matter until  two years afterwards,
when Pelletier and Caventou, attracted towards it and them

  * Seguin also discovered and described it about the same time (1804,) but
did not venture to call it an alkali.  Ann. de chemie, 92. 
160          Peter on the Vegetable Alkalies.

selves the general attention of the scientific, by their many
interesting discoveries in this department of research.
  If we scan over the chemical history of the  period from
the time of  the researches of Derosne to that of the discove-
ries of Pelletier and Caventou, wa can easily account, in part,
for the  little attention which was paid to  this subject, espe-
cially by the British philosophres.   We shall see that Wol-
laston was commanding an engrossing homage by his discove-
ry of platinum and its associate metals;  and that his illus-
trious cotemporary, Davy, was changing the very face of the
science of chemistry by the discovery of the metallic bases
of the old alkalies and earths, and  by his  researches into
the nature of chlorine, &c.  Iodine  also, was discovered in
this period, with many other important facts and substances.
   Sertuerner, pharmaceutist of Eimbeck, Hanover, was the
first to  announce  positively  the  existence  of an  organic
vegetable alkali;  which he obtained from opium, and which
he said, was the efficacious part of that drug.  His process
 for obtaining it was to make a solution of opium in distilled
 water, and  to supersaturate the solution with ammonia, which
 threw down a greyish  white  precipitate: this collected and
 washed with water, was the impure alkali, which he purified
 further by  washing in cold aq. ammonia, and subsequent so-
 lution in diluted  sulphuric acid,  precipitation  by ammonia,
 and cold alcohol.
   To ascertain the medical properties of this  new substance,
 he tried its effects upon  himself and three other persons,
 young gentlemen of his acquaintance. They each took half
 a grain dissolved in alcohol and diluted with water.  General
 redness, even in the eyes, covered the whole body, particu-
 larly the cheeks; and the animal powers seemed to be raised.
 Half an hour afterwards, another half grain was taken by
 each, by which the effects were considerably increased, and
 a transitory inclination to vomit, and a stunning sensation in
 the head were felt.  A quarter of an hour afterwards anoth-
 er half  grain was administered:  the young men instantly
 felt acute pains at the stomach, with  a sense of weakness, 
             Peter on the  Vegetable  Alkalies.          161

general stiffness, and faintness.   He himself felt similar sen-
sations, and on lying down, fell into a dozing reverie attend-
ed with a throbbing  in the extremities.  Being now some-
what alarmed for  the consequences, they each took six or
eight ounces of strong vinegar, which caused vomiting and
ended the experiment.
  The physiological properties of this substance were studi-
ed more at  length  two years afterwards, by Magendie and
Orfila, and they and others have  since contributed to make
them fully known.
   No one, according to the strict logic of  science, can deny,
that Sertuerner  was  the  first  who  discovered the alkaline
principle of opium; yet an examination   of the account of
the experiments  of Derosne, published thirteen years before,
will leave a conviction that he separated  and examined the
very same substance, although he was not so fortunate as to
prove its alkaline nature, nor to discover  that it was the ac-
tive principle of the drug.
  In the paper  published  by M. M. Derosne and  Proust,
published in the Annals de Chemie,tom.  xlv.  1803,  we find
the following observations, which plainly show that Derosne
had discovered the substance called by Sertuerner morphium,
although he (Derosne,) did not distinguish it from another
substance discovered at the same time, and known  for a long
time as " salt of Derosne," now, narcotine. " Caustic and car-
bonated alkalies produce a copious precipitate in  the aque-
ous solution of opium."  M.  Proust  considered this precipi-
tate a pure  resin, but Derosne thought it  a compound body.
He obtained it as follows;  he precipitated it from a solution
of opium  in six parts  of  water, by carbonate of  potash.
Boiling alcohol took up three-fourths of this precipitate, and
acquired a  dark red colour, and  the filtered  alcoholic solu-
tion yielded, on  cooling, a  reddish irregular crystallization.
This, as I have before intimated, he  supposed to be the same
as the salt which he had obtained (now known as narcotine)
by  spontaneous granulation, on evaporating the aqueous
solution of opium to the consistence  of syrup and diluting i ■ 
  162          Peter on the Vegetable  Alkalies.

  again with water.  He remarks,  however, " that it  showed
  some difference, arising from the manner of obtaining it.   Its
  taste is a little bitter, (the other  was tasteless,) and it does
  not crystallize so regularly;  its solution changes the blue colour
  of syrup of violets to green.   It is  soluble in alcohol,  and its
  solution is not rendered turbid by the addition of water, but
  after a short time small crystals appear in the liquid."
   It must be evident to every chemist, that in this substance,
 M. Derosne had actually discovered one  of the active prin-
 ciples of opium, morphine.  His conclusions from his own
 experiments were, however, unphilosophical.  They were as
 follows; that opium  was a very compound substance, that it
 contained a narcotic volatile principle,  extractive  matter,
 mucilage,  resin, oily  matter resembling wax, a  crystalline
 substance which is neither saline nor acid, a substance similar
 to albumen or gluten, a small quantity of caoutchouc, &c.
   In  February,  1817,  M. M. Pelletier and Magendie, in a
 paper to the Royal Academy of Sciences, Paris, announced
 that another  vegetable alkali  had been  discovered, by the
 former gentleman,  in   the various kinds  of ipecacuanha of
 the shops, which he called emetine; and which, from the ex-
 periments of the latter, M. Magendie,  an  account  of which
 was appended, they asserted to be the active principle of
 that root.
  The next discovery of a vegetable alkali was by Pelletier
and Caventou, who  separated it from the nux vomica,  and
from the products of the other plants of the genus strychnos.
In their paper,  read to  the  Acad. Nat.  Sciences, Aug. 10,
1818, they called the  alkali Vaqueline,  in honour of that
distinguished chemist, who had been  their  preceptor; but
on reflecting  that the name which  they respected  so highly
ought not to be  connected with a substance of so poisonous a
nature as their new discovery was, they changed it to strvch-
nina                                                J
nine.
  About the same time, M. Boullay announced the discovery
of a new  alkaline principle of a poisonous nature, in the
Cocculus  Indicus,  (seeds  of  the menispermum  cocculus,) 
              Peter on the Vegetable Alkalies.          163

 which he called picrotoxine, from the circumstance of those
 seeds having been used to poison fish.   In the same year, M.
 M. Pelletier and Caventou again appeared before the public
 with two new alkalies, obtained from peruvian bark, called
 by them cinchonine  and quinine.   In their memoir they
 acknowledge that the former principle had already  been de-
 tected by M. Gomez of Lisbon, but state that he had neither
 ascertained its alkaline  nature nor studied its combinations
 with acids;  and  that  in  a more recent memoir than that of
 Gomez, by M. Laubert, it was regarded as a pure crystalline
 resin;  so that little attention had been paid to it by chemists.
 They justly claimed all the credit of the discovery of quinine.
    Peruvian  bark, since its  introduction into medicine, has
 been the subject of much chemical research; and the histo-
 ry of the examinations which it has  undergone with a view
 to discover its nature, is interesting on  more accounts than
 one—affording, among other things,  another evidence how
 near a person may approach to the discovery of an impor-
 tant fact without actually making it.
   Dr. Maton was the first to point out the fact that an infu-
 sion of galls caused  a precipitate  in the infusion of Bark*
 M. Seguin, having at a later period discovered that gelatine
 was precipitated  by the tannin of the  infusion, affirmed that
 gelatine was the  aictive principle of the peruvian bark, and
 instituted a number  of experiments  to prove that gelatine
 possessed all the febrifuge properties of that substance.  An-
 drew Duncan, Jr.  in Nicholson's Journal, Dec. 1803, attempts
 to prove that the  substance in the bark, which is precipita-
 ted by infusion of galls is not gelatine, because it  dissolves
 in alcohol, which gelatine does  not; and calls this peculiar
 principle cinchonine.  He found that it was precipitated also
 by carbonate of potash;  and  proceeding on the vague idea
 that every substance which  was precipitated by galls and
 carb. potash, was cinchonine, he stated that  that substance
 exists also in ipecacuanha, columbo,  augustura,  black and
 cayenne pepper, and  opium.  He evidently knew but little
of the  substance which he named, and did  not separate nor 
164          Peter on the Vegetable  Alkalies.
 obtain it pure.  Vauquelin, a few years afterwards, discov-
 ered the same substance, but  did  not obtain it pure;  for in
 his account of it, in the Med.  and Surg. Review, xv., 12,—
 he describes it as being of a " brown colour, bitter taste, less
 soluble in water than in alcohol, precipitating tart, emetic,
 but not glue."
   Dr.  Bernardinus Anthony  Gomez, of Lisbon,* seems to
 have been more successful in his researches, and  to have ac-
 tually obtained cinchonine in a pure state.  The process by
 which he obtained it  was as follows, and is very similar, in
 many  respects, to some processes used even at the present
 day.   He made a spirituous extract of bark of the common
 consistence, which he mixed with distilled water and strain-
 ed.  The aqueous solution was evaporated to the consistence
 of an extract,  and successive  portions of a well saturated
 solution of potash  were added until every thing soluble in
 that menstruum was removed:  the residuum  was washed in
 cold water and dried.   It was a white powdery substance,
 easily  separated from the filter, bitter, inflammable, very lit-
 tle soluble in water, but soluble " enough, when recently pre-
pared, in sulphuric ether, alcohol, diluted sulphuric, nitric
and muriatic acids: in acetic, oxalic, citric, malic?  but not
in tartaric acid?"   From these solutions it was precipitated
by  infusion of galls.  This  substance  was undoubtedly a
 mixture of cinchonine and  quinine;  but  although  Gomez
discovered that it dissolved in diluted acids, he did not ascer-
tain that it neutralized them.  He  did not obtain any  salt
but the sulphate, nor did he  guess that it was an  alkaline
body.t  He obtained cinchonine in  crystals  by dissolving it
in alcohol and  allowing  that substance to evaporate  spon-
 taneously.  He found some difference in it according to the
kind of bark employed; owing, no doubt, to the different
 proportions in which  cinchonine  and  quinine  exist in  the
 several kinds.   The inferences which he drew from his ex-
  * Edinburgh Med. and Surg. Jour  Oct 1811 v.-i /<on<-
 of Royal Acid. Sc. Lisbon. S            h V11, 420 from 3* vol. Memoirs
 ATt6 u-n811?-6 ProPertiesof cinchonine are said to hav* hMn c ,. a-
 ed by Labillardiere, nephew to the celebrated navigator        ' dl8cover- 
             Peter on the  Vegetable Alkalies.          165

pcriments were, that this substance was a pure vegetable
principle; that it had  some  analogy to resin, but differed
from it by its crystallization, and its solubility in  acids: that
by these last  properties, it  was analogous to camphor, but
that it differed  in being inodorous, in being precipitated from
solution by alkaline sails, in its greater specific  gravity, (as
it sinks in water.) in  giving a precipitate with galls, &c. He
inferred that this substance was the  febrifuge principle of
bark, and hence recommended  testing bark with  infusion of
galls to ascertain its  medicinal  value.
  The experiments of Dr. Van Smissien upon bark, in the
laboratory of Pfaff at  Kiel, and with his assistance, an ac-
count of which  was  the subject of his inaugural  thesis in
1813, threw no new  light upon  the subject, but rather tended
to darken and confuse it.
  The members of the medical profession were not long in
appreciating the value of the discovery  of Pelletier and Ca-
ventou.  The celebrated Martinet, residing near Pisa, Italy,
used the sulphate of quinine as early  as the year 1821-2,
in doses from three to  eighteen grains,  with very great suc-
cess, in the  intermittent? of that marshy and  pestilential
country; and several other medical men on the continent had
already introduced  it into  their practice:  among them we
may mention M. Dupre of Yonnc, Dr.  F. Ribes; M. Bailly
(La Pitie, Paris.) Mr.  Miles; Mr.  Bushnel, London; John
O'Brien, M. D. Dublin, &c.
  Dr. Gunthcrof Cologne,  in the  Journal der. Pract. Heil-
kunde, 1826, gives an account  of a number of experiments,
instituted with a view to ascertain the comparative effects of
the alkaline principles of bark  and the  bark  itself.   There-
suits of his experiments, which have now  stood the test of
some years, are as follows:
1.  That cinchonine and quinine arc preferable to the bark
       in most cases.
2.  That quinine is preferable  to cinchonine, and is best in
       the state of sulphate.
  Vol. 7.—No. 2.               21 
165          Peter on  the Vegetable Alkalies.

3.  That  the sulphate of quinine acts  more promptly, suc-
      ceeds oftener, and is less followed by relapses than bark.
4.  That  it  fatigues the digestive organs  less; and may be
       administered in cases where it is necessary to carry
       the doses very high in  a little  time.
  M. Gunther believed, however, that the  bark is prefera-
ble when  a durable tonic  effect is required,  to strengthen a
weakened constitution, for example, in convalescents.
  M.  M. Pelletier and Cavcntou, in a communication  to the
Academic Royale de Paris, 1826; when a  prize was award-
ed to  them for the greatest discovery in medicine, state, that
although the sulphate  of  quinine was  at  first prepared by
themselves solely,  it soon began to be prepared in large quan-
tities, in all  the other  chemical works.  That  in two manu-
factories,  that of  M. Pelletier and that of M. Le Vaillant,
during the past year, the  quantity of bark  used was 1593
quintals;  and  that taking  for an average product,  three
drachms of  sulphate of quinine for  a  pound  of bark,  the
quantity of 59,000 ounces of sulphate had gone out of these
two manufactories alone.   They  estimated, approximately,
the quantity prepared by the other French chemists at  31,-
000 ounces;  giving in  all, the  immense amount of 99,000
ounces prepared by the French  chemists, in one  year, seven
years  after its discovery.   This, they stated, had been sent
into all parts of Europe, and to  America.  Italy  being then
the only country where  it was  made in proportion  to  the
wants of the population.
  These distinguished chemists  did  not rest from their re-
searches on  the discovery of the  alkalies of bark:  in the
succeeding year, 1819 they detected  two others; one in the
bark of the  false angustura, which they called brucine-*  and
the other in the Veratrum album, the V. sabadilla, and  in the
colchicum, which they  denominated  veratrine.  In July of
the same year, a  new alkali  was discovered in the seeds of
the Delphinium staphisagria, by M.  M. Lassaigne and Fen-
•Journal de Pharmacic, Dec. 1819. 
             Peter on the  Vegetable  Alkalies.          167

eullc, which was  also discovered about the same time by
Brandes of Germany.
  Rudolph Brandes,  in  connection with M. Micssner, was
very assiduously engaged, about this period, in  the examina-
tion of many of the narcotic plants, with a view to discover
their active principles.   In a paper which he published in
1825, (Jour.  der. pract.  Hielkunde,) he states  that he has
been occupied with these researches  for six years, and that
he had  succeeded in the discovery of delphine;  of daturine
in the Jamestown weed; of hyosciamine in  the henbane;
atropine in atropa belladonna; conicine in the poisonous hem-
lock, &c.   The examination of these very poisonous princi-
ples required very great circumspection; the vapours of some
of them were  particularly prejudicial to the  eyes, and the
smallest quantity placed upon the tongue  proved dangerous.
" The odour of these substances," he adds, " is very repulsive,
especially that of conicine; two  grains of the etherial solu-
tion of which was  sufficient to render the air of a room in-
supportable; and an atom  of their  etherial solution, or the
prolonged action of their emanations, cause a  dilation of the
pupils of  the eyes  which lasted  several dnys."  His health
was so  much injured  by the action of these bodies, that he
 was unable at  that  time  to give a full account of his discove-
 ries; of which so little even now is known, that others arc
appropriating them to themselves.
   From the year 1819 until the present time,  the progress of
 the discovery of vegetable alkalies has been onward;  but to
 avoid being tedious, 1 will  not enter any  further into chrono-
 logical details.  The number at present  known exceeds thir-
 ty, and it is highly probable that it will  be much increased.
 For the discovery of those already  known, we are indebted
 principally to  the French  and  Germans, especially the for-
 mer. American chemists have contributed some two or three,
 for example, sanguinarine by  Dana, cornine by Carpenter,
 &c.  I cannot find that the British chemists have added a
 single  one.
    In giving this estimate, I exclude all those principles, which 
168
Peter on the Vegetable Alkalies.
salacine, etc.,
are not of an alkaline nature, as piperine,
which are fully as numerous as the alkalies.
  It will not, perhaps,  be  amiss to subjoin in this place, a
catalogue of the alkalies now known, according to the best
information I can obtain.
 Morphine,  )
 Narcotine, \
 Strychnine,
 Brucine,
 Cinchonine,
 Quinine,
 Veratrine,
 Emetine,

 Delphine,

 Solanine,
 Corvdaline,
 Nicotine,

 Curarine,

 Picrotoxine,
 Violine,
 Daphnine?
 Paralline,  }
 Smilacine,  \
 Cynapine,
 Sanguinarine,
 Guaraninc,
 Esenbeckinc,
 Crotoninc,
 Buxine,
 Atropine,
Eupalorine,
 Daturine?
 Hyosciamine,
 Conicine,
 Cornine?
 Ulicine?
Digitaline?
 Aconitine?
from  opium.

 "    mix vomica.
 "    false angustura.

 "    peruvian bark.

 "    white hellebore,&c.
 "    ipecacuanha.
 u    seeds  of stavesacre, (delphinum
      slaphisagria.)
 41    berries of solanum nigrum.
 "    root of fumaria bulbosa.
 "    tobacco, nicotiana tabaca.
 u    S. American  poison,  curara, or
      woohrara.
 "    the cocuhis indicus.
 "    roots of some  species  of  violet.
 "    mezcreon,

 "    roots of the sarsaparilla.
u
 i
                          eethusa rynapium.
                          roots of sanguinaria canadensis.
                          fruit of paullinia sorbilis.
                          esenbeckia febrifuga.
                          seeds of the croton tiglium.
                          wood of buxus  sempervirens.
                          ntropa belladonna.
                          cupatoria cannabina.
                          datura  stramonium.
                          hyosciamus niger.
                          conium maculatum.
                          bark of cornus flonda.
                          iIlex aquilifolia.
                          digitalis purpurea.
                          aconitum napellum.
  According to the strict nomenclature of chemistry the ter-
mination of the names of the vegetable alkalies should be
in m, as morphia, emetia;  but  a*  when this termination is 
Peter on the Vegetable Alkalies.           169
adopted, there is little  difference, in  many cases, between
the name of the alkali  and that of the vegetable from  which
it  is obtained,  mistakes, dangerous in  their  consequences,
might  easily be made,  it is thought preferable  to retain the
termination ine first given to these bodies.1"
   General remarks on (heir  Chemical  Characters, and mode of
Preparation.—To enter into all the details  of the properties
and mode of  preparation of each of the vegetable  alkalies
would  not only  be irksome, but would  extend this essay  to
too great a length.  I shall, therefore, only attempt to give
some general ideas on  this portion of  the subject.
   These substances are, for the most  part, solid; and many
arc crystalline.   Nicotine and conicine, however, are remar-
kable  exceptions; the former being a  liquid even at  the tem-
perature of 21° Fah., and the  latter,  according to Geiger,t
is  a yellowish oil.  Most of the vegetable  alkalies,  when
pure, are white;  emetine and  buxinc, however, are brown-
ish;  corydaline, greyish; curarinc, yellowish;  and esenbeck-
ine, of the colour of the dove's neck.   Their taste  is  gene-
rally extremely bitter;  some, however,  owing  to their inso-
lubility in the saliva, are tasteless, for example, narcotine and
corydaline, but their salts are all strongly sapid. The taste of
veratrine, nicotine,  daphine and  conicine, is strongly acrid
and disagreeable.
   The intensity of the  sapidity of some of these bodies  i9
almost inconceivably great.  Thus, one grain of strychnine
will communicate a marked bitter taste  to  600,000 grains of
water; and 10,000 grains of water are  rendered acrid by
  * During the past summer the writer made an  imperfect examination of the
Jjobeh'a  infota, with a view to ascertain the existence of an active  alkaline
principle in lhat very acrid plant.  One thousand grains were boiled in water,
rendered slightlv sour by pure sulphuric acid,  and the  clear decoction was
boiled, with an excess of magnesia, in a retcrt to which a receiver was attached.
Nothing but water passed into the receiver, proving thai the alkali, if  any was
present, was not similar to nicotine.  'I he remaining magnesia, separated,
washed  and dried, afforded to boilinc alcohol, (which he had taken pains to
rentier pure,) a principle which readily and  decidedly converted the blue of
red cabbage to green, and which had the taste of the Lobelia.  It was, how-
ever, in  such a minute quantity that any other of its properties could not be
ascertained.  He hopes, by operating on larger quantities of the plant, here-
after, to establish fully the existence of lobdine.
  t The conicine of Brandes  is a solid. 
  170          Peter on the Vegetable Alkalies.

  the addition of one grain of nicotine,  and  1,000 grains,  by
  one of veratrinc.
    Most of them, though so powerfully sapid, are destitute of
  any sensible odour.   Some few have the characteristic odour
  of the plant from which they are obtained;  that of nicotine
  is highly pungent and disagreeable, like that of dried tobac-
  co.  Conicine has also the peculiar heavy, nauseous, smell of
  the hemlock; and daphinc a pungent odour.
    By  the application  of a  sufficient heat,  in close vessels,
  they arc all  decomposed, giving rise to the same products  as
  all the other vegetable substances which  contain  nitrogen.
  In the open  air they take fire and burn.   Nicotine is parti-
 cularly combusliblc.   When heated gradually, some of these
 bodies present some analogies to the resins.
   Morphine, on being heated carefully in a glass tube, melts
 into a yellow liquid, like melted  sulphur, which, on cooling,
 becomes a crystalline solid.   Narcotine melts like tallow,
 and congeals on cooling into a  translucent  mass.  Brucine
 fuses at about 212°, and becomes like wax on cooling.  Vera-
 trinc becomes liquid  at the temperature of 112°,  and  con-
 geals into a  jellow translucent  mass.   Quinine also  fuses,
 and cools into a  solid and  translucent  cake,  and  delphine
 melts like wax, and cools into a hard transparent cake, which
 is brittle like rosin.
   A few of these alkalies arc volatilized before they are de-
 composed.   Cinchonine is so in  a slight degree.   Delphine
 volatilizes easily with the vapour  of.water.   Nicotine  may
 be distilled at the temperature of 300°, and daphnine, guar-
 anine,  conicine, and perhaps  a  few others, are more or less
 volatile.   From the circumstance  that many of the vegeta-
 ble substances which contain some of these  bodies become
 inert on being kept for a length  of time, it is highly proba-
 blc that many of them arc more volatile  in the state of salt
than they are when pure.
  M. Ferrari states*  that a solution of  any  of the salts of
strychnine, rendered slightly acid and exposed to the heat of
           • Thompson's Annals of Phil. N. S. 7, p. 470. 
              Peter on  the Vegetable Alkalies.          171

 212°, so as to become concentrated, becomes  volatile.  He
 affirms also, that similar solutions of the salts of quinine, on
 being  heated in a tinned copper vessel, gave  out vapours
 which when breathed were found to be highly  bitter.  He
 tried the sulphate, muriate and nitrate.  JV1.  Brandes seems
 to have suffered very severely from the  effects of  the vapours
 disengaged from some of these substances.   These bodies
 are generally, nearly  insoluble in water, when in the pure
 state;  but when in combination  with  acids,  in  the form of
 salts, they  are  sufficiently soluble.  Solanine,  when pure,
 requires 8000 parts of boiling water for solution; strychnine
 2,500  parts of boiling, or 6667 parts of cold water; quinine
 may be dissolved in 200 parts of boiling water; cinchonine
 requires 2500 parts, and is almost insoluble in that liquid in
 the cold.
   Nicotine, the alkaline principle of tobacco, and curarine
 obtained from the curara poison, on the contrary, are so so-
 luble in water that they will unite with it in any proportion.
   Digitaline also, is quite  soluble, and  Picrotoxine requires
 but 25  parts of  boiling, or 75 parts  of cold water for com-
 plete solution.   Emetine dissolves  in boiling  water,  but
 scarcely at all in cold.   It is a general  fact that  all are ren-
 dered more soluble by the application of heat.
  Alcohol readily dissolves most of the vegetable  alkalies,
especially when boiling; it then takes  up more  than it can
retain when the temperature is reduced, so that on cooling,
much of the alkali  separates in the form  of crystals.   Nar-
cotine  requires 23 parts of boiling  alcohol, or  100 parts of
the same liquid at 60°, for solution;  and strychnine does not
dissolve at  all  in  perfectly anhydrous  alcohol,  and is but
sparingly soluble in alcohol of the spec. grav. 83, even when
boiling.
  Sulphuric ether is by no means so general a solvent of these
substances as alcohol is;  morphine, strychnine, brucine, cin-
chonine, veratrine, emetine, delphine, solanine, curarine, vio-
line, cynapine, buxine, atropine, and conicine are not dissolv-
ed to any appreciable amount  in that fluid. On  the contra- 
  173          Peter  on the Vegetable Alkalies.

  ry, narcotine, quinine, delphine,  corydaline,  picrotoxine,
  sanguinarine, and eupatorine, arc all  soluble; nicotine is so
  much so that it may easily be separated from its solution in
  water by agitating it  with ether; it then leaves the water
  and combines with the ether.
   Many of the  vegetable alkalies dissolve in the fixed and
  volatile oils:  those known to be soluble arc morphine, nar-
  cotine, strychnine, brucinc,  quinine, cinchonine, guaranine
 and veratrinc.
   Very nearly all  of these  bodies  are rendered soluble in
 water by the  addition  of a little acid,  as most of their salts
 are easily dissolved in  that liquid.  There are but few exeep-
 tions to  this general remark;  all (he salts of quinine are but
 sparingly soluble in  water, but  they  are rendered more  so
 by ndding acid in excess; and the gallate of narcotine. bru-
 cinc, emetine, veratrinc, cinchonine*  and  perhaps of some
 others,  arc salts of little solubility in water; as arc  also the
 oxalate and tartrate of quinine.
   The vegetable alkalies have less affinity  for acids than
 either the common  alkalies, or the  alkaline earths;  c0 that
 by the addition of any  of these substances, even magnesia,
 to the solution of the salt of a vegetable alkali, in water, the
 vegetable alkali is precipitated; even alumine, or the oxide
 of lead, in some cases, will decompose a salt of a vegetable
 alkali: most of them, however, cannot be decomposed by the
 metallic oxides.  Narcotine unites with acids by so weak an
 affinity, that even the evaporation of the solution is sufficient
 to decompose some of its salts.  A portion of narcotine may
 be separated from opium merely by diffusing that substance
 in water.

 trllVwTT0 "'ka'iCS CXiSt'in  thc  "*"«''*> stance,
2Tl    f •  "* "re obtaincd> in the  rorm °f »'". «™%
bmat.on „„h „ peculiar acid; thus morphine is combined wift
»ec„nic ac.d „ opium, ,he alkalies of bark are united Zllh

               •Solanine, Guaranine, Esenbeckin.J 
             Peter on the Vegetable Alkalies.          173

kinic acid, and strychnine and brucine seem each to exist in
combination with acids of a peculiar nature.
  A knowledge of these different  properties and  habitudes
of the vegetable alkalies, renders the processes for obtaining
them easily understood, some idea of which may be gleaned
from the following summary.
  1. The  most common method pursued, to obtain those
which  are not readily soluble in water when pure, is to make
an infusion  or decoction of the vegetable in water, either
pure or rendered slightly sour by the addition of sulphuric,
muriatic, or acetic acids'; this  solution is then concentrated
by evaporation, and the vegetable alkali is precipitated from
it by the addition of potash or ammonia in excess, or by boil-
ing it  with a sufficient quantity of caustic lime, or calcined
magnesia.  When potash or ammonia are used, the alkaline
principle is  separated  in the form  of powder,  mixed only
with the impurities of the vegetable;  but when magnesia or
lime are made use of, the alkali is mixed  with  the  supera-
bundant portion of those earths.  The liquid, in either case,
is filtered through  paper, and the precipitate, which remains
on the filter, is washed with cold water and dried.  The al-
kali is separated from the magnesia or lime, and  at the same
time, from some of the impurities,  by  dissolving it out by
boiling the precipitate in alcohol.   But even then it is  usu-
ally' highly coloured and impure.
   Various modes are used, according to the nature of the
case, to purify the alkali.  In some cases,  crystallization from
the solution in alcohol several times, will make it sufficiently
pure,  in others, washing with  cold  or diluted alcohol, with
ether, or boiling with animal carbon, will purify it sufficient-
ly.  The most effectual mode is,  to  dissolve  it in a diluted
acid,  and to boil the solution  with animal carbon,  then  to
precipitate the alkali from the purified solution by ammonia
 or magnesia.   Subsequent solution in  alcohol, and evapora-
 tion, will render it sufficiently pure.
   This, in general terms, is the process by which morphine,
 cinchonine, quinine, emetine,  delphine, picrotoxine,  atro-
   Vol. 7—No. 2.             20 
  j>7.j          Peter on the Vegetable Alkalies.

  phine, corydaline,  eupatorine, esenbeckine, paralline, <fec.
  are obtained.
    2. In some cases, when resinous substances abound in the
  vegetable, it is advisable to make an alcoholic extract of the
  plant, then to make  an aqueous solution of the extract, filter,
  and proceed in the manner already directed.  This mode of
  procedure has been  recommended for  obtaining cinchonine,
  quinine, picrotoxine, sanguinarine, crotonine, and buxine.
   3. In other cases,  when the existence of fatty  matters in-
  terferes with  the action  of the alcohol, and when the alkali
  to be obtained is not soluble in ether, the vegetable substan-
  ces  are exposed to  the action of boiling ether before  the al-
  coholic extract is made.   This method is used to obtain mor-
 phine, strychnine,  brucine, and emetine.
   4. Impurities are  sometimes partially removed from  the
 infusion of the vegetable,  by the addition of sub-acetate of
 lead, which, it is known to chemists, will precipitate most
 vegetable  colouring  matters; the excess of oxide  of lead is
 then removed by passing sulphuretted hydrogen through  the
 liquid.  This plan is pursued in some processes for preparing
 strychnine, veratrine, emetine, atropine, &c.
   5. The vegetable is boiled in a weak solution of soda or
 potash, or with a little lime in water, until every thing solu-
 ble in those menstrua is  removed.   The natural salt of the
 vegetable alkali is thus decomposed, and  that principle, be-
 ing  insoluble in the menstruum  used, is left behind, while
 most of the impurities are  dissolved out  and removed.  Al-
 cohol, or acid water,  is afterwards used to dissolve out the
 vegetable principle, which  is purified in the  common way.
 This is an outline of the process which has been used to ob-
 tain  cinchonine, quinine and guaranine.
  6.  Solanine and  nicotine are  obtained from the juice of
 the plants in which the exist.  The former is procured by pre-
 cipitation by ammonia, the precipitate being  dried, dissolv-
 ed in alcohol, and purified; and the latter by adding lime to
 the juice, and distilling in a retort; the nicotine passes over
and is condensed with  the vapour of water which  accompa- 
             Peter on the Vegetable Alkalies.          175

nies it, in a receiver,  and is afterwards separated from the
water by agitating  the mixture with ether,  which leaves it
on evaporation.
  Some other little variation is necessary in  the processes for
obtaining several of these substances: those which are  of
sufficient importance will be noticed elsewhere.
  In the large way, when magnesia is used as a precipitant,
it is often economical  to  use the sulphate of magnesia, and
to decompose it, in the vegetable solution, by the addition of
a sufficient quantity of potash.
  All the vegetable alkalies which have been analyzed, have
been found to be composed of  carbon, hydrogen, oxygen and
nitrogen.   The following table exhibits the proportions in
which  these elements exist in  all those which have been ex-
amined.   The names of the chemists who analized them are
attached.
           Carbon. Hydrogen. Oxygen. Nitrogen.
            72,02  7,61  14,84  5,53
            68,88  5,91   18      7,21
          , 78,22  6,54   6,38   8,92
            70,88  6,66   17,39   5,07
            75,76  7,52   8,61   8,11
           ,77,80  7,37   5,93   8,87
            66,75  8,54  19,60  5,04
            64,57  7,77  22,95  4,30
  It will be seen from  this short table, that carbon enters in-
to the composition of most of these bodies  in a greater pro-
portion than two thirds; and in some in a greater proportion
than three fourths.
  The combining  atom of most  of these substances is very
great,so  that it requires very little acid  to neutralize them:
thus, according to Liebig, the  sulphate  of morphine, dried
at the  temperature of about 246° is composed of 4,66 parts
of water, 73,38  parts  of  morphine,  and but 10,33 parts of
sulphuric  acid, in the hundred parts.
  Application of the Vegetable Alkalies to Medicine.—Interest-
ing as the vegetable alkalies are, in a chemical point of view.
Morphine,	72,02	7,61	14,84	5,53	Pelletier i	k Dumas.
Narcotine,	68,88	5,91	18	7,21	do.	do.
Strynchine,	78,22	6,54	6,38	8,92	do.	do.
Brucine,	70,88	6,66	17,39	5,07	Liebig.	
Quinine,	75,76	7,52	8,61	8,11	do.	
Cinchonine	, 77,80	7,37	5,93	8,87	do.	
Veratrine,	66,75	8,54	19,60	5,04	Pelletier & Dumas.	
Emetine,	64,57	7,77	22,95	4,30	do.	do.
 
176          Peter on the Vegetable Alkalies.
 they are still more so to the  medical profession, when con-
 sidered  therapeutically.   There was  a time in the history of
 medicine when every new compound which issued from the
 laboratory of the chemist was considered of superlative im-
 portance, and there was also a time of retributive reaction,
 when, in the minds of some,  the very name of "chemical"
 was sufficient to condemn  any medicine.   Although it is evi-
 dent that some few remains of both "Galenists" and "chemi-
 cal practitioners" yet exist in the ranks of the profession,it
 is confidently hoped and believed, that most of the  modern
 seekers  after medical  truth, will greet her with an equally
 cordial embrace, whether she be introduced by the Botanist,
 the Physiologist,  or the Chemist.
   The advantages afforded to the medical profession by the
 discovery of these  vegetable principles, although they, per-
 haps, have in some cases been somewhat overrated, as every
 new discovery is liable to be, are yet  numerous,  and are be-
 ginning to  be generally  appreciated.  They  may be  sum-
 med up in the following statements.
   1. These principles  contain the active  properties of the
 drugs from which they are obtained,  in a very small space.
 Thus, the active principle of a hundred pounds of peruvian
 bark may be carried in the coat pocket.
   2. Being pure definite compounds, they are not variable
 in their action, and we can at all times, when they are not
 adulterated, calculate  safely upon a constant relative effect
 from a given quantity.
   3. Being generally destitute of  odour, or of any disagreea-
 ble appearance, acting in very small doses, they are particu-
 larly eligible in many cases wherein the original drugs  pro-
duced disgust by their appearance, or  fatigued the stomach
by their quantity.
  4.  We can in many cases, administer larger doses,  by the
use of these principles, than could otherwise easily be done
  These  advantages certainly render these bodies very use-
ful additions to the apparatus medicaminum; we are, how-
ever, very far from believing that because we have morphine, 
Peter on the Vegetable Alkalies.          177
quinine, or emetine, we should discard opium, bark, or ipeca-
cuanha from our shelves: these ever will  remain useful in
many cases, although they may, in many others, be superced-
ed with great advantage by the new principles.
  Believing that an account of the therapeutic  effects of
such of these substances as have been used in medicine, will
not be uninteresting to some,  I  will endeavour, with such
means as are in my power, to give  a  summary of the expe-
rience of  those who have examined their action upon the ani-
mal frame, in health or in disease.   Taking up each of  the
alkalies in the order given above, I shall, in such as are of
sufficient importance, indicate  the  easiest and best process
by  which a practitioner, situated at a distance from where
these substances can be obtained, and who is desirous of ex-
amining their properties, may, with the  common amount of
chemical knowledge, and simple apparatus, prepare them for
himself.
  Morphine.—This alkali exists in opium  combined with
meconic acid, and mixed with narcotine,  fatty matter, and a
number of other  substances, which embarrass the process for
obtaining it.
  The process which  would be most likely to succeed in  the
hand of one who has no command of chemical apparatus is
that of Wittstock.   One ounce of opium is digested, by heat,
with eight ounces of water rendered acid by a quarter of an
ounce of muriatic acid, in a glass or earthen-ware vessel, for
six hours.  It is then allowed to cool, and the clear liquid ispour-
ed off and preserved;  the dregs are again submitted to  the
same process twice in  succession, with the same quantity of
water and acid each time.  The liquids obtained  by these
three processes are mixed, and four ounces of common  salt
is added to them.   This  substance  has the property of pre-
cipitating most of  the  narcotine.  On suffering the mixture
to stand, after the salt is dissolved, for some hours, a brown de-
posite will form, composed of narcotine, colouring matter, &c.
To the clear liquid, which has been carefully decanted from this
deposite,aqua ammonia is added until the acid is completely 
 17s         Peteh on the  Vegetable  Alkalies.

 neutralized and the ammonia is slightly in excess.  The mix-
 ture is then boiled a little, and afterwards is allowed to rest for
 twenty-four hours.   Another deposite  forms, which is impure
morphine.  It is separated from the fluid by filtering through
paper in the common way; and is then washed with a little
cold water, on  the filter, and  dried with a moderate  heat.
When dry it is to be boiled in alcohol, which dissolves out
all the morphine, which can be obtained  by evaporating the
 alcohol, either in a plate, or, if we have the means, by dis-
tilling it off by a retort and receiver.
  The alkali thus obtained, which  should be in quantity about
one .drachm,  is not absolutely  pure;  it may be purified by
forming a muriate  by the addition of  a sufficient quantity of
muriatic acid, and  evaporating until it crystallizes, then pres-
sing the crystalline mass in bibulous paper.   On  dissolving
these crytals  again in pure water, filtering, and precipitating
by ammonia,  we obtain the  morphine comparatively  pure.
If we still suspect the presence of  narcotine we  may  wash it
with pure sulphuric ether; taking care, previously, to  remove
any free acid  from  the ether by agitating it with a little wa-
ter.
  The morphine may be formed  into an acetate by  the ad-
dition of a sufficient quantity of distilled vinegar; or to a sul-
phate by carefully adding to the  morphine, in a glass vessel
diluted sulphuric acid enough to dissolve it, but not so  much
as to render the mixture sour.
  Blondeau boasts  of a process  in  which the opium, dissolved
in water, is caused to ferment  by the addition of honey and
yeast, and the morphine is subsequently precipitated by am-
monia, &c.
  M. M.  Magendie and Orfila were  perhaps the first  who
experimented upon morphine with  a view to ascertain its ef-
fects. An abstract  from their memoir may be seen in the Ec
lectic Repository, Vol. 8.*
  M. Orfila  found that the  acetate  was more active than
♦Philadelphia, 1818. 
            Peter on the Vegetable Alkalies.           179

the pure morphine, on account of the insolubility of the lat-
ter.  He  administered six grains of the acetate to two dogs,
severally.  In a short time the posterior extremities became
paralyzed, the animals seemed to be asleep, but were aroused
with the least noise,  and as if terrified,  made efforts to es-
cape, but  falling  in the attempt, they  appeared instantly
to go to sleep again.  The pupils were dilated, the pulse slow,
and the  respiration  labouring.   At the end of eight  hours
they uttered a piercing  cry.  But on the following day the
symptoms diminished and the animals gradually recovered.
  M. Magendie states, that he administered the salts of mor-
phine, of which  he gave the preference to the acetate, with
narcotic effects, and without any disagreeable symptoms, in a
case where opium was decidedly injurious, by producing ex-
treme agitation, and most intense cephalalgia.  M. Bally has
also recorded some experiments on the use of Morphine.* He
used the acetate; and commenced with doses of one eighth to
one fourth of a grain, increasing gradually. When the quantity
amounted to six or seven grains, given at twice in the course of
twenty-four hours, nausea  generally appeared, with  occa-
sional  pains at the epigastrum.   The effects observed by him
were diminished force and  hardness  of the pulse; generally
constipation, followed very often by diarrhoea, which ceased
on omitting the medicine.   Nineteen-twentieths of the  males
who used it experienced  a difficulty in  making water, often
so great as to require the use of the catheter.  No such ef-
fect was observed in  females, but an uncomfortable  pruritis
was particularly evident in them.   Its principal action was
upon the encephalon, determining either serious irritation
there, or congestion, or hemorrhage, dimness of sight,  verti-
go, tinnitus aurium, &c. &c.  He  convinced himself of the
decided vermifuge properties of the acetate; for in several
cases in which it  was not exhibited with  that intention, it
caused the discharge of lumbricoid ascarides by vomiting.
*Revue Med. Few 1824. 
180           Peter on the Vegetable Alkalies.

  lie was of opinion that morphine stimulated the brain, and
hence favoured the occurrence of apoplexy and extravasation.
  This opinion has since been shown to be incorrect.  Ac-
cording to him its effects in producing sleep  were variable,
being influenced by the  season; for this effect he preferred
small doses.  He found that its use was occasionally attend-
ed with  cephalalgia,  and  asserted  that the sleep which it
produced was disturbed, and that it  caused  a sort of drunken
delirium  and  lassitude.  In  this  he is  contradicted by Dr.
Quadri, who attributed M. Bally's want of success, in the use
of this article,  to too large doses.
  Quadri administered it in doses of one   eight of a grain,
twice in twenty-four hours, increasing gradually to one half
and one grain.  He records ten cases in which he had used
it with decided advantage; viz. one case of inveterate rest-
lessness and watchfulness;  two cases of hysteric  convulsions;
two  of colic; one of pectoral complaints followed  by colic;
one of obstinate vomiting; one of strumous ophthalmia with
excessive irritability of the  eyes; one of irregular fever after
delivery,  attended  with racking pain of the head and arms;
and one of obstinate rheumatic headache.
  There  is perhaps a great deal of truth in  the  observations
of Prof.  Brera, of Padua, who found that  spirituous liquors
or other  diffusable  stimulants, taken into the stomach during
the action of morphine, caused obstinate headaches; whereas,
when the causes of stimulation were  avoided, its action was
unattended by this disagreeable effect.
  The experiments of Dr.  Berandi,  of Turin, upon himself
and some others, students of medicine, tended rather to foster
an unfavorable impression  against the use  of this  medicine.
His doses were from one eighth to one grain, and were fol-
lowed by dilated   pupils, increased  frequency  of  the pulse,
deep coloration of  the face, a weighty feeling about the head,
painful  sensations  about the epigastrium,  and extending
sometimes to the bladder and genitals; nausea; large drops of
sweat; drowsiness; and sleep, which  was often restless.  On
waking, there  was  often acute pain about the frontal sinuses, 
Peter on the Vegetable Atkalies.           181
nausea, abdominal uneasiness, intestinal disturbances, as in di-
arrhoea,  itching,  and  a  papular irruption  on  the skin.
The lassitude which followed was sometimes  extreme,  and
there was occasionally  a sense  of stricture and pain in  the
fauces.
  The uncertainty  relative to this article occasioned by the
contradictory statements of those who had  tried  its effects,
left  rather  an unfavourable impression on the minds of  the
profession, with a conviction that still  further experiments
were necessary.
  Dr.  Bardsley, in  his "Hospital facts and observations illus-
trative of the efficacy of the new medicines strychnine, mor-
phine, &c."* a work of very great interest, has given the re-
sult of his experience  on  the article in  question.   He  had
tried it in affections of the stomach,  uterine diseases, and in
neuralgia, and his opinion of it is favourable.   He relates ten
cases of dyspepsia in which its  application  was successful.
he used  the  acetate, in the form of pills,  in the quantity of
one eighth of a grain at first, afterwards increased to a half or
one grain, three or four times a day, sometimes once an hour.
In every case there was great abatement of pain, and gradual
improvement of the digestive organs,  with return of strength
and appetite. Costivcuess. was not induced in a?iy case, although
some of the patients had been obliged previously  to give up
the use of opium in consequence of its constipating  effects.
It was seldom necessary to prolong the treatment beyond a
month or six weeks.
  He used the acetate in many cases, as an anodyne in schii-
rus uterus,  with invariable success; its use being  unattend-
ed by constipation;  and has recorded a  number of selected
cases of neuralgia, in all of which it was of material benefit.
In six cases, two  of   the infra-orbitary nerve, two of  the
inferior denial nerve, one su(/.<t orbitary, and one  of the en-
tire side of the  face, all  of several months  standing,  and all

                       *London, 18S0.
  Vol. 7—No. 2.           21 
1S"J          Peter on the  Vegetable Alkalies.

verv severe, the acetate was administered to the amount of
one fourth to one grain every other hour; and all were ulti-
mately cured; some in seven or eight days only.   In no case
were the bowels rendered torpid.
  He affirms that the use of morphine has never, in his hands,
beer; attended with the distressing headaches, &c. which too
often  accompany the  use of opium. The production of these
effects in the hands of others he attributes to the use of an im-
pure salt of morphine, for he affirms that the brown resinoid
body u hich contaminates it, is the cause of the mischief, and
therefore, cautions against  the use of any but  a pure salt.
He is of opinion that the acetate of morphine may be safely
used in cases where it is desirable to produce  a narcotic ef-
fect, and where it is necessary to avoid constipation.
  Dr. G. Marolla* has used the  acetate in several cases of
uterine disease,  spasmodic   pain, rheumatic affections, and
neuralgia, in the quantity of half  a grain, mixed with sugar,
and  divided  into two doses to be taken in the twenty-four
hours, with decided success.
  The favorable impression made by these statements is con-
firmed by Dr. Wm. Stokes, physician to  Neath  Hospital,
Dublin, who has used it with encouraging success in cases of
chronic  dyspepsia accompanied with hematamesis and great
acidity of the  stomach.!
  It has been confidently believed and asserted that morphine
was the pure anodyne  and  sedative principle of opium, and
that all the stimulating disagreeable effects of that drug were
occasioned by another principle contained in it, the narco-
tine.  Hence  a  process was divised for denarcotizing  opium,
by subjecting it  to the action of sulphuric ether, which dis-
solved out the narcotine.
  This opinion, though still  prevalent in some degree, seems
not to be founded in fact.   Some experiments  of Prof. Tul-
ly, on the action of narcotine,  which  will be  noticed pre-
     •Bull des Scien. Med. torn.  13, 275.
     tSee Western Med.  & Phys. Jour. July,  1833. 
             Peter on the Vegetable Alkalies.          183

sently, have done much to remove the unjust odium attached
to that substance.
  There is one circumstance  which will limit the common
use of morphine as a substitute for opium; it is that the quan-
tity of that principle obtained  from a given amount of opium
will not  produce more than one  fourth  the  effect which
would have  been produced by  administering the opium in
substance.   It is probable that much of the activity of the
drug is owing to  the narcotine which  it contains, and it is
also highly probable that much morphine remains in the re-
siduum of the process for obtaining it.
   Lindberger has attempted  to prove that the alkalies of
opium produce no other effect on  the animal system than  a
slight nausea, and that the narcotic effects of opium are pro-
duced by the extractive matter which remains in solution when
the alkalies are precipitated.  He affirms that an  infusion of
opium, treated by magnesia, which precipitates the morphine
and narcotine, gives, by evaporation, an extract, which pro-
duces the same amount of narcotic effect as the  opium from
which it was obtained.*
   Lindberger has  evidently  been misled by  some hidden
source of error.   We have the experience of too many others
to the contrary to believe what he asserts.  Be the  case as
it may, further experiments on the subject are desirable.
   Dr. C. A.  Lee, of New York, has lately given a new ap-
plication of the sulphate of morphine.  Reused  it in the
form of lotion, in acute ophthalmia attended with conjunctival
inflammation, great intolerance  of light, and constant  pain.
He applied the following lotion.  K. Sulph. Morph. gr. ij,
Aq. dist. 3i. M., tepid, by means of a cloth dipped in it and
kept  to the eye.  It had a direct sedative effect, allayed the
pain and irritation, and diminished the intolerance of light.!
   The impression left upon our mind by the perusal  of what
is recorded relative to the  use  of morphine, is favorable;—
that it is a valuable addition to  our  curative agents   from
•Berzelins, Traite de Chemie, torn. 6,  153.  fN. Y. Med. & Surg. Jour. 2,217. 
 184          Peter on the Vegetable Alkalies.

 the facilities  which  it gives us in its use.   Valuable,  not
 from any new properties  which it possesses,  but from the
 want of certain properties of opium which arc  sometimes
 contraindicated in cases where we wish to use that drug.
   Narcotine, was first prepared by Derosne^ in 1803, by
 making a watery extract of opium, evaporated to  the consis-
 tence of honey, and then diluting it  again with water; on al-
 lowing it to stand for some time the narcotine was  separa-
 ted in the impure state, and settled  to the bottom of the li-
 quid.   It was afterwards purified  by repeated solutions in
 alcohol, and crystallization.  This substance was long known
 as salt  of Derosne, and was believed,  when morphine  was
 discovered, to be a sub-salt  of that alkali, until Robiquet ac-
 certained that it was a distinct body.
   It is obtained in all the processes  for preparing  morphine,
 and may be procured  from the precipitate, occasioned by the
 addition of salt, which I have mentioned in the process  giv-
 en for obtaining that  alkali.  It may  be purified by solution
 in diluted muriatic acid, boiling the solution with animal car-
 bon, and precipitation from  the filtered solution by ammonia
 or potash.  It may also be obtained from opium by  the action
 of boiling ether, which dissolves it,  and leaves it again, in a
 very impure state, when evaporated.   It may  be purified in
 the manner indicated.
   Narcotine has not yet been used  in medicine,  as far  as I
 can ascertain; but that it is a substance  well  worthy  the at-
 tention of physicians seems  now pretty well established.
   The little attention which has been paid to it  is perhaps
owing to the unfounded assertion of Magendie, that it was
the exciting principle of  opium, and that it, solely, occasion-
 ed the disagreeable after effects of that substance.
  M. Bally also contributed to this apathy by asserting, after
some experiments, that it produced little or no  action  on  the
animal frame.   M. Orfila found it  to occasion de#h in dogs
in  doses from 15 to 18 grains; and he affirmed that its  effects
were stupifying and deleterious. 
              Peter on the Vegetable  Alkalies.          185

  Magendie's experiments confirmed those of Orfila as to its
deleterious nature,  but he called it a powerful excitant, and
said that it caused death with similar symptoms to those of an
over-dose of camphor.
  Prof. Tully, of Yale College, has lately examined the ef-
fect of  this substance on  himself and  four other persons,
young  physicians.  His highly  interesting   paper may be
found in Silliman's Journal  for July 1832.  He seems to havo
given the substance  a very  fair trial,  and his  statements may
no doubt  be taken as a correct account  of its action on per-
sons in  health.   Unfortunately he does not mention whether
he used a perfectly  pure salt or  not.
  The results of his observations are  as follows:
  1st. Narcotine is less active than morphine, or even opium,
and is less prominent and rapid in its effects  than  morphine,
and more than opium.
  2nd.  Menstrua nor acids do not alter its activity.*
  3rd.  Two to five grains   is  a medium full dose, to be given
at once.  One grain, a medium  small dose, to be repeated at
regular and short intervals, say three  hours.
  4th.  It is more or less nervine] in  its operation, but deci-
dedly less than the sulphate of morphine.  The narcotine does
not produce any of that preternatural watchfulness which so often
results from the use of morphine or opium!
  5th.  Narcotine is considerably diaphoretic; and common-
ly produces more or less itching of the whole surface.
  Oth.  It is most prominently and decidedly narcotic.
  He found it entirely destitute of any stimulating power; on
the contrary, it invariably  reduced  the  frequency of the
pulse.  Its antirritant and  soporific power was greater than
that of opium or morphine; and the sleep which it occasion-
ed  was natural and pleasant; no uneasiness succeeded.   On
  *It is stated by Eerzclius  (Traitc do Chcmic, torn, 5. 140) that acetic acid
destroys its  influence on living beings.
  •f A Nervine action, he states, has (bur stages.   1st. Moderately antirritant
2nd.  The production of a calm pleasurable sensation,  ."rd.  The production
of a peculiar preternatural watchfulness.  4th. The production of more or less
positive cxhilcration, sometimes amounting to delirium. 
  I S(]          Peter on the Vegetable Alkalies.

  the whole, its  operation was much more  pleasant than that
  of opium or morphine.
   When a person is completely under its influence  it causes
  contraction of the pupils, a sense of dryness and clamminess
  about the throat,  although the  fauces appear moist to the
  eye, and a considerable change and hoarseness  of the voice.
  It produces also, not only a considerable diminution of the
  secretion by the re ne.-. but  also a deficiency of the contrac-
  tile power, or torpor, of the bladder.
   It is hoped that the result of these  experiments will  lead
 others to give some attention to this interesting subject.
   Strychnine.—I remember being, while a boy, very highly
 interested in the wonderful story of the  Jesuit  father about
 the  poisonous Upas tree  of Java,  whose  very emanations
 were sufficient to render the air  deleterious to animal life
 for miles around  it, and which exuded a poison which it was
 the privilege of  condemned criminals  to approach and col-
 lect, with the risk of the almost certain loss of life in the at-
 tempt.
   This poison, though now shorn of the diffusive deleterious
 properties, given to it by the fertile imagination of the Jesuit,
 is used by the natives of Borneo to poison their arrows, and
 has been found to owe its poisonous character to the presence
 of a  vegetable alkali, strychnine;  which  exists also in the
 nux vomica, which is the fruit of the strychnos nux vomica; in
 the fruit also of the  strych.  faba-ignatii, in which it was first
 discovered; and in the wood of the strych. colubrina.
  Strychnine is a substance of an extremely bitter taste, one
 grain being sufficient to render ten gallons of water sensibly
 bitter; and, as a  rapid destroyer of animal  life, it is  second
 only to  the concentrated Prussic acid.
  Magendie killed a dog by the administration of one eighth
of a grain, and  another was killed, in  the  space of two mi-
nutes, by the  injection of one sixth of a grain into the  cav-
ity of the pleura.
  It destroys  by  causing complete tetanus, and  consequent
immobility of the thorax, and asphyxia. 
             Peter on the Vegetable Alkalies.          187

  Like every other poison this  substance has been used as a
medicine, and the results are such as to be highly interesting
to the profession.
  Those who wish to examine its properties  may  obtain it
from the nux vomica.  The process given by M.  Ferrari is
the most simple.   The nux vomica is to be dried thoroughly
in an oven, and pulverised; then boiled, in a glass or earthen
ware vessel,  in water  rendered sliglitly sour by muriatic or
sulphuric acid.   To  the filtered decoction a small quantity
of quicklime is added, more than  sufficient to  neutralize all
the acid; the liquid  is set aside, and after two or three days
the clear liquor is decanted.   The powder which remains at
the bottom, washed in a little cold water, is dried, and boiled
in alcohol to extract the strychnine, which may be obtained
by evaporating the alcohol, sufficiently pure for all medicin-
al purposes.
  The alcoholic extract of nux vomica, which owes its effica-
cy to the presence  of strychnine, has  been used  by M.
Fauquier.* (la Charitie, Paris) and others, in the cure of pal-
sy, administered in pills of two grains each, to the  amount of
two a day at first, gradually increased to ten or twelve.
  "The constant effect of this substance is  to produce, at first
in the  paralyzed parts, and afterwards in the rest of the sys-
tem, shocks, or contractions,  similar to those caused by gal-
vanism.  These continue for  a greater or less time  after each
dose, and give place to a state of calm; they have in many
cases recalled the power of motion."—"M. Fauquier thinks
that the doses should be so divided that this action  of the me-
dicine  be repeated several times in the twenty-four hours,
and  be restricted to  the paralyzed members."   He accompa-
nies this medicine with laxatives, and watches  carefully for
any sign of congestion of the brain.
  M. Fauquier, in 1816, published a full  account  of a series
of cases illustrative  of the  effects of this  extract  in chronic
palsy.
           *Formulaire des hopitauxde Paris, par Ratier. 
183          Peter on the  Vegetable  Alkalies.

  Dr. Bardsley* reports thirty-five cases of palsy in which he
administered the pure strychnine with very great  success, as
most of them recovered, and all, with the exception of two,
were materially relieved.   The  first appearance of amend-
ment, he states, is immediately preceded by  twitching of the
muscles,  sometimes of the  palsied, and sometimes of the
healthy limbs; and if  the dose was  increased, after the ap-
pearance of this symptom, they partook more and more of
the tetanic character.  Great caution was necessary in in-
creasing the doses; for on the one hand, no benefit is felt un-
less the physiological effects of the medicine  are  developed,
and on the other, any  increase of that action  beyond the sim-
plest manifestation of its existence is attended with serious,
and possibly dangerous symptoms.  He, therefore, cautions
to watch  closely the effects of every dose when the quantity
is nearly  that at which action may be looked  for.
  His common  dose was one sixth of a grain, twice or thrice
a day, and he,  by gradually increasing  it,  seldom reached
half a grain, twice or thrice a day, without spasmodic symp-
toms exhibiting themselves.   He  found that the system does
not become accustomed to its effects by  long continued use.
  In cases of recent palsy, when  there is a determination to
the head, he first subdued this  determination by  depletion,
by bleeding, &c. before he used the strychine; and he states,
that it should never be  used in acute cases of palsy accom-
panied by inflammation.   It is in such  cases of palsy which
seem  to  arise  from  diminished  nervous excitement,  that
strychnine is indicated.
  In cases of chronic  diarrhoea, without pain, causing exhaus-
tion by the constant thin discharge, owing to torpidity of the
bowels, he  found  that small doses of strychnine  slowly re-
stored their healthy action, after  the oilier usual remedies in
such cases, sedatives and astringents had failed.
  He also used the strychinc  with good effects  in several
obstinate cases of ameiioirhcea.
*Hospital facts and observations, lite. 
             Peter on the  Vegetable Alkalies.          189

   In a paper published in the American Journal  of Medical
Science, Feb. 1831, to which we refer the reader as a paper
of considerable interest, Dr. E. Geddirigs of Charleston, S.  C,
records four cases of paralysis, caused most probably by the
ingestion of lead, which he successfully treated with strych-
nine.
   The first was a case of hemiplegia, in an intemperate sub-
ject;  the second, one of general parallels, and  utter help-
lessness; and the others, paralysis of the fore-arm and hand.
His dose was usually the one sixth of a grain, night and morn-
ing, gradually increased.   Speedy relief was attained in ev-
ery case, and was  preceded by spasmodic twitchings of the
palsied muscles.
   Morphine  has been recommended as an antidote to the
dangerous  effects of too large doses  of strychnine.
  As yet, strychnine has been but little used in medicine.  A
considerable   quantity  of  it is  annually  manufactured  in
France to supply the demand in India, where a great deal
is consumed for  the destruction of wild beasts.
  Brucine was obtained by M.  M. Pelletier and Caventou,
from the false Angustura bark, which was at first supposed to
be the bark of the Brucea  anlidysbnteria,  but is now known
to be that of the strychnos nux vomica of the shops.  It  re-
mains in solution in the alcohol,  (in  the process given  for ob-
taining strychnine,) after the strychnine has crystallized.  It
resembles  strychnine so much in its properties  and action
that very little need be said of it.
  It has been used in palsies, the dose being six times greater
than that of strychnine, but with nearly similar effects.  Dr.
Bardsley found it less efficacious than that article.
  Quinine  and  Cinchonine  are both found in Peruvian bark,
and the different varieties  of bark  contain variable propor-
tions of these alkalies.
  According  to Pelletier  and Caventou, the red bark  con-
tains more than any other variety, the cinchonine being rath-
er predominant in quantity.  Carpenter, of  Philadelphia,  as-
serts that the kind  called  Calisaya bark  contains  the most,
   Vol. 7—No. 2.             24 
 190          Peter on the Vegetable Alkalies.

 and that it is principally  quinine;  Pelletier and Canventou
 have lately found  that this alkali  of the  calisaya bark  is a
 new and distinct one, and they state that its sulphate posses-
 ses  this peculiar property,  viz.  that  its  boiling saturated
 aqueous solution becomes,  on cooling, a  trembling jelly,
 which, on drying, assumes the appearance of horn.  Nitric
 acid decomposes thi| base, and the mixture takes an intense-
 ly green colour.*   *»,
   The loxa bark is inferior only to the  red, and contains, ac-
 cording to Carpenter, rather more cinchonine than  quinine.
 The common bark of the shops, in  the West especially, is a
 very inferior kind, which will scarcely sell at all in the East-
 ern market, called Carthagena bark.  It contains very little
 alkali of any kind.  Gruner asserts that a peculiar  alkali is
 found in it, resembling quinine, which is said to be destitute of
 febrifuge properties.!
   The sulphate of quinine is  now so generally known,  and
 so extensively diffused, that nothing need be said here of its
 mode of preparation,  and scarcely  any thing of its use in
medicine.
  The  quinine, in  the pure state, has been  little used.   Dr.
 Elliottson, of St. Thomas Hospital, London, however, records
ten cases of intermittent fever cured by the use of the un-
 combined alkali.J  The sulphate is  undoubtedly to be  pre-
ferred, as by a little additional sulphuric acid it is  rendered
readily  soluble in water.
  The  sulphate of quinine has been extensively  used in the
treatment of intermittents; but rather more in Europe,  and
in the Eastern States, than in the Western parts of the Uni-
ted States, where it is only considered  an adjuvant to a more
efficient course, venesection, calomel, and other evacuants.
  It has been often remarked, that persons  cured of inter-
 mittents by the use of quinine alone, were subject to relap-
 ses.  M. D. Gola asserts, that, by  combining it with tartar
 emetic, the danger of relapse is, in a great measure, remov-
         ♦Berzelius, Traite de Cheraie, 5,186. tlbid
         *M«d. Chir. Trans.  Vol. 12, p. 2. 
             Peter on the Vegetable Alkalies.          191

ed.  His formula is as follows—R. Tart. Emet. grs. iii, Sulph.
Quin. grs. x, mixed, divided into six doses, one to be taken
every two hours during apyrexia.  He tried  this mixture
on four persons who had relapsed several times after the use
of quinine alone.  Its effect was sometimes to produce vom-
iting of bitter  matter, sometimes  alvine  discharges; but  in
other cases it occasioned no sensible evacuation.  The fever,
in every case, was subdued, and no relapse followed.
   The sulphate of quinine has been  used in typhus.  Dr.
Elliottson has given one  case.*  John  O'Brien, M. D.  of
Dublin Fever Hospital, treated six cases  of the very worst
grade, with the sulphate of quinine, the disease being char-
acterized by large petechia of a dark bluish color, and affec-
tions of the brain and nervous system.   Two recovered as
rapidly as from intermittent fever;  three recovered more
slowly; there was no  relapse in either case.  One died, but
the Doctor asserts that it was a very severe case.  Few phy-
sicians have followed, or  probably will  follow, Dr. O'Brien
in his treatment of this disease.
   Henry Perrine, M.  D.  of Natchez, Miss.t  thought he de-
rived great advantage from the use of sulphate of quinine in
very large doses, in fever.   He gave from 8 to 60 grains, after
venesection, followed, when the quinine'had produced its pro-
effect upon  the skin, by copious evacuations from the bowels.
He alleges that it did  not increase the frequency of the pulse,
but rendered it full, and  produced free perspiration, and se-
 cretion from  the kidneys.
   A singular observation  was made  by Dr. Harty, of Dub-
 lin,! which, if true, is of some importance; it  is,  that sul-
 phate of quinine has  the effect of accelerating mercurial ac-
 tion upon the system.  Some female  convicts in Richmond
 Bridewell, to whom the sulphate of quinine had been admin-
 istered, were attacked suddenly,  and violently,  with ptyal-
 ism, after taking a few pills of calomel and scammony.  In
 some male prisoners in Newgate, the use of quinine re-excit-
   *Med, Chir. Trans. Vol.  12, p. 2.    tPhilad. Med. Journ. 13, 36.
               JEdinb. Med. & Surg. Jour. Oct. 1829. 
 j92           Peter on the Vegetable Alkalies.

 ed ptyalism after it  had subsided; and a medical friend of
 his who  had been taking bark and quinine for an ague, was
 salivated in less  than six hours after taking five grains of
 Plummer's pills, which contained only one grain of calomel.
   The sulphate of quinine has been highly lauded as a cura-
 tive agent  in neuralgia.   As early as April, 1822, M. Pied-
 agnel published an account  of a case of violent periodical
 supra-orbital neuralgia,  which he entirely cured by the  ad-
 ministration  of ten grains of the sulphate during one of the
 daily intermissions, and the repetition of the dose in the  fol-
 lowing twelve hours.
   P. L. Dupre, (officierdeSante, at Cerisier, Yonne,) in Au-
 gust, 1S22,* with one case of typhus  gravior and two cases
 of intermittent*, which were cured by  the use of this remedy,
 relates two also of neuralgia.  The one was a tertian, com-
 plicated with sub-orbitar neuralgia, in a person sixty four years
 of age.  Three grains of the sulphate of quinine were given
 every four hours,  before the  paroxysm, and the  patient was
 cured after two portions of twelve  grains each were taken in
 this way.   The other case was one of femuro-popliteal neur-
 algia, the patient aet 33, of a sanguine  temperament.  Bleed-
 ing, local and general baths, issues, frictions with ether, opi-
um, &c, had been  tried  without success.  He was cured by
 the use of nine grains of sulphate  of  quinine daily, in eight
 days.  Many other cases might be quoted, but these, perhaps,
 are sufficient.
   One of the formulae used by Dupre  was the following:
            R Sulph. Quinine, gr.  8.
              Syr.Rhaei,       )  __ ^..
              aa    a    - > aa 3nss.
             Aq. nor.  Aurant,$
              Ether Sulph.—gutt. x.  mix.
   Three doses were given per day.   The quantity of quinine
 being increased each consecutive day.
   The high price  of the sulphate of quinine has induced per-
sons to sophisticate it.  It is of course a matter of import-

             ^Tngpndie's Journ. de Physiol. 
             Peter on the Vegetable Alkalies.          193

ance that the artide used should be pure.  The impure may
be detected as follows:
  1. If it does not dissolve entirely in alcohol.
  2. If it is not entirely consumed when thrown on a red hot
iron;  or, 3d. If it does not dissolve entirely in water render-
ed sour by the addition of sulphuric acid; it is sophisticated.
These three tests must be used in conjunction.
  Cinchonine has many properties  in common with quinine;
it differs  from that substance, however, in being insoluble in
ether, which may, consequently, be used to  separate  these
two alkalies when they are mixed  together.
  It was at one time  believed  that this alkali was destitute
of the febrifuge  properties of  quinine.  As  there is such a
large proportion  of cinchonine in most of the varieties of
bark, it is gratifying to learn that this belief is unfounded.
  M. Bailly (La  Pitie, Paris,) has used it with advantage in
the form  of sulphate,  in doses of from twelve  to  sixteen
grains: and Dr.  Bardsley, from a number of experiments, is
satisfied that it is hardly inferior to the quinine.  He records
nine cases of intermittents which were cured by its use.
  Veratrine  is found in the seeds of the Veratrum sabadilla,
in the root of the Veratrum  album, (white hellebore,) and in
that of the  Colchicum autumnale.  It has  no odour,  but  its
smell  proves powerfully sternutatory.  It is an acrid, drastic
purgative; and, according to Dr. Bardsley, is not  more use-
ful than croton oil and other similar agents.
  It is the active principle of the celebrated  Eau medicinale
d'Husson; and  Magendie gives a formula to replace that
nostrum in the cure of gout, as follows:
             R  Sulph. veratrine, gr. 1.
                Aqua dist.       3i'—mix.
  The dose of the ve^trine is about 1—6th of a grain.  Ta-
ken into the mouth it excites salivation;  and in large doses it
produces tetanus and  death.
  Emetine may be prepared from ipecacuanha by boiling it
in water  mixed with  a little sulphuric acid, concentrating 
191          Peter on the Vegetable Alkalies.

the clear decoction to the thickness of thin syrup, then boil-
ing it with magnesia, and proceeding as  directed under the
head of Strychnine.
  The onlv superiority which emetine possesses over ipecac-
uanha, in substance, is the certainty of its uniform strength,
and the facility with which it may be administered.  It may
readily be  dissolved in water by the  addition  of a little  of
any common acid, or may be made into syrrup or pastils for
administration to children, and in these forms cannot be easily
detected by taste or appearance.
  "*It has a special action upon the lungs and the mucous
membrane of the intestinal canal;  and also a marked narco-
tic quality. "   In over doses it proves fatal, causing a violent
inflammation of the lungs and intestinal canal.
  Dr. Bardsley found  it a good expectorant in frequent doses
of one fourth of a grain, united with opium; a mild diapho-
retic in double that quantity;  and a good emetic in doses  of
five grains, dissolved in rose water.  The doctor most prob-
ably used the common  unpurified  emetine,  for  one  grain  of
the pure emetine is sufficient to produce  emesis.
  The reader is referred  to Magendie's Formulary for many
preparations of  the vegetable alkalies.
  Delphine has not yet been used in medicine.   Orfila found
it fatal to dogs in doses of six grains.
  Solanine acts as an  emetic  and narcotic.
  Corydedirw and Mcotine have not been  employed in medi-
cine.   The latter must be an  extremely powerful substance,
being the active  principle of a very active plant, tobacco.
There is but little doubt that valuable therapeutic effects will
some day be derived from it.   Its  mode of preparation may-
be gathered from the general  remarks on  that subject.
  Curarine is a violent poison, being derived from the poison
called Curara, which is used by the S. American Indians  to
poison the points of their arrows.
  Picrotoxine is  a virulent  poison; ten grains caused death,
*Magendie. 
            Peter on the Vegetable Alkalies.           195

with convulsions, in a middle sized dog, in forty-five minutes.
It has not been used in medicine.
  The remaining alkalies will not require a long comment.
Very few of them have been examined accurately, and still
fewer used in medicine.
  Atropine seems to be a very powerful substance.  Brandes,
in publishing  his  account of its discovery, adds, "*I have
been obliged to discontinue my researches on the properties
of this alkali.   The violent headaches, the pains in the back,
and giddiness, with  frequent  nausea, which the vapour of
atropine occasioned while I was working on it,  had such a
bad effect on my weak health  that I entirely abstained from
any further experiment.  I  once tasted a small quantity of
the sulphate of atropine; the  taste  was not very bitter, but
merely saline,  but there soon followed violent headache, sha-
king in the limbs, alternate sensation of heat and cold,  op-
pression  of the chest, difficulty of breathing, and diminished
circulation of the blood."  Even the vapour of the  salts of
atropine produced giddiness and dilation of the pupil, which
was also a very manifest effect of tasting them; the  dilation
lasting twelve hours.
   Atropine has been recommended to be  applied topically
 to  the rectum, so relax the sphincter, in the operation for fis-
 tula in ano; this, however, seems to us to be a useless refine-
ment.  It has  also been applied to the neck of the uterus, to
assist in the dilation in parturition.
   Hyosciamine, when prepared  from the  seeds  of the hen-
 bane, is  said, by Dr.  Reisinger, to  produce great dilation of
 the pupil, which lasted for seven days, (a solution of one grain
 in  an ounce of water being used.) without producing any of
 the irritation of the eye which was invariably occasioned
 when the  extract was used.t   The action of atropine he
 found similar, but its effects were not so prolonged.

   ♦Thompson's Ann. Philos. N. S. 1, 270.  It is now  believed that Brandes
 had not succeeded in obtaining the pure alkali.
   tBulletin des Scien. Med. 5, 261. 
  190         Peter on the  Vegetable Alkalies.

    Conicine, in a dose of one half a grain, killed a rabbit, with
 tetanic symptoms.   It is  certainly a more  elegant prepara-
 tion than the extract conii.
   lllicine and cornine are  said to be efficient in intermittents.
   Digitaline, in the dose of one grain, was  fatal to a rabbit;
 half a grain injected into the veins of a cat destroyed it, and a
 dog similarly treated with one and a half grains, was also kill-
 ed by it.   It has the same sedative action as  the digitalis
 from which it is obtained, but it has not yet been introduced
 into medicine.

   On the Endermic  application of the Vegetable Alkalies.—It
 would not be doing justice to the subject of  this paper to pass
 over in silence  a  new mode  of administering therapeutic
 agents, which promises to extend the limits of  medical effi-
 ciency to many cases hitherto considered almost hopeless;  a
 method  to which  the  vegetable  alkalies  are  particularly
 adapted.
   The method of applying medicines to the  skin, previously
 denuded of its cuticle, seems to have been first brought into
 notice by Antoine Lembert, Hospital assistant, Paris, whose
 " Essai sur la methode Endermique, o>c. " was read before the
 Acad. Roy.  des  Sciences, Sept. 1826.  M. Lesieur and M.
 Dubrary, however, have both put in claims to the discovery.
   It sometimes happens, in the treatment of diseases, that the
 internal  administration  of medicines becomes impossible or
 inefficient.  Medicines,  owing  to  the disgust  which  their
 taste or smell occasion,  or to gastric irritation, cannot be
 swallowed or retained upon the stomach.  Or, in some diseas-
 ed conditions of the alimentary canal, they  may either pass
 without producing any effect upon  the system, or may prove
 a source  of  local  irritation, and thus be productive of disa-
 greeable effects.   They may, also, in some cases, when of a
vegetable nature, be so acted upon by the digestive agencies
 of the stomach, that their effects may be materially modified.
  In such cases the endermic mode of applying medicines
becomes a valuable  resource. 
              Peter on the Vegetable  Alkalies.          197

   We may reckon among  the advantages of this  mode,
   1st. That the system is sooner brought under the action of
the medicine than by the internal mode of application.
   2d.  That the doses may be graduated at pleasure,  for if
an over-dose is at  any time applied, we can  easily remove it
again.
   3d.  That we can  in this way  use  medicines without the
knowledge of the patient; which renders it a valuable re-
source in the treatment of children and insane  persons.
   4th. It is admirably calculated to  produce either sudden
effects upon the system, or for producing the least possible
effect.
   The plan pursued in the endermic application of medicines
is, first to raise a small blister upon the epigastrium, the arm,
or any part of the front of the body:  the back has not been
found so suitable, as the absorbing power of that surface does
not appear to be so great.  If the disease is local, the blis-
ter must be placed as near as possible to the seat of the af-
fection.
   The common blister of flies is  used for this  purpose, and
M. Lembert asserts, that pain is in a great measure prevent-
ed  by surrounding the blister, when applied, with a large
poultice.   It has  also been advised to produce vesication by
a mixture  of equal parts of the strongest Aq. Ammon. and
simple cerate, which is said to produce the effect in an hour.
Boiling water, and hot iron have  been used, but have  been
found improper from their  deadening effect on the  cutis vera.
   When the blister is raised, the serum is to be discharged
by a moderate opening, and after a short time, the medicine
is to be applied under the cuticle, either  in  the form of fine
powder, cerate, or solution.   At each subsequent dressing,
the surface is to be completely  cleaned,  by  careful washing
with warm water,  before a new application is made.
   All medicines are not equally proper for endermic applica-
tion; they  should be such as operate  in minute doses, and
which do not produce too great irritation on the tender sur-
face.   The acrid purgatives, and  mineral bodies  generally,
   Vol. 7—No. 2.           25 
198          Peter on the Vegetable Alkalies.
with the  exception of calomel,  are unsuitable.   A little in-
flammatory action is favorable, while too much'prevents ab-
sorption,  the local action in that case overpowering the gen-
eral one.   The vegetable alkalies, as before intimated, are
generally very suitable to this mode of application.
  When  too great  constitutional action follows the use of
any agent in this way, the remains of it may be washed off,
and the effects counteracted by the applicatian of some oth-
er medicine, by pressure, or by dry cupping.  The alarming
contractions of the muscles, or tetanus, produced sometimes
by an over dose  of strychnine,  are completely subdued  by
the application of morphine, which, according to Lembert,
is a complete antidote.  He introduced six grains of the ace-
tate of morphine  under the  skin of a dog,  on one side of the
spine, and three  grains of strychnine on  the  other, and no
visible effects followed, although either, separately  applied,
would have caused death.
  Acetate of morphine,in doses from one sixteenth to between
one half  and two  grains,  he found to produce  a  slight itch-
ing or prickling of the surface, succeeded by a  state  of calm.
It produced its usual anodyne effect on the system in a very
few minutes after its application, bringing on reverie, sleep or
coma, swimming in the head, &c.  M. Lembert found it use-
ful in a number of cases.   He records a case of severe  tris-
mus,  caused by an ulcer on the external  malleolus, in a fe-
male of twenty-eight, at the Salt Petriere, inwhich bleeding,
warm baths, mercurial frictions on the neck and legs, blis-
ters, and sudorific draughts, had been used without  effect.
One fourth of a grain of acetate of morphine, with  a minute
portion of cerate, was applied  to the vesicated surface on
the morning of the second  day  of the disease.  The trismus
completely ceased, but some rigidity of the neck remaining,
the dose of acetate was doubled in  the  evening.   At 11
o'clock,  p. m.  the patient  was perfectly  restored.  At the
same hospital a  case of idiopathic  tetanus, brought on by
fright and  syncope,  was cured in the same manner, in an
 equally  short  space of time.  He gives  also several other 
             Peter on the Vegetable Alkalies.          199

cases.   The account of one of chronic bronchitis in a female
will perhaps not be devoid of interest.  The usual anodynes
and pectorals, and blisters to the arm, had been tried  with
no  effect.  In  order  to  relieve  a constipation of eight
days duration, he sprinkled five grains of powdered aloes on
the blistered surface.   Ten hours afterwards  this gave  rise
to several alvine discharges, with colic pains.  Encouraged by
this, Dr. L. (14th March, 1824) applied half  a grain of ace-
tate of morphine in powder to the same surface.  This pro-
duced a slight prickling in the sore, and a quarter of an hour
afterwards^the tracheal tickling, the cough, and oppression
of the breast were sensibly moderated.   On the 17th the ap-
plication of one grain of the acetate was followed, in an hour,
by a feeling of general ease  and comfort, and  the patient
was enabled, for the first time for a long while, to taste the
luxury of sleep.  The medicine was continued until the 22d,
the dose having been increased to two grains.  The amend-
ment was then decided, the cough having disappeared.  With
a view to ascertain whether the subsidence of  the catarrhal
symptoms was owing to the use of the morphine, its use was
discontinued on the 23d, when all the former evils returned,
 with the addition of cold sweats, chills, and faintings.   The
 use of the  medicine  was resumed on  the 24th, in  doses of
three grains; it was finally raised  to  four grains, and the pa-
tient was discharged, towards the end of May, perfectly res-
tored.  During the  treatment,  the use of the remedy was
 suspended at various times, with invariably the same effects,
 which the imagination of the patient had no  agency in pro-
 ducing, as it was always done without  her knowledge.
    Some cases of acute rheumatism, and sciatica, successfully
 treated in this way, are  also recorded by  Dr.  L. with many
 others, showing the calmative power of morphine, when  ex-
 ternally applied, over parts affected with neuralgia, or con-
 vulsive and spasmodic disorders.   M.  Bally* affirms, that he
 has used the morphine  successfully, in this way, in three cases
 of tetanus; one traumatic,  the  other caused  by the use of
* Mem. del' Aoad. Roy.de med. torn. 
 200          Peter on the Vegetable Alkalies.

 strychnine, and the third by fright; and states that it produced
 '•marvellous effects in rheumatism, lumbago, and sciatica.1'
    Dr. Gaspard Cerioli, of  Cremona,* gives also satisfactory
 results from the external application of acetate of morphine.
 He records a case  of infra-maxillary neuralgia, and one of
 tetanus, which were  cured in this  way, after  the common
 remedies had failed.
   In the United States, judging from what  has been written
 upon the subject, but little  attention has been paid to ender-
 mic medication.   A very interesting  paper upon that  sub-
 ject appeared in the N. A. Med.  and Surg. Journ.  Vol. 9
 and 10, by D. W. W. Gerhard, in which are recorded  the re-
 sults of his favourable experience in a great number of cases,
 and to which the reader is referred.
   He found the salts of morphine very suitable agents to be
 employed in this manner, and preferred the  sulphate, which
 he used in powder, or mixed with cerate, in  doses varying
 from a half to three or  four grains.   One case  of chronic
 bronchitis, which had not been subdued by the common rem-
 edies, or even morphine taken  internally, was cured by the
 application of  a cerate composed of sulph.  morphine  five
 grains, cerate simp. 3.3;  M. one third of which was applied
 three times a day.
   In a case of phthisis, much relief was derived from the en-
 dermic use of morphine; and two severe cases of delirium
 tremens were completely cured.  One of violent neuralgia
 in  the course of the ramifications of the frontal  nerve, was
 cured in less than half an hour by the application  of five
 grains of sulph. morphine,  on a blistered surface, over the
 orbit; and one  of severe  rheumatic pain in  the  muscles of
one side of the neck, and  another of gonorrhoea, with great
irritation of the  urethra and glans  penis, and constant incli-
nation to pass his urine, were both speedily relieved by the
same means.  In the one case the blister being applied to the
perineum, and in the other, to the seat of  the pain.
  Strychnine, endermically applied, causes, according to Dr.
            *Ann. Univ. de Med.—May and July, 1839. 
              Peter on the  Vegetable  Alkalies.          201

 Lembert, less topical  irritation,  but  more suppuration, than
 morphine.  Its constitutional  action  seldom begins in less
 than two hours, and it continues from  five to twelve hours.
   The effects were the same as those produced by its inter-
 nal application.  Dr. Lembert used it with success in sever-
 al cases of paralysis; in which application of  this medicine
 his experience is confirmed^ by that of M. Bally and others.
   Strychnine has been lately used with  flattering success in
 cases of amaurosis; that variety which depends on  paralysis
 of the optic  nerve  and retina, or a congested and inactive
 state of  the capillaries of the neurilema,  producing pressure
 on the nerve, In cases of structural derangement, it, of course,
 could not be expected to produce any  good effect.
   Dr. Thomas Shortt, of Edinburgh, claims the  merit of
 having first applied strychnine, by the enderjpriic method, in
 amaurosis.  His paper* is  well worthy a perusal.  A  num-
 ber of cases are  given, and the results are encouraging.
 Some of them were entirely cured, and  in all there was ev-
 ident improvement.
   In one or two cases the stimulating effects of the strych-
 nine caused an absorption of opacities of the cornea.
   He applied the blisters to the  temples, and sprinkled the
 strychnine in doses, increasing from one eighth or one fourth
 of a grain, to two and half and three  grains.  In some, the
action of the strychnine was greatly assisted by the previous
 use of mercury, internally;  and in one  case it failed altogeth-
 er until mercury was resorted to.
   More lately, these favourable reports have been confirmed
by Mr.  Middlemore,  Assistant Surgeon in the Birmingham
Eye Infirmary.  Several cases of amaurosis from an atonic
state of the nerve and retina, which had baffled all the com-
mon modes of treatment, were cured by the  endermic appli-
cation of strychnine.   A narrow blister was placed over each
eye-brow; when it had risen sufficiently the  cuticle was cut
away, and a piece of linen  was applied for half an hour to
absorb the serum.  The  strychnine was  dusted on, in  fine
            •Edinb.  Med. and Surg. Journ.—Oct. 1830. 
"202          Peter on the Vegetable Alkalies.

powder, chiefly in the direction of the supra-orbitary nerve.
Twenty-four hours afterwards, at the second dressing, the
blistered surface was covered with a piece of linen spread
over with  ung. cetacei.   The quantity of strychnine  was
gradually increased, from one twelfth of a grain until the vi-
sion was improved, or disagreeable effects were produced.—
When  the medicine  caused pain, he mixed  it with flour or
o/ium, or suspended its use, until  he had relieved the chylo-
poietic organs by appropriate medicines.*
  There are undoubtedly many cases of amaurosis in which
no benefit could be possibly hoped  from the  application of
strychnine, yet in many others, especially when they are of
recent  origin, this remedy seems  to afford us  another "loop
to hang a hope upon."
  The Sulphate of Quinine proves more  irritating  to the
denuded cutis vera th.\n either morphine or strychnine.  In
the state of powder it is,  consequently, ineligible; exciting,
when used in that form, livid redness,  inflammation, the for-
mation of a gelatinous  pseudo-membrane;  and often destroy-
ing, here and there, the vitality of the surface, so as to occa-
sion small sloughs.   When mixed  with a little cerate no such
disagreeable effects are produced.
  The observation of these irritating effects of the sulphate
of quinine has induced M. Pointe, (Hotel Dieu, Lyons,) to ap-
ply the remedy in cases where  its internal use was impracti-
cable,  by friction on the gums and internal parts of the lips,
in which way he found it fully  efficacious;  the only inconve-
nience being the extreme bitterness  of the drug.  He details
nine cases of intermittents which  were cured in this way, by
the application of from  four to eight  grains, morning and eve-
ning.!
  M. D. Martinj employed the sulphate in the form of fine
powder mixed with cerate, according  to the common ender-
mic mode, in intermittents, and stated that it never failed to

                *Amer. Journ. Med.  &c—9, 231.
                tMemoir to the Royal Acad. Paris 18=>6
                fltevue Medicale—Sept. 1827.    ' 
             Peter on  the Vegetable Alkalies.         203

check the fever at once.  He applied four to eight grains daily.
The experience  of M.  Lembert  accorded   with  that  of
M. D. Martin.  He asserts,  that ten or fifteen minutes  af-
ter the application of the remedy to the arm, a sensation of
warmth diffused itself along the limb towards the trunk, and
thence slowly throughout the whole body; the capillary sys-
tem became injected, and the pulse stronger but not more fre-
quent, nay, sometimes even slower; the sensation of  warmth
i^tften accompanied by a prickling, of the skin; the muscuW
 powW is increased; and this state of excitement, or increas-
 ed aci|an, lasts for several hours.
   WithoVt fatiguing the reader with  any more case/by the
 European petitioners, we  will merely give an abstract  of
 Dr. Gerhard'^xperience in the use of this article bv the en-
 dermic method.^^
    He treated twenlt cases of intcrmittentsJh this way, with
 the  most perfect suScess;  and  asserts tifat it cures  more
 speedily than when givaa internally. Jthe  blister  and the
 quinine were always appnW during.apyrexia; and  bleeding
 in the hot stage, with  the ul^of Jfiild cathartics, was not
 neglected.  The average  quafrWy of quinine exhibited be-
 fore the paroxysms were stopp«!%was twenty grains. Leav-
 ing the question of the modujroperaHdi of medicines applied
 in this  way, for the discussion of Lthos^vho are  so inclined,*
 the writer is convinced tpat the enderniioLmethod is a valu-
 able  addition to  the a/sof practice;  andV>elieving that a
 knowledge of what jfas been writen of it  flull plead most
 successfully in its fi/our, he has done little clsStfhat present
  to the reader a condensed  view of the experience^f others,
  leaving him to form his own theories and  his own^>inions.
    Let him, however, when  making up his conclusonsXn  the
   merits of tip mode of practice, give proper weight to\ome
   of itsdisAantages; which are as follows:—           \
    This^Kctice is attended with the disagreeable necessity
   of raJnig  a blister; and  the blistered surface becomes in
       ., .he writers on the subject affirm, that the medicine applied in this'way
     isorbed, so that often, at the subsequent dressings, none, or scarcely any' is
     id upon the surface of the skin. 
204     Toland on Sanguineous Tumors of the Vagina.

some cases, a painful, even a suppurating, and sometimes a
sloughing sore; producing, by  its irritation,  disagreeable ef-
fects upon the constitution.
  These, however,are extreme cases; and the endermic me-
thod is not likely  to be resorted to when  medicines applied
internally will produce the desired effect.
 mtsp. II.— Observations on Sanguineous Tumors of the jjmgi-
   n\.  By Hugh H. Toland, M. D. of Newbury VilWge S.
   CarVlina.                                   ^r
   IN coV^equence  of the frequent appearance^! many dis-
 eases, andlhe number of publications that ^nst respecting
 them, every Timber of the profession is enabled to acquire
 tolerably correct views, both of their jpthology and thera-
 peutics.  ThereuVe, any article of thJedescription, that may
 appear, which doesT^t contain neyj^nd useful facts, no  mat-
 ter how well  it may Tke, executoO, must be  injurious to the
 cause of science, on  accatiut oj^ne unprofitable labour it im-
 poses upon her votaries.  TUifrc arc, however, others equally
 violent, and as frequentl^raVl, although of more rare occur-
 rence, that require atta/ftion, jrWl none call for it more loudly
 than the disease und^considerallkm.
   Yet it must be^icknowledged It at this  subject  has not
 been entirely ne#Tected; for about sixVlissertations appeared,
 and nearly  sixJ^ cases were recorded, \pm the  year  1.734 to
 1830; at wh^h time Deneux,  a distinguished French physi-
 cian, collected all the  facts that were  theYknown upon the
 subject^Tnd published a treatise that  is much  more perfect
 than a^Ty that preceeded it, and which mustXe  considered
 as j*rthy of its author, and highly useful to the\rofession of
 wlpch he is so respectable a member.   Among to%names of
me individuals who have  contributed to the elucmation of
this subject by the publication of cases, may be enumerated
those  of Hunter, Ledran, Baudeloque, Dewees,  Machine,
M ad. Lachapelle, Chaupier, ect. And Kronauer, Boer, AuV 
      /Y 6l/iA'vV1 vy\/\&<*V--'**--  ,   '   '




Art. IX.—On the mode of Collecting and Preserving objects
  of Natural History, with a view to  the formation of a Cabi-
  net, or to their  transportation.  Read  before the  Medical
  Society  of Lexington, by Robert  Peter, $..-*■  D.—and    •.
  published at its request.              C^"^^ A
  IN selecting this subject for the  basis of a few remiiMis^
I was prompted by the evident interest expressed  by your
late  resolutions in  the cause  of natural science; and by a
desire to contribute my mite,  however small,  to aid in the
laudable enterprise in which you have embarked;  viz. the
formation of a Museum of Natural History.
  Interesting and attractive as the works  of nature always
are,  to the man of observation in any part of the world, those
of our own beloved  West, for variety, number and beauty, are
not perhaps to be surpassed in any quarter, while they pos-
sess  this still further incentive to their study, that they have,
as yet,  been comparatively little examined by naturalists.
Fascinating as this  study is of itself, it cannot but be doubly
interesting and instructive to medical men. We according-
ly find, that among them nature has always found her warm-
est and most enthusiastic admirers.  The study  of medicine
is in fact the study of nature;  and the insight into her many
works, necessarily given  in that amount of knowledge which
is requisite to constitute a practitioner, often elicits a desire
for still further investigation.
  The  formation of a museum is one of the  best  modes of
facilitating this  study.   Objects  from  all the  kingdoms of
nature placed side by side,  can be examined and compared,
and  all their points of peculiarity as  well as all those reesm-
blances which connect them together into one great chain,
extending from the green patch of lichen  upon the rock, up
to man  himself, can with peculiar advantage be traced  out.
  Of all this, however, you arc fully  convinced, and I shall,
consequently, proceed immediately to the  subject proposed.
  Much of the  beauty of zoological specimens depends- on
  Vol.  7—No. 1.              17 
  134        Peter on Collecting and Preserving

  the care taken in their procurement and preservation.  The
  gun affords one of the best means of obtaining objects for the
  zoological cabinet.   In  shooting for this purpose we  must
  employ the smallest size of shot which can be efficient, and
  always shoot from such a distance as not materially to injure
  the skin or plumage  of the quadruped  or bird we shoot at.
  We should be provided with cotton-wool, wrapping paper,
  writing paper, and a pencil.  As soon as the animal falls we
  should immediately run  up and secure it, to prevent it, if a
  bird, from injuring its plumage by its struggles, and in order
  to search out the shot holes and plug  them with cotton, that
 the blood may not escape upon its  feathers; an accident al-
 ways to be avoided, the  blood  having the effect  of matting
 them together in a very unseemly manner, and  being so dif-
 ficult to wash out, that it is scarcely  ever attempted except
 in very rare and valuable specimens, in which case it is done
 by careful sponging with tepid water.  The plumage, how-
 ever, never looks  so  well after this ablution as it did in its
 natural state.  In most quadrupeds, except those with very
 fine and light coloured  fur,the process of washing  succeeds
 much better, and we are not, consequently, under the neces-
 sity of taking  so much pains to avoid the spotting of their
 coats with blood.
   If the bird should only be  badly  wounded, but not killed,
 the best mode of putting an end to its sufferings is, to squeeze
 its chest for a few moments with the finger and thumb appli-
 ed on  each side, immediately  under the  wings; this com-
 presses its  lungs, and soon suffocates it.   A little cotton is
 now to be stuffed into its throat and nostrils,  to prevent the
 escape of any fluid which would soil its plumage, and in some
 birds it will also be necessary to insert a small quantity into
 the vent, for a similar purpose.  If  the crop is much disten-
 ded it had belter  be previously emptied by holding  the  bird
 up by the  legs and pressing the contents out  through the
 mouth.   Having  arranged its  plumage, the bird  may be
 placed head foremost into a paper cone,  formed as  the  gro-
cers usually make them to contain tea, &c. and after insert- 
                Objects of Natural History.             135

ing also a small note of the observations made upon the bird,
the end of the cone may be closed up, and it may be placed
in the game-bag, or what is still better, in a tin vasculum,
similar to that used in herborising.
   It will be found of very great advantage  in  stuffing and
setting up a bird, or other animal, in a cabinet, in a natural
position, to make as accurate an observation of its habit and
manners as possible.   For example, if a bird, observe wheth-_
er he perches, whether in perching his body is held horizon-
tally or obliquely, whether  his  wings droop, or are crossed
over the tail,  the position of the latter, the degree of exten-
sion of his  legs, the  carriage  of the head &c.  &c.  The
colour of the  iris of the eye and the legs should also be ob-
served, as they often change in death.  A  note  of all  these
observations should be made with the pencil on a small  piece
of paper, and should be placed  in the cone with the bird.
   On  a warm day, and in southern climates, decomposition
commences its ravages so soon after the death of the animal,
that if no precautions be taken,  the lapse of a few hours will
be sufficient to render a delicate bird unfit for preservation;
the cuticle will begin to separate, especially on the abdomen,
and the feathers will be rendered loose.  The best mode of
preventing this rapid decomposition, in the field, is to fill the
box, or bag, in which the specimens are carried, with  fresh
juicy green vegetables, as mint  &c. which  will keep down
the temperature by the evaporation constantly taking place
from them  until they are  wilted and dry, when they are to
be changed for fresh plants.
  After permitting the animal to remain long enough to cool,
and for its blood to  coagulate, or to be absorbed from its ves-
sels, so that it  may  not flow from our incisions, and thus em-
barrass the process, we proceed  next to skin it, preparatory
to stuffing.  We shall  first give the  manner of proceeding
with this end in a quadruped.
  The animal  is to  be laid on  its back on the  table, with
its head to the left hand, and an incision  is to be made the
whole length of the abdomen.  The skin is to be separated 
136         Peter on Collecting and Preserving

by means of the fingers and the  knife until the upper ends of
the extremities are  exposed;  these are now to be  divided
at the second joint from the foot,  and  the tail  is also to be
separated from the body at its root.  The body may now be
suspended by means of a hook, or a piece of cord, and the
skin is to be separated from the  back, and the skinning con-
tinued over the neck and head until it remains attached only
at the jaws  around the outside  of the mouth.  In  skinning
the head, we must be careful  to cut off the cars deep down
into the skull, and must avoid cutting the eyelids.  The body
may now be separated from the head, between the latter and
the first vertebra  of the neck, and laid  aside to serve as a
model for the artificial body which is to be substituted.   The
head is  to  be perfectly  cleared  of all  its soft parts—the
tongue, and eyes removed and the  brain scooped out through
the foramen magnum.  Each of  the  extremities is now to be
drawn out of the skin as far as the toes, and all the muscles
and soft parts removed,  the bones being left to  give  support
to the body, and a natural  appearance to the  limbs.   The
tail may also be drawn out.  This is sometimes  difficult, but
may easily  be done in  most cases by means of a split  stick,
with which the integuments are pressed back, while the tail
is pulled out of them.   All  fat or other soft matter must now
be removed from  the skin, and if it is a large one, it has been
recommended  to immerse it for a day or two in a moderately
strong cold solution of alum and salt, in  order more fully to
preserve it. This however, will be  found in most cases un-
necessary.   The whole of the  inside of the  skin,  all the
bones &c. are  now to be covered by means of a brush, with
a coat of arsenical soap, made into the consistence of cream
with water.
  This soap, originally proposed by Becceur, has now stood
the test of  experience, and is  the best preservative  which it
at present known.  It may be  formed by taking of
       White soap,                         32 parts,
       Salt of tartar, or carbonate of potash, 12  do.
       Quick-lime—slacked,                 4  <30.
       White arsenic (arsenous  acid,)        32  do.
       Camphor,                            5  do. 
               Objects  of Natural History.            137

  The camphor is to be pulverised in a  mortar, previously
adding a few drops of alcohol;  the soap may then be added
and worked into a soft paste with a little water, the other in-
gredients may then be well rubbed up with it, adding as much
water as will make the whole of the consistence of butter.
It may be kept in a wide mouthed bottle, or a covered jar,
and will retain its virtues any length of time, merely requir-
ing to be mixed with  a sufficient quantity of water when it
is to be used.
  A more quick and effectual process, perhaps, is to mix  all
the ingredients, except  the camphor, together over the fire,
in a sufficient quantity  of  water;  the camphor, pulverized,
being added after the mixture has cooled.
  Care must  be  taken during  the whole of the process of
skinning, to prevent the soiling of the skin by blood and
other matters. And  to prevent the embarrassment  which
the damp clammy nature of the freshly exposed  surface of
the flesh would  cause in skinning small animals, causing the
fur to stick and become soiled; it  is better to be provided
with some carb. magnesia, or ground plaster  of paris, with
which to rub the flesh  in order to destroy  its adhesiveness.
   Having given  the skin and bones a good coat of the pre-
servative soap, if it is intended  to send the skin  away with-
out stuffing, it is to be drawn  back over the head, having
previously stuffed the orbits of the eyes and  the cranium and
the spaces occupied by the  temporal muscles, with cotton,
 tow, hemp, or the long tree moss of the south.  The leg bones
 are next to be wound with tow, as nearly as possible of  the
 shape which they had when covered by their muscles, and
 the skin is to be  returned  over them.  The  skin of the  tail
 is to be stuffed out to its natural size, by means of a piece of
 wire wound with tow,  covered with the soap, and inserted
 into it; and the  body  is to be loosely stuffed out  with any
 light vegetable  matters, such  as  cotton, tow, Spanish moss,
 or hay.  The dimensions of the body, the colour of the eyes,
 and  other  necessary particulars,  may  then be noted on a
 piece of paper, which  is also  to be  inserted into the body 
 138        Peter on Collecting and Preserving

 with the stuffing.  In this state, after the skins are sufficient-
 ly dry, they may be transported to any distance, after being
 securely packed in a tight box.
   But if it is intended to  set up the specimen in  a natural
 position, and  to make a  finished  preparation, the mode of
 procedure must  be somewhat  different.  After having skin-
 ned it and  coated it with  the  preservative, as before stated,
 it will be necessary to form an artificial body, and to intro-
 duce wires into the limbs,  in order to support it.  Five pieces
 of iron wire must be  taken,  of a size proportionate to the
 weight of the  body they are intended (o support; they must
 be  previously  made  red hot in  the fire, in order to destroy
 their elasticity.   These must  be each  filed  to a sharp point
 at one end.  Four of these are to be introduced into the legs,
 and must be of such  a length that after  being introduced
 into the leg, and fastened into the artificial body, they will
 project several inches beyond  the foot.  The fifth wire is to
 be several inches longer than the body of the animal, includ-
 ing the neck  and head.   Upon  this fifth  wire we wind  a
 quantity of tow, or other light vegetable material,  as nearly
 as possible of the shape and  size of the real body and neck
 of the  animal, talcing the denuded  carcass as the  model;
 commencing  our winding close to  that  end of  the  wire
 which is not  sharpened.  Having formed the body to our
 satisfaction, and having  given  all  the inside of the skin
 and the  bones a coat of the preservative, and  returned
 the head as  before  directed,  we pass  the pointed end of
the wire up the neck, into  the foramen magnum of the head,
and through the  skull and  skin just between the eyes; leav-
ing it projecting there  until  the animal is dry, when  it may
be cut off close to the skin.  In some cases, when the skull
is very hard, it will be necessary  to pierce it previously with
an awl for the passage of the wire.
  The end of the wire which was introduced into the tail
is now to be stuck into the body, and  fastened there by bend-
ing; and a wire  is to  be introduced  into each foot and run
up  each leg, by  the side of the bones, and after a  sufficient 
                Objects of Natural History.             139

 quantity of tow has been wound on the bones of the leg to
 give it the natural size and shape, the wires are to be stuck
 into the body  and strongly fastened  there by  bending and
 twisting.
   The skin may now be  sewed up; the needle being passed
 from within outwards,  so as to avoid including the hair, pass-
 ing it successively from one side to the other, until the whole
 of the incision is sewed up, taking care as the  sewing pro-
 gresses to add cotton, tow, &c.  in  any places where the
 stuffing is deficient.   The hair may  now be brushed down
 over the suture, which will  completely hide it.  It now only
 remains to place the animal in its proper position to dry, and
 subsequently to introduce artificial eyes made of glass.
   In order to set the animal on its feet we must make  a small
 platform of wood, by merely nailing  two strips under aflat
 piece of board, to support it a short distance from the ground.
 In this board we make four holes for the passage of the wires
 which project from  the  feet of the  animal,  and the wires
 being passed through  these holes  and then bent backwards
 will hold the  animal  in  an erect posture.   We can after-
 wards, by bending the  wires of the legs  and body, give the
 animal any desired attitude.  The nature and shape of the
 support on which  we place the animal must  of  course vary
 according to the posture which we may wish to give it.
   Having introduced small rolls of paper into the nostrils, to
 keep them distended,  and placed each of the ears between
 two pieces of paste-board to prevent  them from  curling up,
 we put the animal in an  airy place to dry.   In  some cases,
 it will be necessary to keep the lips together by  means of a
 few stitches, and to support the head  by  fastening the wire
 which projects from it  into an upright stick  fixed into the
 platform.
   The preparation of birds, although  much care  is requisite
in  keeping the plumage unruffled  and free from the  soil of
blood or other matters,  is, upon  the whole, a more easy task
than that of quadrupeds;  as in the former the plumage, by 
140         Peter on Collecting and Preserving

judicious management, may be made to cover many defects,
whereas in the latter every little imperfection is easily visible.
   The general character of the process is the same in  birds
as in quadrupeds, with some slight modifications.  We place
the bird in the same position, and pushing aside the feathers,
make an incision through the skin from the top  of the breast
to the vent.  The skin is then to be removed  until the ex-
tremities  are  visible; the legs  are to be separated at the
second joint from the foot;  the wings divided close to the
body; and the tail cut through  close to  the insertion of the
tail feathers, leaving a  small piece of the rump attached to
the skin.  In the  whole of the  process,  we  must be very
careful not to stretch the skin, as it would destroy the smooth-
ness of the plumage,  and we must  employ a  sufficiency of
magnesia or powdered plaster of paris on  the denuded flesh
to prevent the feathers  from sticking to it.   Before skinning
the neck  it will  be necessary to put cotton in the throat and
nostrils,  to prevent the escape of any liquid to soil the plu-
mage, and to pass a string or wire through  the nostrils, leav-
ing the ends so long as to serve  to lay hold of,  when the skin
of the neck  is inverted over the head like the finger of  a
glove turned inside out, by which to draw it out again  when
the  cleaning of the head  is completed.  The skinning is to
be conducted as already advised, and the head to be separa-
ted from  the first vertebra;  the brain and  tongue are also to
be taken out, and the eyes withdrawn from within, by break-
ing  through the  bony palate.   Then,  having given the
bones and skin a good coat of the arsenical soap, and stuffed
 the orbits, and the spaces before occupied by the muscles,
 with cotton, the skin is  to  be drawn back over the head!
 The thighs are  now to be drawn out of the  skin, and the
 muscles  removed, and the whole inside of the skin and the
 surface of the bones covered with the preservative.  In large
 birds it is necessary also to skin the wings as far as possible,
 to remove the soft parts, but in small ones this may be omit-
 ted.   As a general rule, however, every  soft part is as far  as
 possible to be removed. 
                Objects of Natural History.             »**

  In the formation of  the artificial body, we proceed very
much as already indicated for quadrupeds, except that the
wire on which we form it should be pointed at both ends,
one end to be passed into the remains of the rump to support
the  tail,  while the  other end is passed up the neck, and
through the skull at the front part  of the  head.  We must
of course make our artificial body and neck as nearly as pos-
sible of the size and shape of the real one.  A wire sharp-
ened at one end  is now to be  passed up each leg, beginning
at the bottom of the foot, and a sufficient quantity of low is
to he wrapped around the wire and bone of the thigh to re-
place the flesh which  was removed.   The sharp end of  the
wire is  to be  firmly fixed, by twisting, into the body at  the
 place  where the legs are  naturally  attached, a sufficient
 length of wire being  left projecting from the  feet to fasten
 the bird to the stand on  which it is to be placed to dry. The
 skin is now to  be sewed  up in the manner already indicated,
 taking care to avoid  including  any  of  the feathers.  After
 bringing back the feathers in a natural  manner over the su-
 ture, the. bird  may  be placed and fastened  on its stand by
 introducing the  wires of its  feet into suitable holes made for
 the purpose.   The nature of the stand  must vary according
 to the habits  of the  bird.   If  it perches, it may be  formed
 by nailing a round stick horizontally on the top of a vertical
 one, which is fastened  to a suitable  foot  to prevent it  from
 upsetting.   Two  holes  are bored in the horizontal  stick to
  receive the  wires  of the  feet, which, after  being passed
  through the holes, arc twisted around the stick to make them
  firm.
    The bird is now to  be placed  irt a natural attitude by bend-
  ing the legs, neck, and body. The wings which hang loosely
  and in an unseemly  manner, are  to be pinned to the  body
  by two wires passed through  them; the plumage is to be
  smoothed and arranged, and it and the wings are to be kept
  in their proper places by thread wrapped loosely several times
  all around the body.  The tail may be kept straight by means
  of a small piece of split cane,  or  small splints of  wood tied
     Vol. 7—No. 1.             18 
142        Peter on Collecting and Preserving

above and below at its root;   the  beak tied shut, and the
head supported by tying it up, by means of the same thread
which  is used in closing the bill, to the  wire that projects
from the top of the head, which  is to be  bent down in a
proper position  for the purpose.  The artificial  eyes may
now be  introduced, and the  eyelids carefully arranged over
them, and the bird may be set aside to dry.   When dry, the
pins of  the wings may be  removed, the thread, &c.  taken
off, and  the wire projecting  freu.  the forehead cut off close
to the skin, and it may be placed in the cabinet.
   When our  object is merely  to preserve the skin, with a
view to  stuff it at some future day, or to transport it to anoth-
er part  of the country, it will  not be necessary to use the
wires nor to form  an artificial body, but after we have well
cleaned the skin and the bones which  are left, and covered
the whole on the inside with the soap, we loosely stuff the
neck, body  and thighs, with cotton, and merely draw the cut
edges of the skin together  without sewing,  placing in the
skin the note of observations made on the  bird while living,
having added  to it a  note  of  the  dimensions of the body
which we have removed.   Skins dried in this manner, wrap-
ped in paper and packed in some soft material may be trans-
ported a great distance without  injury, and may afterwards
be stuffed and set up by softening the skin again by moisture,
and giving it a fresh coat of preservative.
  I have now endeavoured  to give a general outline of the
process  of preserving quadrupeds and birds,  but it must be
evident  to every one conversant with the great diversity of
nature,  that it would  be impossible, in the short space to
which I am restricted, to give all the varieties of the process
to which this diversity gives rise.   I consequently leave
much to be added by the ingenuity of the beginner, who in
engaging in this pleasing occupation, will find much in which
to consult his judgment, and much wherein his taste must di-
rect him.   Some few more particulars,  however, seem to be
necessary.
  When large holes are made in the skin by shot, or other- 
                 Objects of Natural History.             143

 wise, an attempt may be made to stitch them up on the inside.
 When the head is so large, and the neck so small, that the
 skin of the neck cannot be  passed over the head without
 stretching it, which in  birds must always be avoided, a lon-
 gitudinal slit may be made in the skin of the neck, which is
 to be sewed up again when the head is returned.
   In large birds with fleshy feet, it will be necessary to make
 incisions in the  bottom of the toes, to  remove  some  of the
 soft parts, and to introduce  some of the  preservative.  And
 in web-footed or palmated birds, the webs must be prevented
 from curling or  shrinking in drying by pinning them out on
 the board on  which the bird  is placed to dry.   Wires must
 be introduced into the  wings  of very large birds, and fasten-
 ed into the body,  in the  same manner as the  wires of the
 legs.  In the whole of the process of preparation, it should
 be the aim of the preparer to give the animals as  much the
 appearance of life as possible. The attitudes which he gives
 them should be  graceful, natural, and  varied, and  should be
 founded  on observations  made on  them in the living state.
 In this consists the perfection of  the art, which peoples our
 cabinets  with  the timid  songsters of the grove, and  which
 by its magic almost makes us forget that  they are mute.
   Some observations  are  necessary on  the preservation of
 other classes  of  animals, but they will not detain us long.
   The different  species of Lacerta,, from the Alligator to the
 small scaly lizard of the woods and fences, called commonly
"scorpion," may  be prepared on the same general principles
as the quadrupeds and birds.   A great variety of these exists
in the western country, which are highly interesting to the
naturalist.  In skinning these animals, it will be remarked
that the integuments are  so firmly  fixed to the front of the
skull that no attempts need be made to remove them.   The
small species  may be obtained by  means  of a long switch
with which they  may be struck on the  back, or by means of
a hook baited with a fly.  The soft-skinned species which
live under damp  logs, and under stones, and those which in-
habit the  water, called newts, "ground  pups,"  or "water 
144         Peter on Collecting and Preserving

dogs," had better be preserved in whiskey, which, upon the
whole, is the most easy mode of preserving the small spccie9
of the scalcy kinds also.
  The various kinds of  Tortoise, whether of the land or of
the water, which possess a hard shell, may be stuffed with
advantage.   The soft shelled kinds make but bad dried pre-
parations, and are generally preserved in whiskey.
  In order to prepare a tortoise, we saw the connection be-
tween the upper and the lower  plate of its shell, at the  un-
der part of the body at the side, and then cut the lower plate
entirely out by separating the integuments close to this plate
all around.   All the soft parts arc now  to be removed from
the shell and skin, the skull, and the bones of the legs being
left, the brain, &c. well cleaned out.  The inside is then to
be covered with the preservative, and the neck, legs, tail and
shell,  filled out to their natural size by judicious stuffing with
tow or other suitable materials.   The skin  is now  to be
stretched over the stuffing, by means of thread  passing in all
directions across  from opposite points, being passed through
it by means of a needle, so that when the lower plate is laid
in  its  place  none of the stuffing can be  seen. The lower
plate  is to be fastened  in its place by two pieces of wire,
which fix it to the upper plate by means of holes, which per-
forate the two shells where the section was made with  the
saw.  The head, body &c. being  supported in a natural po-
sition, and the feet pinned out upon a board, the preparation
is set  aside to dry.  And  when dry, it may  receive  a coat of
varnish, which,  if we have taken the precaution, previous to
stuffing it, of washing the  shell well with a hard brush, will
make its natural colours  show to advantage.
  The small kinds of Snakes, and other reptiles, may be pre-
served in clear whiskey,  or a mixture of one part of alcohol
and two of water; but the large kinds may be skinned.   The
best mode of procedure, in some cases, is to open the mouth
and cut through the vertebra of the neck through the mouth,
cutting the muscles all around, and taking care  not  to cut the
•kin,  the whole  body may thus be skinned and drawn out 
                Objects of Natural History.             145

through the  mouth.    In  6ome cases, however, It will be
necessary to open the animal by an incision made down the
side of the belly avoiding the  abdominal plates.  After it
is skinned  and has received a  coat  of the arsenical paste,
fine dry sand may be  poured into the  mouth until the skin is
completely and equally filled.  It may now be arranged in a
natural position, and set aside to dry, after which the sand
may again be poured out and the skin varnished, after having
supplied  by means of water-colours any tints which may have
faded from the skin.  In pursuing this plan it will be necessa-
ry  to  avoid  stretching the  skin.   This process may be  used
for snakes, frogs, loads, &c. &c, with the same  general pre-
cautions  which have already been given in reference to quad-
rupeds and birds.   This mode may also be used  with  advan-
tage in the preparation  of  some  kinds of scalcless fishes.
   The Fish of our  waters  are objects of considerable inter-
est to  naturalists both at home and abroad, but it is to be re-
gretted that they  are extremely difficult  to preserve in all
their beauty, most of their colours being so extremely evan-
escent, that whether we preserve them in spirits, or skin and
stuff them, they are sure to fade;  and the glossy appearance
given them by their natural covering of mucus,  is  but im-
perfectly replaced  by varnish.
   The best process for stuffing these animals is that given by
William Bullock, F. L. S. former proprietor of the London
Museum, whether original  with him, I know not.   I will give
it  in his own  words.
   "Procure the fish,  particularly  if it be  one of which the
scales arc large and loosely attached to the skin, as fresh as
possible, lay it on its side, and cut out the gills with a pair of
scissors, then introduce  a little tow into the place to  prevent
the blood or moisture from flowing out.   Then  with a damp
sponge carefully wipe the sides of the fish, raise the fins, and
carefully extend them;  cut two  pieces of paper  the shape of
each  fin but a little  larger, rub  a little  mucilage  of  gum
arabic on one of the  pieces, and extend the fin on it, press
the corresponding piece of  paper on the  other side, when it 
 146         Peter on Collecting and Preserving

 will adhere, and drying in a few minutes, will keep  the part
 extended, and preserve  it from  injury in handling or trans-
 portation.   When this is completed, take  a piece of thin
 silk paper,  and neatly cover over  one side of the fish;  the
 natural gluten  of the fish will  cause it  to  adhere firmly to
 the scales, and it will presently dry and form a strong case
 over  them, and admirably  preserve  them in their places
 whilst you take the  skin off.   After the  first coat of  paper
 is dry, it may be still further strengthened by applying anoth-
 er or two of paper slightly gummed; this when dry will not
 only keep the scales on, but will assist afterwards in retaining
 the fish in its proper form, by preventing distention.   When
 these papers are thoroughly dry, turn the fish on a  soft  cloth,
 with the uncovered side upwards, and open it with sharp scis-
 sors, from the tail  to near the nose, along the lateral line,
 which is observable in most fishes, cutting open the cheek to
 enable you afterwards to clear the flesh from that on the  op-
 posite side under the bone, for  unless this be done, and that
 part filled with cotton, it will  inevitably shrink, and have a
 bad effect.  Care and a little practice will now be required
 in detaching the skin from the flesh: begin at the  head and
 work  downwards, using a sharp knife in  separating the skin
 from  the flesh, and cutting off the fin-bones on the inside
 with scissors.   When this is completely  done, by taking a-
 way as  much animal  matter  as  possible, for in this consists
 the perfection of preserving all skins, wipe  the inside dry,
 and apply the arsenical soap, and then, using great caution
 not to distend unnaturally, or in one part more than another,
fill the skin to its proper form with cut tow or cotton, and sew
 up the incision.  It may  then be dried in the shade, and in
a few days the  papers may be taken off, by dampening them
with a sponge, the glass  eyes may  be  introduced, and the
skin covered with two or three coats of varnish."
  The Insect tribe is so numerous and so diversified that vol-
umes have been written on it alone,  and the  life of one man
would scarcely  be sufficient for its complete study.   Yet it is,
when fully examined,  so  replete  with  interest and wonder 
Objects of Natural History.             147
 that  persons  exist who have  devoted themselves almost ex-
 clusively to this branch of nature.  While so much that is
 more striking remains to be studied, in our country, it is not
 to be supposed that many  will give much attention to this
 apparently endless pursuit,  but there are, notwithstanding,
 many prominent objects in it which will attract the attention
 of the  most  careless observer of nature.  It is  therefore
 proper that we should give  a few moments to the subject of
 the preservation of these animals, although time will not per-
 mit us to go into details.
   Many of  the nimble insects may be caught by means of a
 gauze net, made like  the scoop-net of the angler, and fixed
 on the end of a  cane.  Many of them  may  be  found un-
 der stones, or the  bark of rotten logs, on decaying animal
 and vegetable matter, on  trees  and on  plants, &c.    The
 hard  shelled  kinds may  be taken in the hand with impu-
 nity, only avoiding their pincers; none of them are venomous.
 The  best mode of carrying them, and of sending them to a
 distance, is to provide a  wide  mouthed  bottle filled with
 whiskey, in which a  small  quantity of corrosive  sublimate
 has been dissolved, say one drachm to the pint.  The insects
 are thrown into this liquid as soon as caught, and their vitali-
 ty is  almost  immediately destroyed, and when the liquid is
 filled  with them,  the bottle  may be filled up, a  tight cork
 dipped in a mixture of tallow and wax inserted, and the mouth
 tied over with a piece of linen imbued with  the same mix-
 ture.   In this  state they may be sent to any distance.   To
 place them in the  cabinet, they are to be removed from the
 liquid, a pin is to be passed  through the  upper part of the
 right  wing, going through the body, by means of which they
 are stuck in  shallow boxes  the  bottoms  of which are lined
 with cork.   Our limits will  not permit us to enter into the
 details relative to the butterflies and  other  kinds of insects.
Suffice it to  say, that they  are to be killed by heat,  or by
squeezing the thorax, and then stuck, by means of a pin, into
suitable boxes.
  The Shells of our rivers, ponds, and creeks, as well as those 
 148        Peter on Collecting and Preserving

 commonly called snails, which frequent the land, have attract-
 ed much attention, being so numerous,  and so peculiar and
 interesting, that perhaps no present would be more accepta-
 ble in the  way of exchange, to a  European naturalist, than
 a complete collection  of them.  The best water shells arc
 found in the  softest mud of our  rivers and creeks.  Those
 which have least erosion on their surface, and which contain
 the living animal, arc  to be selected; the dead sun-bleached
 shells of the  shores being  comparatively valueless.    The
 animals may be removed from all kinds of shells by previously
 placing them  in boiling water, and (hen  picking them out.
 If any have an operculum, or covering  for the mouth, this is
 also to be preserved.  The Bivalve shells are to be tied round
 with apiece of thread to keep them shut until they are drv,
 and the whole may be packed in sawdust, paper, cotton or
 other soft materials.
   Minerals require no  other preparation than  merely  wrap-
 ing them in paper, with a note stating their locality.  And it
 would be well enough  to remark here, that as many particu-
 lars as possible relative to locality, habits, &c. should  be en-
 closed with any specimen of natural history when sent away.
   Petrifactions should be broken  carefully off, with a small
 piece of the rock in which  they  arc found attached, and as
 much information relative to  the adjoining strata, as possible,
 should be given.
   Preservation in  spirits has been several times mentioned
 It is admirably adapted for  every variety  of animal  bodies
 which are too  delicate, or too soft, for the  process of stuffin-
 Whiskey, or any cheap low proof spirit, will  answer the  pur-
 pose, and the best mode of economising it, is te wrap the ob-
ject,  for example  a  fish, in  a  piece  of muslin with a small
 piece of lead  attached, bearing  a number which refers to a
 catalogue sent.  The specimens are then  packed with tow in
 the bottle or keg in which they are to be sent, and  when it
 is filled, and headed  up tight, (if a keg,) the liquor is to be
 poured in until the vessel is  full.   The cork or bung should
 of course be made tight.   Peron recommends, that  corks 
                 Objects of Natural History.            149

 should be soaked in a mixture of three parts of wax and one
 of tallow melted together, and then sealed over by a mixture
 of four parts of pitch, one of sulphur, and one and a half  of
 tallow, applied hot, and  tied over with a piece of muslin while
 yet hot, some of the cement  being subsequently poured over
 the muslin.
   Artificial eyes, which have often been mentioned, are made
 of coloured enamel and glass, by means of a blow-pipe, or of
 small semi-spheres of glass  painted  suitably on the inside.
 They may be procured  in the Eastern cities, or fabricated by
 those who understand the use of the enameller's lamp.
  In conclusion, Gentlemen, let me entreat you to persevere in
 your highly laudable undertaking,  until the Lexington Medi-
 cal Society shall be as remarkable for her extensive cabinet
 of Natural History, as she now is for the energy of her  mem-
 bers, and their zeal in the cause of science.
   The time is fast approaching when  many of you will leave
 these halls, loaded with your honours, never  again perhaps
 to  revisit it—these benches  will again be filled  by equally
 numerous classes, but like  the  momentary  pictures of the
 kaleidoscope, new elements will enter into their composition,
 and those kind faces which now surround  me, will perhaps
 gradually  fade in the tablet  of memory, until but  scarce a
 misty image will remain of the present striking reality. But
 there  are some  things  which will leave an  impression too
 deeply imprinted to be effaced, and actions which have trans-
 pired in this society will  consecrate the names of their per-
 formers.   Your present  zeal  will leave  the impression, that
 though the duties of your  profession will have the first claim
 upon your time and attention, yet you will occasionally steal
 a calm  moment from its  toils,  and  from the blandishments of
 the domestic circle, to  cull a flower from the rich  parterre of
 nature, and  mindful  of the  many  pleasant and interesting-
hours you have spent in  these halls, will transmit  us many a
remembrancer, in the shape of a preparation of some natur-
 al object. 
 
/  .
C'
V
iJ
TRANSACTIONS
4f
ot
THE LEXINGTON  MEDICAL SOCIETY.
Art. l.— Thoughtj on some of the Applications of Chemistry to
  Medicine.  By Robebt Peter, M.  D.  Read  before tho
  Society,  November 14th, 1S34Vt^>'               j

  IT cannot but  be gratifying to every true  friend of the
medical profession  that, while in every  town in the west
some ignorant and presumptuous quack with unblushing front
pushes his  w-iy into the  graces, of the people, often to the
exclusion of the regular bred physician;—while the notori-
ous Thompson  vends, at the law  price  of ten dollars, his
worfderful book which contains the whole art of healing, and
which transfocms at  once the idle dunce,  foo stupid to be^a
blacksmith or too lazy to labor, into a  doctor competent to
the  exalted  task  of relieving the diseases of the human
frame, the most intricate and perfect piece of workmanship
in the whole creation:  it is gratifying, I repeat,  that while
charlatanry, in  a sister state, has  received  the  sanction of
legislative enactment, and crowds of pretenders are annual-
ly sent forth by  this legalized institution for the promulga-
tion  of quackery, with the title of Doctor of Medicine most
falsely attached  to  their names, to prey on a loo credulous
pUl)|jc;__that while the mass of the people are still  so much
inclined to be gulled  by the pretensions of steamers and oth-
er empirics, and to  give  faith to  tha. pretended virtues of
Catholicons, Panaceas and Hygeian  pills,—so  many  personi
have assembled together to pursue the study of medicine in
a regular, scientific  manner.
  It  is an evidence that truth, though often hidden, will fi-
                        2 
10    Peter on the. Applications of Chemistry to Medicine.

nally prevail,—a  cheering sign that the medical  profession
is not destined to  be brought to the level of the mountebank
and the conjurer,—a  pledge that this most noble of all arts
will not be borne  down  and trodden under foot  by a savage
horde of  Goths and Vandals.
  The belief in the curative powers of the seventh son of a
seventh son, in  the  virtues  of charms, amulets,  and incan-
tations, in short,  in all  the superstitious relics of past and
darker ages, has, as far as I am able to judge, found but lit-
tle favour among our enquiring population; but there is a be-
lief fully as  preposterous, and as destructive of human life,
that has  much too wide an  influence among us.  It  is the
belief that medicine  is a mystery soon  learnt and  easily com-
municated,—so easily, in fact,  that a  knowledge of it may
be acquired in an afternoon's study, or even by intuition on-
ly.  A belief which fills our country with designing empirics,
and which has caused a greater  destruction of human  life
than all the victories of Napoleon.
  The science of  medicine  is, on the  contrary,  one of the
most extensive  in the circle  of the  sciences; and there is
no pursuit which  requires  a greater amount of knowledge,
more judgment and discernment, than  the practice of modi-
cine.   Had the science arrived at the  rank of an exact one,
a routine practice, founded  on  its fixed principles, requiring
but little learning and less judgment, would be all that would
be necessary; but it is by no means as yet, an exact science,
much yet remains unknown of the human body, and of the
causes of disease, and nothing certain is known of the vital
principle. A great deal, therefore, is  left to the judgment of
the practitioner;  and  in order  that  he  may  exercise  that
judgment properly, it is necessary that he should be enlight-
ened  by  all the knowledge pertaining to the subject.   The
practice  of  medicine,  were it an  exact  science, would be
like travelling through a country  on  a magnificent road, 01
which the skill of the engineer, and the lights of science ha
been employed in spanning the vallies and the  rivers an.J
circumvening the hills; but  at  present it is like travelling
through  a country in which only the land-marks are known, 
     Peter on the Applications of Chemhtry to Medicine.    11

where the knowledge and ingenuity of the traveller are con-
stantly put to the test,  where observations and calculations
arc to be made  at every  step, and many obstacles are to be
encountered and  overcome.  To be an able scientific prac-
titioner of  medicine is one of the most arduous undertakings
ever  commenced; requiring a life-time of laborious study;
but it is possible in the course of a very few years toacquire
that amount of knowledge which is requisite to constitute a
mere routine practitioner.   The routinist studies his profes-
sion  as a carpenter, a brick-h.yer, and a printer learn their
several arts.   He learns to distinguish diseases, and to know
the  most useful articles of the materia medica;  and he ap-
plies the latter to the removal of the former according to the
most approved authority.   His head  and his  common-place
book  are filled with  recipes  and cures for all known mala-
dies, and he  applies them secundem nrtrm,  without caring or
knowing how they act, or how the diseases are removed. Some
of his patients recover  under  this treatment, and the  cure
serves to rivet  his faith  in  his nostrums, and increase his rep-
 utation; but others  die,  perhaps from the force of the dis-
ease, perhaps because that disease was not fully  understood,
 or perhaps, because the medicine which he used was not en-
 tirely adapted  to remove it.  Be it as it  may, the doctor is
 unable to  tell why (hey died,—and who is  there that is wiser
 than the doctor?
   On the other hand,  the  conscientious  and  high-minded
 student of medicine, unwilling to follow blindly the  beaten
 path, studies his  profession, not  with a view  solely to the
 making of money,  although with  a rational hope of an hon-
 orable support;  but he studies it as a liberal art, the end of
 which is the alleviation  of the  miseries  of  human nature,
 and  the practice of which, in a proper manner, requires pro-
 found judgment and most  extensive acquirements.   The hu-
 man body is a complicated machine;  years of study are re-
 quisite in  order to understand it; but  the generous student
 feels that  he would not be competent  to the  relief of every
 exigency of  disease or  injury, to which the body is subject,
 without  a full knowledge of its structure.  He is sensible 
 12   Peter on the Applications of Chemistry to Medicine.

 also that he could not understand  the  various functions of
 the organs of the body, discover the lurking disease, or trace
 the actions of remedial agents, and of the common support-
 ers of life, without an acquaintance with Physiology, Pathol-
 ogy and Therapeutics.  Nor is he satisfied until by the study
 of  Chemistry, he is enabled to understand the nature of the
 compounds used in medicine, and the laws of their composi-
 tion and decomposition.   He is also convinced that  Botany
 will be of great advantage 10 him, in making him acquainted
 with the vegetable treasures of his own country; and that the
 study of Zoology and Comparative  Anatomy  throws a new
 light on the structure and  functions  of the human body.
  Were it possible,   the physician  should' be imbued with
 every species of knowledge,  for there is scarcely a depart-
 ment  in the whole wide field that has not more or less con-
 nexion with his profession;  but the  capacity of the human
 mind is too small, man's life too  short to  take  in so exten-
sive a range.   He must, consequently, select those branches
 of study which  are comparatively of  the greatest importance.
 What those branches are is a point on which  there has been
 some difference of opinion; some  for example, assert that an
 application of ten or more years to  the  study of languages,
is a necessary  preliminary  even  to that  of Anatomy and
 Chemistry, while  others would lead  us to believe that even
Anatomy and Chemistry might  be excluded from the list of
necessary studies.
  One thing is  certain; a physician  cannot know too much,
nor study too much;  but there are few, however well  dispos-
ed,  who can find time and means to  master all the collateral
branches of medicine, and it is therefore  of consequence that
they make from them a judicious selection of studies to which
 to devote  their attention.   This selection has already been
 made  by experienced teachers, and  upon it has been based
 the  course of instruction which is pursued  in most schools of
medicine,   But surprising  as it  may  appear, even this se-
 lection pf studies is  too  extensive for some persons.  The
 practice of medicine, they have the hardihood to say, may
 be ■ucceesfully pursued with but a limited knowledge of Ana- 
     Peter on the Applications of Chemistry to Medicine.    13

tomy;—Chemistry may be neglected altogether, and the In-
stitutes of Medicine may be doomed to share the same fate;
so that medicine is contracted down into a limited knowledge
of remedies and their mode of  application, and  some slight
insight into the functions and  diseases of the human body.
This  is, indeed, to narrow down the science to the meanest
capacity, but it is to make medicine a profession to which  no
hi«*h-minded person would stoop.  Bringing it below the lev-
el of a mere mechanical pursuit, and  taking from it  all the
honour and dignity among men, which, when properly pur-
sued, it is so well calculated to  produce.
   No one, I am confident, who is present, would be content
to follow a profession  of this  degraded  character.  Your
ambition aims at something  higher.  Honour, respect and
wealth are the  objects which tempt )o'i in the  long perspec-
tive, and for these you are prepared and willing to toil through
years of laborious application and  research.
  To you, whose ambition it is to be respected as the possess-
ors of extensive information, and to be esteemed as men  as
well as physicians, I  need enter  into  no  arguments to in-
duce  you to give to  Anatomy and the Institutes all the atten-
tion  which their undoubted  importance demands;  nor does
the study of Chemistry need my weak assistance  to establish
it among those  which are indispensable, not only  to the well
educated physician,  but to the well educated man in any walk
of life.   But as this latter science has received much injury
in the minds of many, from its injudicious friends, I propose
in the course of a few remarks to  exhibit some of the rocks
on which these  too  sanguine persons have  been cast away,
and to show a few of its many important applications to the
science and practice of medicine.
  Not very  long ago  Chemistry deserved  all that its worst
enemies ever said against it.  It was made up of speculation,
and based upon  credulity;  and while some of its deluded
votaries believed that by means of it, they might be enabled
to turn all the baser metals into  gold, to prolong  human life
to infinity, or even to form a living being out  of inorganic
materials; others, more  wise but  more knavish, filled their 
U   Peter on the Applications of Chemistry to Medicine.

purses with the precious metal from the stores  of those who
were foolish enough to  be the dupes of their designing pre-
tensions.  But now, having been pruned of its extravagant
theories, and having settled down  into an exact science, and
extended its researches into all the  departments  of nature,
it stands forth at once extensive, interesting, and  highly im-
portant.  Teaching  us  the intimate nature of every com-
pound on  the  earth, and exhibiting to  us the laws which
govern bodies in their combinations, it is  now, to an enlight-
ened physician, an indispensable acquirement.   In the study
of Materia Mcdica. particularly, it is of immense importance,
by exhibiting to  us the nature of remedial agents, their in-
compatibilities, and the  principles in which their active pro-
perties reside.  Had chemistry done nothing more for medi-
cine than  merely to present it with the active principle of
peruvian bark, (the quinine,) or of  the other vegetable arti-
cles of  the materia mcdica, it would still be a study worthy
the attention of the medical  philosopher.  But it has done
much more, for without it, pharmacy, or the art of preparing
medicines, could  have  no existence.   It  claims, moreover,
the still higher office of throwing  much  light on the struc-
ture and functions of the human body, and  thus of being of
great assistance to physiology.
  Here, however, the enthusiastic friends of the science have
materially injured its progress, by claiming for it more than
it could sustain.   Enthusiasm, the inseparable companion of
genius, is ever apt to lead it  beyond the  pale of reason. Be-
cause they  could, by means  of chemistry, analyze organic
matter, and explain some of the  changes which  take place
in the body, they believed that all functions of the body were
chemical, and that, in fact, they should finally be able in their
laboratories to form organic  matter, and even, like Prome-
 theus, to endow it with vitality.  But this was the day-dream
 of madmen, a hallucination which has long since been dissi-
pated by the steady march of knowledge.  Chemistry now
pretends to no such creative power, and  nothing  could  be  a
 stronger evidence  of insanity in a modern chemist than  a
 belief in the possession of it.  But let us also avoid running 
     Peter on the Applications of Chemistry to Medicine.   15

into the opposite extreme,  and, because we cannot make  a
man by chemistry, disregard the great light which this science
sh'uls,  not  only on  processes in which inorganic bodies are
concerned, but also on the changes which take place  in the
animal economy.
   To set this in a  proper  point of view, let us take  for ex-
ample the process of respiration.   Here, chemistry does not
pretend to explain the whole of  the process;  without it we
might have  discovered  that the dark blood  of the  veins,
which is  unfit to support  life, becomes, by passing through
the lungs and gaining  contact with the air, bright arterial
blood, fitted for the wants  of the system;  but  without chem-
istry we should never know that oxygen  was consumed  in
 the lungs, from the air which is  breathed, and that carbon
and hydrogen are given out, in combination with the oxygen,
 in the forms of carbonic acid and water.
   In like manner, the explanation of the process of calorifi-
cation is as much beyond the power of chemistry, as it is be-
 yond that of every other science.  We might, indeed, learn
 without chemistry that respiration, arterial  blood,  and ner-
 vous action were  necessary to this process, in animals, but
 chemistry alone could leach us that arterial blood has a greater
 capacity for caloric than venous blood, i.e. that it holds more
 caloric in combination at the same temperature  than  venous
 blood does,and that in passing from the slate of arterial to
 venous blood, this superabundance of caloric must always be
 given out:—nor should we know  that when arterial blood  is
 exposed to galvanic action heat is always eliminated, which
 does not take  place with venous blood, nor with the arterial
 blood more than once.  That these facts are not  sufficient to
 explain this process, by which the heat  of the  animal body
 is kept up, we are free to admit, but that they tend to  exhibit
 the great utility of chemistry in investigations  of this kind,
 no one we think can deny.
    Without chemistry,  we might know that articles  of food
 taken into the stomach are there acted on by a fluid, the gas-
 tric juice, which, even out of the body, if kspt at a  proper
 temperature,  reduces them to a  uniform pulpy  mass, which 
 16   Peter on the Applications of Chemistry to Medicine.

 when formed in  the stomach is called chyme; but without this
 science we should never know that  the  gastric juice, which
 so powerfully aids in the process of digestion, is essentially
 composed of muriatic, acetic, an I  b Kyric acids,  and  that
 an artificial mixture of these acids in a proper stale of dilu-
 tion.and at  a proper temperature, is almost as powerful a sol-
 vent  of articles  of food as  the  natural gastric fluid itself.
 For a knowledge of all these things  we arc indebted to chem-
 istry.  Much more, however, remains yet to be explained in
 this interesting process, and while it would be highly impro-
 per to assert that digestion is entirely a chemical process, or
 even  that by the aid of this science we  had fully succeeded
 in our endeavors to understand it, it would be quite as  pre-
 posterous  lo deny to chemistry  the credit  of having  shed
 much light upon the subject.
  No series of functions of the animal  economy is more cal-
 culated  to excite our admiration, and none  has  baffled  more
 completely all attempts at explanation, than  that by which
 the wants of the growth and the natural wear and tear of the
 organs of  the body are supplied.   Articles most dissimilar in
 their nature arc  taken into the stomach, and being there re-
 duced into chyme, supply,  when  depurated in the upper in-
 testines from the parts which are not fitted to the wants of
 the system, the nutritious chyle, which,  poured into the veins
 and submitted to the process  of respiration, is sent through-
 out the frame;—here  depositing bone and muscle, there,  the
 albuminous  matter of the  brain; in one part  laying  down
stores of adipose matter, and  in others furnishing the  materi-
 als for the formation of bile, urine, saliva, and all the various
secretions of the animal economy.   The attempts of philos-
 ophers to comprehend this wonderful process of assimilation
 have been almost entirely futile.   What it is that gives life to
 the dead matter of the food, and reorganizes that which was
 reduced to an almost inorganic pulp in  the stomach,  or that
 determines the arrangement of one  set of particles into cere-
 bral matter, another into muscular fibre, and the third  into
 bone, will, perhaps, ever remain hidden from man.   But even
 in  this everlasting  darkness, chemistry sheds some  lightj 
       Peter on the Applications of Chemistry to Medicine.    17

  which, though but feeble and far from being sufficient to ex-
  hibit all the secrets of the place, yet enables us  to  compre-
  hend where the mystery of mysteries  resides.
    What does chemistry teach us respecting these  recondite
  processes?  We learn from her  that all organic bodies are
  in their ultimate nature exceedingly simple;—only three es-
  sential elements enter into vegetable substances, viz; carbon,
  hydrogen and oxygen; and but four into animal matter,—ni-
  trogen, being superadded  to the  three  former.   The princi-
  pal difference between the various  forms of organic matter,
  in a chemical sense,  is either a slight variation  in the  pro-
 portion of these constituents, or only a difference in the man-
  ner in which their particles are arranged.  For  example, (to
  render this latter proposition  more clear,) what  three  sub-
 stances in the vegetable kingdom  are more dissimilar in their
  properties than  starch, gum, and  sugar?  Yet  these three
  bodies are each composed of precisely  the same number of
 atoms of  carbon, hydrogen and oxygen;—the only difference
 in them being in the different manner  in which these atomi
 are  arranged.  Hence it is easy, under certain circumstances,
 to convert sugar, or starch  into  gum, or starch into sugar,
 without changing the proportion  or the  nature of their  ele-
 ments.
   Further, we are taught  by  chemical research,  that many
 of the articles which are used as food are composed of car-
 bon, hydrogen and  oxygen, in such  proportions as that  we
 may suppose them  to be  compounds of carbon  and water,
 and  that many of them differ  only in the relative amount of
 water  which enters into their composition.   Thus sugar  dif-
 fers  from vinegar only in containing a little  less water,  and
 in the acetous fermentation, in which sugar is converted into
vinegar, oxygen, absorbed from the  air, unites with som,e of
 the carbon of the sugar and passes off with it in the form of
 carbonic acid, leaving the remaining carbon and the water
in such  proportions as to  form the  acetic acid.  Common
woody fibre differs from starch,  gum and sugar, only in con-
taining a little less  water, and it  is possible to convert this
                           S 
18   Peter on the Applications of Chemistry to Medicine.

substance into both gum and sugar.   Thus it appears that a
slight change in the quantity of the water which enters into
the composition of an organic compound may convert it into
another of quite different properties, although the chemical
nature of the substance may be very little altered.   The
common white of egg, albumen, for  example, when uncoag-
ulated, is readily soluble in water,  but when coagulated it
can no longer be dissolved in  that fluid, and  presents upon
the whole, quite a new appearance:  yet  the only change
which has taken place is,  that a little  water, which before
was chemically combined with it,  is, in the process of coagu-
lation, thrust out  of combination and becomes merely mixed
with it.  As much water remains after  coagulation as was
in it before, but in the latter case it is combined with the al-
bumen, while' in the former it is merely mixed.  If this co-
agulated albumen be taken into , the stomach it is speedily
reconverted into its former fluid soluble state, having by the
action of that organ  been caused to combine with a sufficien-
cy of  water for  the purpose.  In this state it is carried into
the blood,  and serves to supply the consumption of some  of
the organs of the body.   Let  us suppose that its destination
is to become muscular fibre,—chemists inform us that muscu-
lar fibre is, in fact, essentially, a form of coagulated albumen;
 and the probability immediately strikes us that the only ac-
 tion of the  vital principle, in  producing the change from so-
 luble albumen to insoluble muscular fibre, is, besides endow-
 ing it with  vitality,  to cause  it to part with a few atoms of
 water; which is subsequently expelled by the lungs in the
 form of vapour.  But on the other hand, let us suppose that
 the destination  of the albumen is to  serve the purpose of re-
 generating the  skin, which is  principally composed  of gela-
 tine.   Here another change is necessary, for gelatine con-
 tains four or five per cent less carbon than albumen does;
 but this change, by the power of the vital principle, seems to
 be effected through the  agency of the oxygen obtained
 through the medium of respiration, which by combining with
  the superabundant carbon, carries it off through  the same
  medium, in the form of carbonic acid gas. 
     Peter on the Applications of Chemistry to Medicine.   19

  The facts thus presented by chemistry relative to these in-
tricate processes, in the higher orders of animals, who  feed
on organized  matters,  are; that,  in the first place, their ar-
ticles of food  probably  contain nearly all the elementary ma-
terials, which are necessary to the construction or reparation
of any part of their bodies;—that the stomach has the pow-
er, by the aid of the gastric juice, or otherwise, of so reducing
and arranging these elements, and causing them to combine
with more  or less water, that the food,  of  whatever nature,
is changed into  a semi-fluid mass of very  nearly the  same
composition;—that some of the elements of the food  which
are superabundant  or extraneous, are separated in  the first
intestines,  by the action of the  bile, the  pancreatic liquor,
and  the lacteals, and that others are thrown out in the round
of the circulation, at the lungs,  which throw off water, car-
 bon, hydrogen,  and some volatile substances,—at the liver,
 which secretes  a highly  carbonaceous matter;—at the kid-
 neys, which  often throw off much nitrogen in combination;
 in short, at all the  different excretory glards of the body;—
 that respiration  supplies oxygen, and  perhaps nitrogen, for
 the  wants  of'the system;  and that the vital principle, what-
 ever it is, has the power of entirely  suspending the action of
 chemical affinity, and  of arranging elementary particles so as
 to form organized compounds, which can only  exist under its
 immediate action,—compounds which cannot be imitated by
 the  chemist, but which, on the contrary, when left by the re-
 moval of the vital  principle, to the  sole action  of chemical
 affinity, are  speedily destroyed and converted into inorganic
 substances.   This much does chemistry teach us relative to
 these beautiful and intricate processes, and the steady onward
 march of the science  justifies  the hope that  much may yet
 be discovered.  The  dark veil which now  hides  from our
 view  many  of  the secrets  of creation,  may by  persever-
 ance in research be finally removed; and what now is obscure
 may at last  be enlightened,  until all the mysteries of nature
  are exposed, and  the creation presents to exalted  man,  one
  splendid whole  of beautiful and wonderful design. 
 120   Peter oh the Applications of Chemistry to Medicine.

   But  here let us pause, lest, in  the enthusiasm of our as-
 pirations for the fulure, we suffer ourselves to run, as too many
 have done, into present error.  The study of chemistry, it is
 true, lends to elucidate many of  the vital functions, by giv-
 ing  us to understand the nature of some of the changes which
 take place in the animal economy,  but  it does not, cannot,
 teach us any thing of the power or causes which effect these
 changes.  Here all is mystery; and no error can be greater
 than to  suppose, as some enthusiasts have done, "that it is by
 chemistry that we live, move, and have our being."   This is
 as great a mistake as to believe that the glass which exhibits
 to us a  beautiful  landscape, is the sole cause and origin of
 the prospect;  or that the astronomer who points out to us
                     "--------the range
         Of planets, suns and adamantine spheres,
         Wheeling unshaken through the void immense;"
 who calculated and exemplified the forces and laws which
 govern their everlasting  motions,  or who studied out  their
 forms, their seasons, and their magnitudes, was the project-
 or and artificer of the magnificent scheme. Astronomy never
 did arrange a  universe,  and  chemistry never will be able to
 construct a man.
  Chemistry  when applied  to physiology is  like the  rude
 clown, who inspects the complicated  machinery of a cotton
 factory;  who hears the puffing of the steam, and the buzz of
 the machinery, who sees  the  entrance  of the raw material,
 the turning of wheels, the discharge of the refuse parts, and
 then  the appearance of  the perfect fabric, but who knows
nothing of the motive force,  or of the ingenious applications
of machinery which produce the wonderful effect.  She can
exhibit some  few of the secondary means employed by the
vital  principle in its processes;  can analize the materials
used, and  explain some  of the changes and combinations
which they undergo in the formation  of organic bodies; but
the power which presides, and the  manner in which  that
 power acts to produce these changes, are utterly beyond her
comprehension. 
      Peter on the Applications of Chcm'ulry to Medicine.    21

   As if   to  confound  the  weak  reason of man, the Deity-
implanted in us a vital principle, whose ways are inscrutable,
and  whose nature mocks our closest investigations.   A prin-
ciple without  which all  organized matter would soon cease
to have existence, and whose forces are  exerted  in direct op-
position to those attractions  which govern inorganic matter.
Without this principle there might still be rivers,  seas and
winds, the gentle dew of the evening,  the  melting rain, or
rattling hail storm;—lightning might still flash in the heav-
ens,  in the tempest, and the  majestic bow might still span the
evening sky;—but the dew of heaven, and the falling show-
er would refresh  no springing  plants,—no seeds would be
wafted on the wings of the barren winds, and no fish sport in
the rivers or in the seas; while the lashings of the storm,
or  the appearance  of  the  rain-bow  would  not terrify
or  console  the  heart  of  man.   Cheerless,  indeed,  but
grand, would  be the  spectacle of  a world  submitted to the
government  of chemical laws, without the  presence of the
mysterious vital principle to call into existence  the grass of
the field, the green herb, the creeping thing, and proud man
the image of the Deity.
  Descending in our investigations to the  lower orders of
beings, chemistry renders us more important assistance;  and
in the vegetable kingdom, we first detect the vital principle,
labouring in the construction  of initial organic matter for the
food  of animals.  Few,  if any, of the animal tribes are en-
dowed with  the faculty  of subsisting on chemical  or inor-
ganic substances:—the force of chemical affinity among the
elements must be somewhat overcome by  vitality, before they
can serve  for the  food of these more perfect beings;   but
plants have the power of working up  inorganic matter, wa-
ter, and carbonic acid, into the organic  compounds,  starch,
sugar, gum,  gluten, woody fibre, and all the  various well
known vegetable  products; and of selecting, from the wide
field  of rude nature, the elements which are essential to the
nutrition and growth of animals, and  of  arranging  them in
mch  proportions, and in such  forms, as are at  once most 
22   Peter on the Application* of Chemistry to Medicine.

pleasant, and best fitted to the purposes for which  they  are
designed.   Next, the herbivorous animals elaborate, by their
powerful and  extensive digestive apparatus, these  products
into more perfect forms  of organic matter, fitted to the nu-
trition  of carnivorous animals,  who, having but little  to  do
in the  selection  or  arrangement of elements, are  provided
with digestive  organs of the greatest  simplicity.   Thus the
eye of  philosophy, aided by physiological and chemical  re-
search, can trace, in the wonderful economy  of nature, the
never ceasing  revolutions of unchangeable elements, through
the various forms of inorganic and organic matter; can see
them in the plant first fitted to be the recipients of  life, then
arranged into  the most perfect  state  of animal matter, and
then, the master spirit  being  removed, reduced by the com-
mon process of decay, into  a few  solids, liquids, and  gases,
ready to be again elaborated into new  forms of existence.
   But it is  in  the inorganic kingdom  of nature that chemis-
try is most instructive.   To confine her to the explanation of
vital processes, would be to restrict her to a too narrow and a
most disadvantageous field.  Within the pale of vitality her
laws and forces are  trampled on and contemned; compounds
are formed which she cannot imitate,  and powers and  means
exerted  which she is unable to understand or explain; and
she is  compelled  to  stand aside, and be content with the anal-
yses of results and  the knowledge of ultimate  facts;  but in
inanimate nature, her sphere is wide and extensive—nothing
 is done which she  cannot  imitate,  and  no  change  occurs
 which she  cannot explain.   Here there is no uncertainty, but
 she proceeds, with the accuracy of mathematical demonstra-
 tion, to the erection of a  fabric of truth, which  will be as
 immutable as its eternal  author.  Taking up every form of
 matter on  the earth, she has submitted them  to analysis, and
 exhibi!ed  the simple substances of which they are  composed,
 and shows us  that by the combination of these simple  bodies,
 not much  more than fifty in number, all this immense variety
 of substances is constructed.  The  powers  and  actions of
  affinity, electricity  and  magnetism  also  come within the 
     Peter on the Applications of Chemistry to Medicine.    23

sphere of her investigations; and no  natural phenomenon,
dependent on the motions of the particles  of bodies can be
understood without her assistance.   The importance of chem-
istry, therefore, to a medical man cannot but be very evident.
Is it important that  he should  have an  extensive  and pro-
found knowledge of the nature  and habetudes of bodies, in
order that he may  be fully prepared  to  use them with the
greatest advantage in the  prevention  and cure  of diseases?
Chemistry alone can give him the requisite kind of informa-
tion.  Is it desirable that he should be fully acquainted with
all the modifying  actions of caloric  on inanimate  nature,
exemplified in the rushing tornado, or the  ventilation of a
hospital;—in the furious rain, or the gently distilling dew, as
well as in the mists of the valley, or the clouds  of the  upper
air;—in the currents of the ocean as in the  heating of a li-
quid?  It is to chemistry that he must resort for the knowl-
edge of all these things.   Ought he to know the nature of
the electric fluid, as seen in the dreadful flash in the  storm,
or in the playful corruscations of the aurora borealis, now
lending buoyancy to the clouds,  and then precipitating the
sudden hail storm?   Chemistry alone can give  him the de-
sired instruction.  By her he will be taught that this univer-
sal fluid, always tending to an equilibrium, but never at rest,
is set in motion  by the most trivial causes; not only by the
friction of glass in  our common  machines, and  the action of
acids on dissimilar metals in the galvanic battery, but  also
 by the evaportion or freezing of  water,  the burning of com-
bustibles, the friction of wind upon solid bodies, or the press-
 ure together of two pieces  of orange peel;—that, in fact,
 scarcely any  two bodies can  be placed in  contact,  and no
 two substances can combine  together, without some disturb-
 ance in the electrical atmosphere;—that a galvanic battery
 may be constructed by piling up  slices of beet-root or  by al-
 ternate layers  of  brain and muscle;  and  that  electricity is
 developed  whenever any  substance is  partially  heated.
 When we see its powerful command over chemical attrac-
  tion, as exemplified by the galvanic battery, whose decom- 
 24   Peter on the Applications of Chemistry to Medicine

 posing action no known compound can withstand; and learn
 the powerful action of electricity on  the  animal economy,
 and its probable connexion with  a healthy or epidemic con-
 dition of the atmosphere, we cannot  but be convinced of the
 importance of the study of this  part of chemical science.
   But to you whose presence at this medical school, is an evi-
 dence that you are determined  to keep up the dignity of the
 profession, by making yourselves enlightened  and scientific
 physicians, enough has  been said on this  subject.  Let me
 conclude, therefore, by entreating you  to fulfil to the utmost
 of your abilities, the  pledge which you have thus publicly
 given.   To your protective care  will its honour be commit-
 ted:  let not its brightness be sullied  in your custody.   Phy-
 sicians of the present and  of past ages, have  been the phi-
 losophers, the  benefactors  and the  guardian> of  society;
 respected for their learning, they have filled the highest seats
 in the circle of science;  and venerated for their philanthro-
 phy, they have erected monuments more durable than brass.
 The practice of medicine has been, and ought to be, ranked
 among the most honorable of all professions.   Will you per-
 mit it to sink in  your hands?   Shall the title of Doctor be-
 come  an object  of scorn, and  the practice  of medicine a
 mere  scramble for money,  in which  the steam-quack and the
 self-styled regular physician, regardless of shame, deaf to
 honour, and  blind to the  wants  of their patients, join  in un-
hallowed contest!  Heaven forbid that it  should suffer such
 pollution!
  Conscious that moral worth  and extensive learning can
alone command a proper degree of respect in  the profession;
 that assiduity  and perseverance can alone  bring learning;
 you will, I trust, by constant application  and untiring zeal
 in the acquisition of knowledge, endeavour to rise above the
 level of the  mere routinist, and by meriting a place among
 medical philosophers, be at once benefactors to  your race, and
 illustrious supporters of the dignity of the  profession. 
Notice of the  Crab Orchard  Mineral Springs.   By Robert
  Peter, M.  D.               ■"- -*■• :lv>

  Having been much gratified, a shorFtime since, by a hasty
visit to the vicinity of Crab orchard,  Lincoln county, in this
State, 1 was struck with the circumstance  that, although a
number of interesting mineral  springs existed in that neigh-
bourhood, no notice had been  taken  of this locality, either
by Dr. Drake, or  by  Dr.  Yandell, in their useful papers on
the mineral waters of Kentucky.  To endeavour to  supply
this deficiency, I made  such an examination of the waters,
during my short stay, as a few  reagents, which I had carried
with me for the purpose, enabled me to make; and now offer
the results, not by any  means as those of a correct analysis,
but as merely calculated  to  give a  general idea, correct as
far as it goes,  of the nature of the springs which are found in
that place.
  The village of  Crab  orchard is situated near the eastern
border of Lincoln county, on the Cumberland gap road, and
near the head waters of Dick's river, a small stream  which,
passing on and forming the  boundary between  Mercer and
Garrard counties,  soon enters into the Kentucky river, near
the Upper Shaker ferry.  In the vicinity  of Crab orchard,
Dick's river is a tame and uninteresting stream,  but as it ap-
proaches the Kentucky  river, its banks  become more steep
and picturesque, until it finally  passes between mural cliffs of
grey limestone, which are represented to be fully as high and
as romantic, as those  which  bound the  river into which it
empties, reminding one forcibly of Scott's  graphic descrip-
tion, in his Rokeby, of the course of the Tees, which,
           ------------"Full many a fathom low
           Wears  with his rage no common foe;
           For pebbly bank, nor sand-bed here,
           Nor clay-mound, checks his fierce career,
           Condemned to mine a  channeled way
           O'er solid sheets of marble grey.
           ********
           It seemed some mountain, rent and riven, 
2           Peter on the Crab  Orchard Springs.
            A channel for the stream had given,
            So high the cliffs of limestone grey
            Hung beetling o'er the torrent's way,
            Yielding, along their rugged base
            A flinty footpath's  niggard space,
            Where he who winds 'twixt rock and wave,
            31ay hear the headlong torrent rave,
            And like a sleed in frantic fit,
            That flings the froth from curb and bit,
            May view him chafe his waves to spray,
            O'er every rock that bars his way."
  The village and the springs of Crab orchard, are on an ex-
tensive elevated plain, where there formerly existed, a con-
siderable forest of  Crab apple  trees,  which gave the  name
to the spot, and which was celebrated as a central gathering
place, for those  adventurous travellers, who wished to pass
into the  then  uninhabited  and almost trackless South and
West, and who went in parties  for mutual assistance and pro-
tection.  Within a few miles,  rise several hills, which  give
an  agreeable relief to the  eye  in the distance, and which
would afford healthful and delightful  exercise to the invalid
who is strong enough to ascend their sides;—or should he pre-
fer the exhiliration of a deer hunt, the woods, in the immedi-
ate vicinity of the town, would afford him ample gratification.
   The strata are principally coarse, arenaceous limestone, al-
ternating with a black bituminous shaley slate, and  beds of
clay, indicating a near approach to the extensive coal forma-
tion of the state.   I observed no organic remains in any of
the strata of the neighbourhood.  Embedded in the clay, and
in some cases also  in  the slate, are found a great number of
silicious geodes—round hollow balls of flinty stonp, lined, in
many cases, with crystals of quartz,  or bolryoidal crusts of
hyalite.   The soil is not remarkably fertile, and with the na-
ture  of the  vegetation, is  strikingly  different from the rich
country of the Elkhorn, affording to that rare  character, the
Botanist, a rich and various treat,  in the extensive flat, and
on the sides and the summits of the surrounding hills.  Among
 other vegetable productions, the Andromeda arborea, or sour 
            Peter on the Crab Orchard Springs.           3

wood, a small tree, is conspicuous, at this season of the year,*
by its  beautiful compound  racemes of white  flowers; and,
in the fields, and the wet  places of the plain, the Cassia
chamaicrisli, very  abundant,  and conspicuous from  its yellow
flower and finely pinnate  leaves,  and  the  richly purple
flowered Rhexia  virginica,  are  evident even to the common
observer.  In many  places  the  ground is carpeted with the
Sarolhra  hypericoides,  interspersed with  the  various-hued
flowers of several Polygalas.   On the hills, the pine is often
met with, and whortle-berry bushes of various species, almost
entirely  usurp the tops of the ridges.
   The springs, seven or eight in number, are scattered over
the plain at  various  distances from the establishment of Mrs.
Davenport, the proprietress of the principal of them, and af-
ford, perhaps, a greater variety in kinds and strength than is
to be found at any other watering place in the state;  there
being three  Chalybeate  springs, two Saline springs, and two
or three Sulphur springs; one of them, which I did not see,
is said to yield a saline sulphur water.
   The Chalybeate springs  are  nearest the  establishment of
Mrs. Davenport, who is now engaged in fitting up a number
of cottages for the reception of company.   The  water from
each of them gave  very nearly a similar reaction,  with  the
tests which I used;  for example, with the
   Muriate of Barytes, it afforded a copious  white precipitate.
2. Infusion of Galls, immediately struck a deep purple colour.
3. Ferro-cyanale  of  Potash,  caused a blue precipitate.
4.  Oxalic Acid and  Oxalate of Ammonia, each caused a slight
     white precipitate.
5.  Carbonate of Ammonia and Phosphate of Soda, threw down
     a slight white precipitate.
 6.  Lime  water gave a  white precipitate,  soluble  in  nitric
     acid; and,
 7. Nitrate of Silver, caused a  scarcely manifest turbidity of
     the water.
'Beginning of August. 
 4           Peter on the Crab Orchard Springs.

   ^■Acetate of Lead  gave no indication of the presence of sul-
      phuretted hydrogen.
   The water, upon standing a short  lime,  deposites a dirty,
 orange coloured ochre of  iron, an   a thin, iridescent film is
 formed upon the surface,owing to the escape of carbonic acid
 which held some of the oxide  of iron in solution, and to the
 decomposition of the sulphate of the protoxide of iron, contain-
 ed in the water, by the  oxygen of the atmosphere, which by
peroxidaling the iron, causes it to be precipitated.
   The substances, then, detected in these waters, by this rude
 examination are Sulphuric acid,  indicated by  expt.  No. 1.,
 Oxide of iron, indicated  by  ~. and 3., Lime, shown  by 4,
 Magnesia, detected in expt, 5., Carbonic acid, by  No. G, and
 a trace of  Muriatic acid, shown by  No. 7;  and we may sup-
 pose  these various  substances  to be united  together, in the
 water, into the  following  compounds, which are, most proba-
 bly, the saline ingredients  contained in it, viz;
       Sulphate of Iron,
       Sulphate of Lime,
       Sulphate of Magnesia,
       Carbonates of  Iron  and Lime,
       and a trace of a Muriate.
   The three chalybeate springs are at  various distances  from
the house,  and  are of somewhat different  strengths.  The
nearest one is only  about one or  two  hundred yards distant,
the next, called the -Field Spring," is  but  a short  distance
further, in  an opposite direction, and the  third,  called the
"Brown Spring,'1 from the colour of its deposite,  flows out
of the side  of a gentle slope about a quarter of a mile distant.
This latter spring is  decidedly the strongest of the three,
while that nearest the house is the weakest.   Each of these
springs, as far as could be  judged from  the position of the
rocks in the neighbourhood, flows out from  the sandy  lime-
stone.
  The only Saline spring, (called the "Epsom spring,") the
water of  which  1 tested, is situated about a  mile from  Mrs.
Davenport's, and about a quarter of a.mile from the Stanford 
            Peter on the Crab  Orchard Springs.           5

road; but, when it was too late to enter into an examination,
the water of another spring in the neighbourhood was brought
in, which to the taste, seemed much stronger in saline ingre-
dients, than  this, although apparently of very nearly a similar
character.
   Reagents, indicated the presence of the following substan-
ces; viz:
       Sulphate of Magnesia,
       Sulphate of Lime,
       and the Carbonates  of Magnesia and Lime.
   No iron could be detected, and only a trace of a Muriate.
   The two "Sulphur springs" are at  a  greater distance than
any of the others from the  establishment.
   The "Black Sulphur'''' spring  flows  out  from the black sha-
ley slate, at the edge of a small creek,  about two miles from
the village,  on  the Somerset road.  Il is but weakly impreg-
nated with sulphuretted hydrogen, which,  however,  is suffi-
ciently evident in the water at the spring, both by its pecu-
liar taste and  smell, although a bottleful of the water carried
from the spring and  kept a few hours, in  a common glass-
stoppered decanter, had lost all traces of its presence.  The
black sediment which it deposites,  and  to which it is  indebt-
ed for  its name, is doubtless sulphuret of iron, the result of
the precipitation  of  the  iron, from a small quantity  of the
sulphate  or carbonate,  by the sulphuretted hydrogen.  The
amount of iron, however, present  in the water, is so small,
that it could not be detected by galls or the ferro-cyanate of
potash.   This  water  was found  to contain
      Sulphuretted hydrogen,
      Sulphate of Lime,
      Sulphate of Magnesia, in exceedingly small quantity,
      and a trace of Muriate of Soda.
  The "White  Sulphur" spring rises in  a small ravine, that
crosses the Cumberland gap road, about four miles from Crab
orchard.   It is rather weaker than the  last; makes no depo-
site; contains no iron;  and holds in solution, besides the sa-
line ingredients contained in the other, a minute quantity of 
 6           Peter on the Crab Orchard Springs.

 muriate of soda, rather larger in  amount  than that  of  the
 Black Sulphur spring.
   It must be evident that these  springs, so various in their
 kinds, situated on a high and  salubrious flat, and so placed
 as to render exercise on foot, on horseback, or in a carriage,
 almost a necessary attendant upon the drinking of the waters,
 offer many inducements to those who  visit watering  places
 really for the benefit of  their health.
   It is not my intention to enter into a long disquisition on
 the mode of using the water of these springs, nor on the  ca-
 ses in which its  use might be appropriate, for it would  be  on-
 ly repeating what has already been so ably said by Dr. Drake,
 in the 2d.  Vol. of  the  Western Medical  Journal, by  Dr.
 Yandell, in the  5th Vol. of this Journal, and by Dr. Bell, in
 his valuable work on "Baths and Mineral Waters."   What
 is said by those gentlemen relative  to the Chalybeate, Saline,
 or Sulphur waters which  they  have examined,  or of which
 they write, will apply equally  well  to these.  To  these wri-
 tings, therefore, 1 refer the  reader  who may be  interested
 in the subject.  One precaution, however, it may not be im-
 proper to give, viz: that in  the use  of the chalybeate or sul-
 phur waters, they should  always be drank  at the spring, as
 they  both lose a great portion of their virtue by  transporta-
 tion, or by remaining exposed  to the air.   The iron is soon
 deposited  from the  chalybeate  water,  and  the sulphuretted
 hydrogen soon escapes from the sulphur water.
  Various as may be the opinions relative to the efficacy of
 mineral waters, in the cure of diseases, every one is obliged
 to admit that many  cures, especially of  chronic cases of dis-
 ease, have been effected by their judicious employment.  All
 the benefit which results in  these cases, is not to be  attribu-
ted to the water, nor to the medicinal ingredients contained
in  it, although pure water, drank in the quantities in which
mineral water is usually taken, is no doubt  a  most valuable
remedial agent, and small doses of  the saline substances,  or
of sulphuretted hydrogen, continued throughout a length  of
time, produce an alterative effect upon the system, while the 
            Peter on the Crab Orchard Springs.           7

compounds of iron are  among the best of the tonics.  Yet it
is  universally admitted, that almost  as much of the benefit
which is derived from  visiting  watering places, in most in-
stances, is to be attributed to the change of scene which the
patient  enjoys,  the  pleasant occupation of  the mind by the
presence of agreeable company, or by the examination of an
interesting country, and  the exercise which is taken in ,the
open air.   In selecting a watering place, therefore, for the
restoration of health, the valetudinarian should, in most cases'
pay as much attention to these  adventitious circumstances,
as to the nature or composition  of the mineral water which
he drinks. 
p 
6"
                     REMARKS
                         ON THE
  FUNCTIONS OF RESPIRATION IN ANIMALS, AND ON
                     VENTILATION.
             BY ROBERT PETER, M.D.


  If the interest of any subject of observation or discission be
commensurate with its importance to the health, and even ex-
istence of man, none can have greater claims upon our atten-
tion than that  of Respiration:—for, from the almost invisible
monad, which is  a mere animated speck, visible only by the aid
of the microscope, found in vegetable and animal infusions, up
to the complicated and wonderfully constructed "lord of the
creation," no animal being exists which is not immediately de-
pendent on this function for daily and hourly existence.  The
celebrated Spallanzani has contributed  by his  numerous ex-
periments to establish the universality of this fact.   He ex-
posed some  of these minute infusory animals to the influence
of an imperfect  vacuum, and found that in the course  of time
they invariably  gave indications of uneasiness; their move-
ments  became languid,  and  a  general relaxation  and death
followed.  But in a complete vacuum, he observed that ani-
mal and vegetable infusions, which when air is not excluded,
soon swarm with millions  of these minute beings, never exhib-
ited a single animalcule; although, they soon made their ap-
pearance in great numbers,  if the smallest quantity of air was
admitted into the receiver.   Yet these microscopic beings are
so tenacious of life, that some of  them may be  dried  up into
dust, by the action of the  Sun's rays,  and remain in that state
for a great length of  time, and yet will resume their  activity
on  the application of moisture.
  Respiration is that process by which the blood, or vital fluid
of the animal system, is exposed ♦" *he action of the air of our
atmosphere.
                1 
4         Pbtbr on Respiration and  Ventilation.
     To attain this purpose, so necessary  to animated  beings,
  nature has adopted a great variety of contrivances, in the va-
  rious orders of animals, suited to their habits and structure,
  and  the  medium  which they inhabit.  For example, in  the
  most simple animals, as the  infusory animalculas, and the po-
  lypi, there is no distinct apparatus appropriated to respiration,
  but the whole surface of the body, and of  the open  cavities,
  exposed to the action of the air, which is contained in the wa-
  ter in which they exist, perform for them the  office of  the
  lungs of more perfect animals.
    In the numerous tribe of insects, whose hard, horny envel-
  ope is unfit to expose their fluids to the action of the atmos-
  phere, air is brought to the fluids by a number of tubes or
  trachea, which  open on the sides of the body, and  ramify
  throughout the whole system; so that the whole body of an
  insect presents many  analogies  with  the  lungs  of higher
  orders of beings; and hence insects are immediately suffoca-
  ted on being covered with oil, which stops up the mouths of
  their air tubes.
    In  the extensive class of molluscous animals, we meet with
 great variety in the apparatus for respiration,   Some which
 live in the water, as the oyster and the common river muscle,
 have a kind of bronchia or gills;  organs, having a great extent
 of surface, in which the fluids of the body are exposed to the ac-
 tion of the air in the water, which the animal, by various means,
 causes to circulate constantly by them: others of this  tribe,
 as  the land snail, and  some of the fresh water univalves, re-
 ceive air into certain cavities of their  bodies, on the parieties
 of  which the blood passes through minutely ramified vessels.
 The whole surface of the body which  is exposed, in most of
 these animals, contributes also, no doubt, to  the perfection of
 the process of respiration.
  Respiration in fishes is almost  wholly  performed by the
medium of branchiae or gills,  among the  branches of wlvch
water is caused constantly  to pass, so that  the air dissolved
in it, which contains more oxygen than the same quantity of
air  in the atmosphere, may act on the blood, which is sent to 
          Peter on Respiration and  Ventilation.          3

the gills by the contractions of a single heart, to pass through the
minute ramifications of the pulmonary artery in these organs,
and, after having been re-collected into a main vessel or aorta,
to pass throughout the whole body  before  returning again to
the heart.  The amount of surface on which the blood is ex-
posed in  the gills, to the action of the  air contained in the
water, is  very  great:  so  great that although  fully sufficient,
aided by  the surface of  the body,  for  respiration,  when
theii minute  ramifications are separated by being suspended
in water, although exposed only to  the  small quantity of
air which is found in that liquid, the animal dies of asphyxia,
when, on being taken out of the water, the fine subdivisions of
the gills become agglutinated together  by their natural mucus,
leaving the exterior surface of the mass  only,  exposed to the
influence of the atmosphere.
   The respiratory process in the reptiles is a little more com-
plicated and various.  Some possess both lungs and gills; some
respire by gills  when young, as in the tadpole,  and by lungs
when in  the mature  state.  In these  animals the heart gene-
rally has two auricles and but one ventricle, and the pulmonary
artery is only a  branch of the aorta, so that only a part of the
blood is sent to the lungs, in each round of circulation; this
organ is generally in the form of a bag, that will contain air to
continue the pulmonary respiration for a short time after the an-
imal is under water.  Not being possessed of the more perfect
contrivances  of the higher animals for inhaling air, the reptiles
fill their lungs by swallowing that fluid, received through their
nostrils;  which they can only do when the mouth is shut; so
that a frog or toad is suffocated  when obliged to  keep his
mouth open.  The process of asphyxiation would  be, how-
ever, a slow  one, as the whole surface of  the body is an im-
portant agent in  these animals, in the aeration of  the blood.
Dr. Edwards found that these reptiles can live for many days
by the aeration  of the blood, which is  effected through the
skin only; and proved satisfactorily the existence of this cutar
neous respiration by  the quantity of carbonic acid which was
exhaled from the skin,  and the oxygen  which wat absorbed; 
 4          Peter on  Respiration and Ventilation.

 indeed he found that tree-frogs were  unable to subsist by the
 influence  of pulmonary respiration alone,  unaided by the cu-
 taneous respiration.*   When  under the surface of the water,
 the pulmonary respiration  is almost nothing, but life is sup-
 ported for a long time by the  action of the air which is con-
 tained in the water, upon the blood at the surface of the body.
 Dr.  Edwards, by daily renewing the water in a glass vessel,
 at the bottom of which a male frog was secured, was enabled
 to keep it alive for more than two months and a half.
   The mammaliae have all a double heart, with two ventricles
 and  two auricles, which, by the contraction of one of its ven-
 tricles drives the blood through their very perfect lungs, where
 it is  fully  exposed to the action of the air, the returning blood
 from this organ  being  forced by the contraction  of the other
 ventricle throughout the body: so  that all the blood of the
 body, in each round of circulation, passes  through the lungs.
   Birds have a yet  more perfect respiratory apparatus;  they
 not only possess a double heart, lungs, and a complete double
 circulation, but air is introduced through the lungs, into all the
 cavities of their bodies, even into their hollow bones.
   Man belongs to the  class mammalia, and is  endowed with
 a complete double circulation.   The heart, which is essentially
 a hollow muscle, receiving the blood through the veins, pro-
 pels  it out again by  its  contractions, through other  vessels
 called arteries, has valves, artificially arranged, at the mouths
 of these several vessels, analogous to the valves of a forcing
 pump, which prevent the regurgitation of the blood, in both
 the veins  and the arteries.   The human heart seems like two
 single  hearts joined intimately together, one  of which, the
 right side, receives the blood through the great veins, from all
 parts of the  body, and forces  it, by its contractions into the
 lungs,  through a large pulmonary artery,  which  eubdivides
 and ramifies, in all parts of the structure of the lungs, until the
 branches become too minute to be followed by the naked eye;
 these,  passing along,  gradually coalesce again,  until all the
blood sent into the lungs from the right heart, leaves them in
  ♦Edwards on the Influence of Physical agents on Life, &e. 
          Peter on Respiration and Ventilation.          6

four large pulmonary veins, which pour it  into the left heart,
to be driven, by its contractions, through the arteries, through-
out the whole  body.
   It is in  the  lungs, aided doubtless, by  the  surface of the
body, that the blood is exposed to the action of the air.  The
lungs being so constructed that the air, which parses into and
out of them, on the  expansion and contraction of the cavity of
the chest, is carried through the trachea, into the minutest part
of its structure, by means of tubes,  the  subdivisions of the
trachea, and little cells, of which this organ is made up.   It
has  been  calculated, that if  the whole of the  surface of the
lungs to which air thus gains access were spread out, it would
cover 20,000 square inches of surface; on the whole of this
vast surface is the blood exposed to the action of the air, being
merely separated from  it by an exceedingly thin membrane,
easily permeated by gases.
   That a thin  membrane  affords  but little resistance  to the
passages of gases is now fully established.  Dr.  Priestly, as
early as 1790, in his Essays on Air, published an account of an
experiment which threw some light on this subject.   He filled
a bladder with blood, and  on exposing it  to the atmosphere,
found that that fluid was rapidly reddened wherever it was in
contact with the bladder, and that the coat thus reddened was
as thick as it would have been had the bladder not been  inter-
posed between it and the atmosphere.   Dr. Faust of South
 Carolina, more lately,* has  performed the experiment more
accurately, and proved that, under  these  circumstances, car-
bonic acid is evolved from the  blood; but it is principally to
Dr. J.  K. Mitchell, of  Philadelphia, that  we are  indebted for
 a knowledge of the force and rapidity with which  gases per-
 meate membranes.!
   It is not our  intention in  this place, to give a full synopsis
of the  important and highly interesting  experiments  of Dr.
Mitchell; for a knowledge of them we must refer to his origin-
al paper;—it is sufficient for our present purpose  to state a

   •See American Journal of the Medical Sciences, Vol. vii, p. 31.
   tlbid, page 36. 
 6         Peter on Respiration and Ventilation.

 few of his results, as follows:—lime water, h:iryta water, and
 solution of acetate of lead, were placed severally on one side
 of a thin membrane of gi m elastic, and  the ether side of the
 membrane was placed in contact with  carbonic acid, in the
 first two instances, and sulphuretted hydrogen in the case of
 acet; te of lead; the lime and  baryta  were rapidly precipita-
 ted by combination  with the carbonic, acid, which permeated
 the membrane, and tie sulphuretted hydrogen almost instantly
 precipitated the lead of the acetate, placed in  solution  on the
 opposite side of the membrane.   Oxygen gas, he found to pen-
 etrate membranes less rapidly than the above gases, and nitro-
 gen much more  slowly  than  oxygen; but  in attempting  to
 measure the force with which the penetration took place, he
 found  that no pressure, that  could be supported by his mem-
 branes, would prevent  the passage of the gases, although he
 employed  the pressure of a  column  of mercury  sixty-three
 inches in height—equivalent to about thirty-three pounds to
 the square inch.  Animal membranes  were  penetrated in the
 same manner, and the  more recent the membrane,  the more
 rapid and extensive the effect produced; and in living animals,
 the transmission was very rapid, as he proved by experiments.
 These f cts assist us in comprehending the manner in  which
 the fluid in the lungs, and the air, act upon each other, although
 a thin  membrane  is interposed.
   The whole amount of blood  in an average sized body is es-
 timated to be  about thirty-seven pounds, and about  three
 ounces of blood is propelled at every contraction of the  heart;
 and, as it contracts about seventy-three times in a minute, all
 the blood in the body passes through the lungs in a little more
 than two minutes and a half, or about twenty-four times in an
 hour.   From  this we can form  an idea of the perfection of the
 circulation in man, and of the constant exposure of the blood
to the aetion of the air in^the lungs.
  The blood thus exposed to the  influence of the atmosphere,
becomes, as is well known, remarkably changed in its colour
and other properties.  When  sent to  the lungs it  is blackish-
red, venous, blood, but when it returns from the  lungs it u 
            Peter  on Respiration and Ventilation.          7

 bright scarlet,  arterial, blood.  The blood sent to  the  lungs,
 dark  venous blood,  returned from  all parts of  the  body,
 having once contributed  to the  nourishment  of the sys-
 tem in its round  of  circulation, is  now unfit to supply the
 wants and uses of the body:  but on being exposed to the ac-
 tion of the atmosphere  in the lungs, it acquires new vitality,
 as it were, and is fitted  again to support the life and action of
 all the organs.
   This change  in  the blood is essential to the  support of the
 life and health of the system; bright  arterial blood  being its
 only fit stimulant and nourishment; and if any cause prevents
 the change from venous to aiterial blood, by the action of the
 air, disease is the immediate consequence, and death soon fol-
 lows if the cause is continued.  This fact is daily  exemplified;
 for example, when death occurs by drowning, it is not  occa-
 sioned by  the introduction of water into the lungs, but by the
 exclusion  of air;  the  blood, consequently, does  not  become
 changed from the venous to  the arterial state,  and the action
 of the heart itself,  as well  as  of all the other organs, is soon
 stopped, for want of its natural stimulus.  In death by hanging,
 when the  spine is not  dislocated the same  cause operates.
 This is also exemplified by holding the breath:  some persons
 can hold their breath  so  long as to bring on apparent death:
 and this is, most probably, the mode by which  those persons
 who possess the faculty, throw themselves into a state resem-
 bling death; the heart finally stopping  its beatings, on account
 of the absence of its proper stimulant to action, arterial blood.
   It is  highly probable, that  sedentary and studious persons
 owe some  of their  ill-health and pallor of countenance to the
 want of proper attention to this function.   It has been observ-
 ed, that when a  person is deeply engaged in  study,  or in the
 perusal of an absorbing narrative, respiration is not so perfect-
 ly carried on as when the mind is not so engaged; the breath
 is  often held, until a sense of weight at the chest calls for a
 long inspiration.  On the other hand, when a person is enga-
 ged in moderate  exercise  of the muscles of the body, the action
of the heart and  of the organs of breathing is involuntarily in-
creased; he acquires the  bloom of health, and new vigour and 
8         Peter on  Respiration and  Ventilation.

life by the additional aeration of the blood thus brought about,
while the sallow skin and soft muscles of the student show ihe
effects of the want of respiratory action, as well as of muscu-
lar exercise.  It is, hence, of importance that sedentary per-
sons should pay  particular attention to their respiration, and
while  they  avoid every posture or thing that will tend to
cramp or compress the chest, should even, sometimes, by the
exertion  of their voluntary powers, keep up constant and
vigorous breathing.
   This is of the  more  importance to  students,  because, that
one of the first symptoms of this want of aeration is a sense
of dullness, a  want of power to command the attention, an
obtundity of intellect: an evidence that the brain performs its
functions imperfectly, because of the want of its natural stim-
ulus, bright, aerated, arterial blood.
   Air, therefore, is essentially necessary to the support of the
life of animals.  The same  portion of air, however, will not
 support life for  an indefinite  length of  time: breathed for a
 time, proportionate to its quantity, it  becomes unfit for respi-
 ration.   Thus a small  animal  shut  up in  a bottle soon dies,
 and persons who descend in diving-bells, beneath the surface
 of water, find it  necessary to keep up  a  constant  supply of
fresh air.   The necessity for this constant renewal of the air,
was never more horribly exemplified than  it was at Calcutta,
in 1776,  in the fate of  the English soldiers who were shut up
 in the celebrated "Black-hole."   One hundred  and forty-six,
 men and officers, were thrust into a place eighteen feet square,
 having only two very small grated windows, which were both
 on one side, so that ventilation was utterly impossible.  The
 door had scarcely been shut when their sufferings  commenced,
 and in a short time, a  delirious and  mortal  struggle ensued
to get near the windows.  In four hours, all  who  survived
were  in  the silence of apoplectic stupor; at the end of six
hours, ninety-six had  died, and in the  morning  when  the
door was opened, twenty-three only, of the one hundred and
forty six were  alive, and many of these  were subsequently
 cut off by putrid fever.  Dr.  Combe, also, in his "Principles
of Physiology applied  to the preservation of health"—an in- 
        Peter on Respiration and Ventilation.            0

valuable work—quotes several instances of persons who were
destroyed in consequence of shutting themselves up closely at
night, in the cabins of vessels, where the ventilation was not
sufficient to support life during the night.
  To convey some idea  of the quantity of air thus rendered
unfit for respiration, by an adult individual, in twenty-four
hours,  we will  take the results of the experiments of some
celebrated philosophers who  have examined the subject.   It
appears that most  persons fill their lungs about  eighteen or
twenty times in a minute, and that about fifteen cubic inches
of air is renewed  at every respiration, in  ordinary  breathing;
that more than a  gallon of air is rendered unfit for perfect res-
piration in a minute, and about thirty-nine hogsheads of air
is thus deteriorated in twenty-four hours.   •
  The air  that has been thus deteriorated by respiration, is
not materially changed in quantity; some change must, there-
fore, have been effected in it composition, which renders it
unfit for  the support of life: the  nature of this change is now
pretty well understood.  Atmospheric air, as is well known, is
composed  essentially  of two  gases, oxygen  and  nitrogen,
united in the proportion of about four of the latter to one of the
former;—united  as  we  may  suppose a  mixture  of alcohol
and water to be.  It is also well known  that the former gas,
oxygen, is the main supporter of life, and also of combustion,
in the  atmosphere;  the nitrogen, although undoubtedly some-
times absorbed by animals in breathing,  being apparently in-
tended principally to dilute the oxygen; the existence of pure
oxygen being  incompatible with  the  existence of animated
beings as they are at present constituted; being too stimulat-
ing to the organs, and  causing  death by inflammation and
fever.   Combustibles, too, would be consumed so rapidly in
an  atmosphere of pure  oxy7gen, that a fire once lighted could
not be extinguished; even iron  itself would burn like tinder;
as is daily shown in the laboratory of the chemist.
   The change  which the air undergoes in respiration is main-
ly this, that a portion of the oxygen disappears, being com-
municated to the blood in the lungs; and that,  instead of the
                 2 
10         Peter  on Respiration and Ventilation*

oxvgen, there is thrown out about an equal quantity of another
gas, the carbonic acid;  a  heavy gas evolved  Irom  the lungs
and breathing surfaces  of all animals; a gas which  not only
will not support life or combustion, but which is  positively
poisonous and destructive to both;  for a candle will  not burn
in a mixture of one part of this g is to ten parts of  pure air,
neither can  an animal exist,  even for a short time, in sjch
a  mixture;  it would act  upon it as a powerful  narcotic
poison, as has often been painfully  exemplified in  old wells,
sinks, and wine-cellars, in which this gas is sometimes found,
and in which many persons have been destroyed by its in-
fluence.
  There is always some of this poisonous gas present in the
atmosphere,  but it does not generally exist in a greater pro-
portion  than from  l-2000th  to  l-200th.   Animals  may
breathe the mixture  when the carbonic acid does not amount
to one-tenth, but in that proportion it is certainly fatal; and
when in smaller quantities it exerts an injurious effect upon
the health, by preventing the due arterialization of the blood;
for it has been established, by the experiments of Dr. Mitchell
and others, that the rapidity with which the carbonic acid of
the blood will penetrate the membrane of the lungs, to escape
into the  atmosphere, will  be  in inverse  proportion to the
quantity of carbonic acid in the air which is inspired, and that
when as large a proportion of this  gas exists in  the atmos-
phere, as is found in the gases dissolved in the blood, no pen-
etration of carbonic acid outwards will take place.   The blood,
therefore, would continue of its dark venous color, even after
having been  passed  through  the  lungs: the heart not being
sufficiently stimulated by black blood, would become  feeble
in its action, and the animal would speedily be thro  vn into a
state of stupor and disease, by  the circulation of black blood,
unfit for the uses of the system.
  The quantity of this poisonous gas, which is thus  discharg-
ed  from  the  lungs of an adult individual,  in  the  course of
twenty-four hours, is about forty or fifty thousand cubic inches,
or about one hundred and forty, or one hundred and fifty gal- 
            Peter  on Respiration end Ventilation.        11

 Ions;  an amount which cannot fail to startle  those who  re-
 flect on it, and which tends to exemplify the necessity which
 exists for a  constant renewal  of the air which we breathe.
 About the same quantity of oxygen is also  removed from the
 air  in the same process.
   This great deterioration  of the atmosphere in the process,
 of respiration—by the removal of its vital  air, and by replac-
 ing it  with the poisonous carbonic acid gas,  is, without doubt,
 a most prolific source of disease;  and is the more dangerous
 because it is almost unheeded  or overlooked.  A number of
 persons  will  crowd into a small close room,  and seem to have
 no other care than  to prevent  the free  circulation of the air.
 Sleeping apartments are shut up, as though an enemy were to
 enter at the  first open window, and  the air, if the rooms are
 small and tight, breathed and re-breathed, unfit for the healthy
 arterialization of the blood, is the hidden source of head-aches,
 fevers, and,  in short, of disease in all its varieties, and even
 death.   Hospitals,  also, are  too often  constructed  with no
 regard to the  constant supply of the most necessary of all
 elements, pure air;  and patients are  crowded into  them,
 keeping  the  air constantly in a state unfit for complete respi-
 ration, so that disease, in the form of low typhus,  or putrid
 fever,  or hospital gangrene, causing whole limbs to slough off,
 appears in frightful violence; and is to be checked, or prevent-
 ed, only  by the removal of the  sufferers to fresh air,  or  by
 bringing fresh air to the patients.
   An anecdote from  Humboldt's personal narrative is just in
 point,  illustrative of the beneficial effects in the  cure of dis-
 ease, of  a removal from an  impure  to a pure atmosphere.
"A sailor, who was  near expiring, recovered his health from a
circumstance which is worthy of being mentioned:—his ham-
mock was so slung  that there was not ten inches between his
face and the deck.  It was impossible to administer the sacra-
ment in this  situation; for, agreeable to the  custom on  board
of Spanish vessels, the viaticum ought to be carried by  the light
of tapers, and followed by the whole crew.   The patient was
removed  into  an airy place, near the hatchway, where a small 
12        Peter  on Respiration and IcntlLtlion.

square birth had been formed with sail-cloth; here he was to
remain until he died, which was an  event expected every mo-
ment; but  passing  from  an air extremely heated, stagnant,
and filled with miasm,  into fresher and  purer air, whic'i was
renewed every instant, he gradually recovered from his lethar-
gic suite, and his recovery dated from the day of his quitting
t'.ie middle  deck."
   Dr. Ure  of Glasgow,  Scotland,  in his late work  •''On the
philosophy  of manufactures,*' &c., gives an equally interesting
circumstance, relative  to the importance  of pure  air to the
support of  health, which occurred at Anderson, near  Glas-
gow, in a  long building  erected many years ago by  Mr. H.
Houldsworth, for a dwelling house for the people of his cotton
factory.  "A corridor runs  the whole length of the building;
on one side of which  the entrance doors to  the lodgings are
placed.  The people crowded to the number  of  five hundred,
 into  these  barracks, and are  so  careless of cleanliness and
 ventilation, in spite of every remonstrance of the proprietor,
 that they wire frequently visited by  typhus fevers of the most
 malignant  and fatal type.  At length science has enabled him
 to effect a reform.   He  led along the ceiling of the corridor a
 large iron pipe,  shut  towards the  door  of the passage, and
 connected by a  valve, at its other open  extremity with the
 great chimney of the  mill.  From tho  side of this horizontal
 pipe, opposite to each house, a tin tube, one and a half  inches
 in diameter, branches off at right angles, and enters through
 the wall,  so as to  present its open  end immediately over the
 bedstead of each apartment.   Whenever the steam engine is
 stopped,  either at  meals or at night,  the mechanism  which
 shuts the  fire-damper, is so constructed as to open, at the same
 instant, the inner end of the corridor pipe; whereupon  a brisk
 current of air is established in each tin tube, and a stream of
 air lushes into it from every apartment. Since the introduc-
 tion of this  self acting and most powerful system of ventila-
 tion, the  factory barracks have been not only completely de-
 livered from every appearance of pestilential  fever, but have
 become, in fact, a remarkably healthy habitation." 
          Peter on Respiration  and Ventilation.         13

  A constant supply of pure air being a desideratum of such
magnitude, it cannot but be of importance to understand how
it  may be attained;  so that in dwelling  houses,  churches,
hospitals, and other buildings where humrn beings are collect-
ed together, a sufficient amount of this pabulum of life may be
secured, and a  proper outlet, for the escape of the poisonous
gas  from  the lungs, may be arranged.   These necessary pur-
poses, by a  wise provision of Providence, are fortunately
most easily accomplished.  Air is the most motile of all fluids,
and motion is  caused in it by  the slightest variation of  tem-
perature:  if any portion of it is rendered a little warmer  than
that by which it is surrounded, the warmer air is immediately
pressed upwards by the colder air  around, because it has  been
rendered  specifically lighter by the expansive power of the
heat.
   It is the action of  this  law, which, on a large scale, causes
those  motions  in the atmosphere called winds—which,  on a
smaller scale, causes the draught up our chimnies,—and which,
when understood and employed, will be efficient in the venti-
lation of  our apartments.  A  fire, or even a candle,  cannot
 be lighted in a room, the sun  cannot shine  into it, nor  can
 a person  enter it, without causing an upward current, to the
 ceiling, of the  warmer air, heated by either  of these causes.
 The air which  comes from the lungs, partly deteriorated, being
 warmer than the surrounding air, immediately rises, the cold,
 pure air of the room forcing it up an,1 taking its place.  Any
 one who has entered the gallery of a court-house or church, in
 which there was  an assembly  of people, must have observed
 a striking exemplification of this  fact, in the great difference,
 in temperature and in purity,  between the air there, and that
 in the lower part of  the building.
    This heated  impure air, as buildings are generally construct-
 ed, not finding an outlet at the highest part of the house, con-
 tinues to rise  until all the upper  part of the room, rbove the
 level of the open  doors  or windows,  is filled,  when it flows
 out at the top of the door or window, while cool, fresh air
 pours  in below in a counter current.  A fact which any one 
 14        Peter on Respiration and Ventilation.

 can observe for himself, by placing two lighted candles in the
 open door of a heated room;  one near the upper part, and the
 other on the floor: the flame of the upper candle will be blown
 outwards, and that of the lower one  will  be inclined inward,
 by the lower current of air rushing into the room.
   The best mode of ventilation then, must be obvious:—it is
 only necessary  to  construct  openings, either  in  the   form
 of windows, or in any other convenient or agreeable shape, in
 the highest part of the room, to allow the heated, deteriorated,
 air to  pass out;  and to  make other  openings, in  the lower
 part of the apartment, for the entrance of cold fresh air; which
 should be  so  arranged, however, as not to allow a current
 of cold air to blow in at any one spot.   With such an arrange-
 ment, not the  slightest heating cause, nor a person, could be
 admitted  into the room  without causing  a circulation of the
 air, to a greater or  less extent, according to the  intensity of
 the heating cause, or the  number of persons.
   It will not often be necessary to con-truct any other open-
 ings, for the admittance of the cold air, than those  generally
 n ade for the convenience or beau!\r of the building.  Doors
 and  windows generally fit loosely enough to  admit a sufficien-
 cy of air, if openings  be constructed above to allow the  heat-
 ed air to escape, or a few open doors and windows  would be
 amply sufficient for most rooms, however crowded.  In  hos-
 pitals, however, where pure air is  of the greatest importance,
 air holes should  be purposely made, to be opened or shut at
 pleasure.
   In dwelling houses, no other openings are required than ju-
 diciously constructed windows: while in the  winter season,
 when so great  a difference exists,  in temperature and specific
gravity, between the air within and that without, few rooms
are so tight, as not  to admit  of  sufficient circulation of air,
 with even the  windows and doors closed.   It is of great ad-
vantage, in <he warmer months, to have the windows so con-
structed as  to  open  both at  the  top and  bottom, and to
cause them to  be  opened  in this manner  as often  as is
convenient.  This is more particularly true of the windows of 
           Peter on Respiration and  Ventilation.        15

 sleeping apartments, of which all the windows  and doors
 should be thrown  open as early as possible in the morning, if
 the weather will permit, and the bedding should be spread out
 and  exposed to the free action of the air for a sufficient length
 of time to allow  of the complete dissipation of the invisible
 emanations from   the  body,  with  which  the  clothing  is
 saturated.
   Few causes are more injurious to health than a want of at-
 tention to  these particulars;—than keeping these apartments
 closed during the whole of the day, thus retaining in them the
 air which has been rendered impure by respiration during the
 night;—than making up  beds as soon as they are left  in  the
 morning, thus effectually preventing their proper ventilation,
 and  the removal of the carbonic acid, and other emanations
 from the skin, is in a measure prevented.
   I have thus briefly attempted to describe the phenomena of
 the functions of respiration, and to point out some of the prin-
 cipal laws  and circumstances which affect this important pro-
 cess.  To  produce any thing absolutely new  on the subject,
 at this time, is not my object, were it  even in my power.  I
 shall  be satisfied if I have succeeded in arranging and pointing
 out some of the knowledge which the labor of years has been
 accumulating. Knowledge which ought to be familiar to every
 one from the great influence which it  exerts on our health and
 happiness,  but which, unfortunately, may yet be new to a
 great majoriry of mankind.   Knowledge which will be famil-
 iar  to every  one when  education  shall lose  the austere,
 mysterious, and pompous character which she  acquired in the
 ages of the cloister—when she shall cease from her  preposte-
 rous  endeavours to force the minds of youth  to the  one Pro-
 crustes' bed,  of classics, mathematics  and metaphysics, and
 shall  be content with storing them with that   kind of attain-
 ment which will be the most useful to themselves in  after life,
and most subservient to the  purposes of improving the moral
 a:id physical condition of man.   Not that I wish  to be under-
stood as asserting that classics, mathematics, and metaphysics
are not of high importance in their places, and  to minds adapt- 
16         Peter on Respiration and Ventilation.

ed to their pursuit, but that I wish  to protest against the too
common practice of  making them the  essential parts of the
education  of every one:  while the study  of nature, which
should be the basis  of every system of education, is  almost
wholly neglected. 
               ON THE APPLICATION

                           OS


GALVANIC  ELECTRICITY  TO  MEDICINE.

   Read to the Lexington Medical Society, December 2d, 1836.

                BY ROBERT PETER. M. D.




   When, in the year\1790, Qalvani, whose name is immortal-
 ized by its connection with the branch of science to which his
 observations gave rise, noticed that when a spark from an elec-
 trical machine was taken by a person standing near another
 engaged in dissecting  a frog, who had his scalpel  in contact
 with a nerve, that the limbs of the frog were immediately con-
 vulsed;—and when this philosopher  subsequently discovered
 that if  a nerve and a  muscle of a frog be brought into connec-
 tion by means of a clean metal, convulsions were equally produ-
 ced in the muscles of the dead animal,—he believed  that for
 him had been reserved the discovery of the nature of that mys-
 terious agent in vital contraction, the nervous fluid.
   Volta, however, soon established the fact that the cause of
 the contractions,  in  the cases observed by Galvani, was not
 the animal nervous, or electrical fluid, but a current of electri-
 city, analagoustojthatof the common machine, which was pro-
 duced by the contact  of dissimilar metals, or by the action of
 dissimilar fluids on a single metal.   The discovery of the fact
 that the contact, and action upon each other, of bodies of a dis-
 similar  nature,  always caused the formation  of currents of
 electrical fluid, brought the physiological experiments of Gal-
 vani within the  pale  of what had already been long known, 
   2             Peter on Galvanic Electricity.

   and disappointed the expectations of those  who  believed that
   the nature of the nervous fluid, and perhaps of vitality  itself,
   was about to be unveiled to the understanding of man.  Since
   that period, muscles in all parts of the dead body have  been
   made to contract by  the agency of the  galvanic fluid;—even
   the heart itself, in a recently dead subject, has been caused to
   beat;—the peristaltic motion of the intestines  has been renew-
   ed; the function of digestion has been restored, after the nerve
  going to the stomach has been  cut; and in a living body, dis-
  eased and paralized  nerves have had their healthy action  re-
  established,  by a galvanic current;—even  a fibrous subtance,
  analagous to muscular fibre,  has been generated,  by M. M.
  Prevost and  Dumas, in yolk of egg, under the  influence of the
  pile;—yet we are but little nearer,  perhaps, to the solution of
  the  mystery of life and nervous action than  we were in the
  day of the discovery of Galvani.
    The  progress of discovery, in this interesting branch  of
  science has  not,  however,  been  entirely  stayed.   Many
  analogies between the actions of an electrical  current  and
  nervous actions have  been made out, as well as many new
  and successful applications of the former agent, the electrical
  current, to the removal of disease.  On the analogies existing
 between the actions of electricity and of the nervous influ-
 ence, and on the applications of the  former to medicine, I pro-
 pose to base the present paper. It is not my intention to go in-
 to the minutiae of the subject,as the time allotted  would not per-
 mit, could I even hope to carry  your attention with me,  but
 merely to give some of the most prominent and obvious of the
 facts which have been established.
   To commence with some of the analogies between the  ac-
 tions of electricity and the nervous power, we will  examine,
 first,  the production  of muscular contractions by means of
 electricity.  It has long been known that a current of elec-
 tricity causes contraction in animal muscles, and  every  one
who has experienced a shock from a  Leyden jar, has had an
evidence of the fact in his own  person.  Contraction  in this
case is sudden and  violent, so  mpch so, that when, in 1746, 
               Peter on Galvanic Electricity.             3

 Cuneus and Muschenbroek, who discovered this piece of ap-
 paratus, first experienced its effects, they were so much terri-
 fied that  one declared that  he would not submit to another
 shock for the whole kingdom of France, and the other  dieted
 himself for a week, and took cooling medicines to  correct fe-
 ver.  Similar contractions are produced in  recently dead bo-
 dies.   The Leyden jar causes a sudden and instantaneous cur-
 rent of electricity, but the  Galvanic battery produces  a cur-
 rent of longer continuance,  and hence  its effects are more
 striking.   Galvani, in the severed head  of an ox that had re-
 cently been killed, caused the eyes to open, the ears  to  shake,
 the tongue  to move, and the nostrils  to expand, by the  action
 of a Galvanic  pile of one  hundred pairs of silver  and zinc
 plates,  one pole of which was placed in connection  with the
 nose, the other  being  placed in the ear.  M. De Humboldt
 took  a Linnet,  on the point of  expiring, its eyes were  closed
 and it could no longer support itself on its legs.   He placed a
 small plate of zinc in the  beak,  and another of silver  in the
 rectum, joining  them together,  out of the  body, by an iron
 wire; at  the moment  of contact  the  bird opened  its eyes,
 raised  itself on its feet, flapping its wings.  It respired  for six
 or eight minutes, and then tranquilly expired.
   By a similar arrangement, viz., a piece of silver on the tongue
 and a piece of zinc in the rectum, joined by a wire, Achard, of
 Berlin,  caused an increase  of the peristaltic motion of the
 bowels, in his own person, and a dejection of fcecalmatters.
 This arrangement is now, in fact, in fashion, in some parts of
 our country, for  the  same purpose, and it has been found to
 cause alvine discharges when other means have failed.   Some
 interesting facts  relative to  this  piece  of apparatus may be
 found in the present volume of this journal, in the paper  of T.
 L. Caldwell, M. D.  In persons recently dead, contractions of
most of the  muscles have been produced by the galvanic flu-
 id:—for a  striking account of one case, that of a hung  male-
factor, who  was galvanized by Dr. Ure, I beg to refer to  Ure's
Chemical Dictionary,  Art. Galvanism, 
4
Peter on Galvanic Electricity.
  Another analogy exists in the production of Tetanus by Gal-
vanic electricity.   In certain disorders of the nerves involun-
tary contraction of the muscles, called tetanus, occurs; a sim-
ilar contraction may be produced  or removed by  galvanism.
M. Nobili, in exposing  frogs, prepared  for electrical experi-
ments, to the action of a galvanic current,  found that some of
the vigorous individuals had their limbs stiffened so that they
could with difficulty be bent.   Sometimes the animal extended
and stiffened its limbs as though they suffered a tetanic convul-
sion, which continued for some time.   He  rendered the  con-
tractions permanent by alternately interrupting  and re-estab-
lishing  the  galvanic  circuit;  and  he, moreover, found  that
while the current was continued in one direction the tetanic
contraction continued, and that when the direction of the cur-
rent was changed the spasm  of  the muscles was removed.
   Another analogy.—By continued  exercise of the nervous
•ystem, whether by motion, sensation, or intellection, fatigue
or lassitude is the result.  Electricity is capable of producing
the same result, as is evidentin the following case, recorded by
M. Rozet, in his "Travels in the regency of Algiers," in which
the effect was  produced by  a  disturbance in the electrical
equilibrium of the atmosphere, and of the surface of the earth.
"On the 8th of May, 1831, after the setting of the  sun, all the
atmosphere was on fire  and announced  a violent storm.  On
the ends of  the flag-staffs  at  Algiers, there could be seen a
white light in the form of an aigrette or brush, which persisted
for half an hour:  some officers who  were  walking on a ter-
race, were much astonished to feel  their hairs become erect,
and to see a little  aigrette of light on each of  those of their
comrades. On elevating their hands aigrettes formed also at
the ends of their fingers.  All the  persons who  were exposed
to the action of the atmospherical electricity, suffered nervous
contractions in their limbs, and a general lassitude, particlarly
in the legs."  Every one knows  that life, even to the last
vestige  of irritability, may be instantly destroyed by the in-
fluence  of a large charge of electricity. 
              Peter on Galvanic Electricity.             •*

  The production of animal heat affords us another analogy.
The action of the nerves upon the blood, it is believed, is the
main immediate agent in the production of animal heat.  Par-
alize the nerves of a limb and you affect its  temperature-pre-
serving power.  Paralytic limbs are generally below theJnatu-
ral  temperature.  Dr. James H. Miller, in 1833,* on establish-
ing a galvanic current in the  paralyzed  limbs  of a pa-
tient in the Baltimore Alms House, caused the temperature tc-
rise, in  a few  minutes,  from  62° to 89.°  And Sir Wilson
Philip, by exposing arterial  blood to the action of the galvanfc
battery, observed that its temperature became elevated some
degrees;  an effect which could not  be produced, in  the same
circumstances,  in venous blood, and which he could cause only
once in the same portion of arterial blood.
  The most striking analogies between nervous actions and
those  of the electrical fluid, are presented to us in certain ani-
mals which possess the  power of giving, at will, an electrical
shock.  A  power which seems to have been given to them to
protect  them  from their enemies and to procure them food.
The most remarkable of these animals are the electrical Ray
or  Torpedo, (Torpedo  electricus, and other species,) of the
Mediterranean;—the electrical Eel, (Gymnotus electricus,) of
South America, and the Silurus electricus.   All these fishes
can at pleasure, give  an electrical shock to animals that are in
connection  with them by means of conductors.   In  the gym-
notus this  power is  so  energetic that horses and mules  are
stunned by them.   Each of these remarkable animals possesses
an apparatus of the same general character,—which is, a series
of six-sided, aponeurotic tubes, aggregated  like  the  cells of a
honey-comb, into a mass,  which, in  the Torpedo is  placed on
each side of the head; in the Gymnotus, under the tail, and in
the Silurus, around the body.  Each  of the cells is divided by
a great number of membraneous diaphragms, placed at short
distances from  each other  throughout the tube.  In the Tor-
pedo,  John Hunter counted  1182  of these tubes in one half
of the apparatus.  The spaces between the membraneous di-
  *Ainerican Jour. Med. & Surg. vol.  14. 
 C            Peter  on  Galvanic Electricity.

 visions in these tubes is filled with mucus, and fibrils of nervesT
 entering the tubes at the angles, pervade every part of the
 apparatus;  the main  nerve supplying the electrical  organs
 being unusually large compared with  the other nerves of the
 animal.
    It seems pretty evident that the electricity, which these ani-
 mals can accumulate, is derived, in some way, from the nervous
 system,  and that  the use of the arrangement of the divided
 tubes  and mucus,  is  to  collect the  fluid and to increase its
 tension, or  power of penetrating bodies.   This opinion, is
 strengthened by the fact, tha-t the exercise of this apparatus,
 by the animal in giving shoofcs, speedily exhausts its vital pow-
 ers.   Thus  Humboldt and Bonplandt  were only enabled, with
 safety, to obtain the electrical eels on which they experiment-
 ed, by causing  them  to exhaust themselves  by giving their
 shocks, and they assert that a long rest and abundance of food
 is necessary to the recuperation of their electrical powers.  By
 the  advice  of the Indians, a drove of  horses was driven into
 pool where these fishes abounded, and after the eels had spent
 the fury of their strength  upon the  horses, causing the death
 of one or two by drowning, they were so much exhausted that,.
 approaching the edge  of  the  pool, they were easily secured
 by harpoons.  Mr. Todd, (Philosophical Transactions of Roy*
 Soc.)  found that if the Torpedo be irritated, and caused to
 give a number of shocks in a short time, it soon died  of the
 consequent exhaustion; but that if the nerve going to the elec-
 trical apparatus be cut, the animal loses the power of giving
 a shock, and may then be teased and irritated  at pleasure
 without inducing exhaustion;  an animal having these nerves
 cut,  living much longer under these circumstances than one
 which had not been deprived of its power of giving the shock-
 Mr. John Davy, in his  experiments on the same animal, also
 found that if  the fish be often excited to give its shock that its
 digestion appeared to be completely arrested.  In one  of  his
 experiments he found in the stomach of the animal,  after its
 death, a little fish, which it had swallowed, but which it had not.
digested. 
                Peter on Galvanic  Electricity.              7

    Another interesting fact is, that, according to the anatomi-
  ical examination of M. Geoffrey Saint Hillaire, of those fishes,
  no particular nerve is especially appropriated to the function
  of developing electricity; for  in the Torpedo it is the fifth
  pair of nerves which supplies the electrical apparatus: in the
  Gymnotus the nerves of this organ are cerebral in their origin mr
  and in the Silurus those of the eighth pair supply this function.-
  These  interesting facts render probable the prophecy of M.
  Becquere!,* to whom I am indebted  for many of the  facts of
  this paper, "that if we  one day  discover that the electrical
  fluid enters into the phenomena of life, it will be through the
  study of the singular property possessed by these fishes."
    An electrical shock has been obtained from a common ani-
 mal.  In 1686, Cotugno announced, that a student of medicine,
 while dissecting a  living mouse, was much surprised to expe-
 rience in the hand, an electrical shock, on touching one of the
 nerves of the animal with his scalpel. (Jour. Encyclop. de Bol-
 ogne No. 8.) Analogous observations have been made by those
 who have employed acupuncturation in the removal of diseases.
 Acupuncturation consists in the introduction, into the body, of
 slender metallic needles, which are first driven through the skin
 by smart  strokes with a small hammer^ and then, by twirling
 them in  the fingers, carried to any required depth.  The most
 important vital organs have been transfixed in this way,  with-
 out accident, and the operation is said to relieve many neural-
 gic affections, rheumatism, 8ic.   It has been supposed by some
 that these  needles acted by conducting electricity out of the
 system, and the following case seems to favour the supposition.  '
 M. Jules Cloquetf inserted a needle into the thigh of a patient
 to the depth of one inch; about six minutes afterwards, on
 touching the body of the needle with a wet finger, he perceiv-
ed a slight shock, similar to that produced by the pole of a
weak galvanic pile.  At every new touch the patient complain-
ed of severe prickings and darting pains, proceeding from the

  *Traite Exper. de Elect, et du Magn. T.  3. p. 255.
  tMorand on Acupuncturation, Translated by F. Bache, 1828, p. 31. 
8             Peter on Galvanic  Electricity.

point of the  needle.  Professor Recamier repeated the same
•experiment with the same result, and the presence of electrici-
ty  in the  needle was further demonstrated by the attraction
of light bodies and the electrometer.   In these experiments the
point of the needle becomes  speedily corroded; and some are
disposed to attribute the electrical phenomena to the corrosion
of  the needle,—but no  such corrosion  is produced in a dead
subject, and it seems more probable that the. action on the point
of  the needle was caused by its positively electrical state, ac-
cording to known  laws, than that the corrosion induced that
electrical  state in  the needle.
   Many other points of analogy might be given, did time per*
mit, but I will be content with  but one or two more.
   One effect of a galvanic current is to counteract and modify
the action of chemical affinity.  Under the action of such a
current the elements of all known  chemical compounds may
be separated, one class of these bodies being carried to one
pole of the galvanic arrangement, the other to the other pole.
Thus, when we decompose a salt, the acid is carried to the pos-
itive pole, and the alkali or base  to the negative pole.   Some-
thing analogous to this takes place in the animal body: for ex-
ample; digestion  could not commence unless the stomach se-
 creted an acid, the muriatic principally, to dissolve the articles
 of food; and chylifaction could  not be perfected without the aid
 of the alkaline secretion of the liver.  The existence of Mu-
 riatic acid in the  gastric juice, and of soda in the bile, would
 still continue, although we might  never have swallowed either
 muriatic  acid or soda, but we are constantly^taking muriate  of
 soda, which is always present also in the blood, and it  is highly
 probable that the nervous influence  is exerted in separating the
 elements of  this compound at  these  two organs, in a manner
 analogous to that in which  a galvanic pile would separate  the
 acid and  the alkali at its several poles.
    Such analogies, in the body, are so striking as to have been
 evident to  a common observer, although an uncommon man,
 the Emperor Napoleon.  We  are told by Becquerel, who got
 the anecdote from Chaptal, an  eye witness, that when the Em- 
Peter on Galvanic Electricity.              9
   peror saw repeated before him the phenomena of decomposi-
  tion by the galvanic pile,* "he was struck with astonishment at
   seeing the transportation of the elements of the salts to their
   respsctive poles.  After an instant of silence, turning to Cor-
  visart, his physician, he addressed him in these  remarliable
  words; "Doctor, behold the image of life!—the vertebral col-
  umn is the pile, the liver the negative pole, and the bladder the
  positive pole." Words, which although they do not evince much
  of physical or physiological accuracy, are yet remarkable  as
  coming from one who had devoted his life to far other pursuits
  than the study of galvanism.
    No two substances, in opposite chemical states, such as anal-
  kali and an acid, can be brought into contact, out of the body,
  by  means of imperfect conductors, without causing currents
 -of electricity;—analogy makes it probable that similar currents
  are caused  in the animal body  by arrangements of this kind
  that are known to exist in it.   Thus, the saliva is alkaline, the
  gastric juice is acid; perspirable matter is slightly acidified by
  acetic acid, the serous and sinovial  fluids  are alkaline; the
  urine is  acid, the bile  alkaline,  and all  these dissimilar bodies
 are in connection by imperfect conductors.  Such arrange-
 ments among inorganic bodies, would give rise to electrical cur-
 rents, and M. Donne has lately  proven  that  they cause such
 currents in the animal body.  He placed a plate of platinum,
 connected with one end of the   wire of a galvanic multiplier,
 on the tongue, which is alkaline in its reaction, and put another
 platinum plate, connected with the other end  of the wire, on
 the skin which is acid; the magnetic  needle  of the instrument
 was deflected fifteen, twenty, and sometimes thirty degrees.
 On  placing the two ends of the wire of the multiplier, one in
 connection  with the coat of the   stomach, and the other in the
gall-bladder, a very strong current of electricity was  indica-
ted.   These experiments, however, only prove the  existence
of electrical currents in the body, the results of the action, on
each other, of the dissimilar substances, which exist in the sys-

 ^Tome I,  p. 108.
2 
10            Peter on Galvanic Electricity.

lem; but they by no means prove that the nature of these se-
cretions is dependent on the electrical  state of  the organs, or
on the currents of electricity which pass among them. M. Mat-
teucci supposed that he had thrown some light on the subject
when he proved that the electrical currents ceased in an ani-
mal as soon as it was killed,  or as  soon as  the  nervous influ-
ence was cut off,  although the acidity of the stomach, and the
alkalinity of  the liver still continued, and that the currents ex-
isted in the living animal even when  the acid of the stomach
and the alkali of the liver were severally  neutralized, artifi-
cial!), by proper reagents.   He, then fore, believed that  the
different electrical states of these  organs was due to  nervous
action, and that the secretions were modified by these electrical
conditions.   His experiments, however, have not as yet been
verified: yet Orioli has ventured  the supposition that the de-
rangement of the secretions, in diseased states of the system,
is a  result of the derangement of the electrical conditions of
the organs;  and  he proposes to study the natural electrical
states of the organs in order that  we  may be able  to  restore
them to the healthy electrical  condition, when deranged, by
contrivances adapted to that end.
   In this connection it is well to notice another experiment of
Sir Wilson  Philip.   This  gentleman  cut  the  eighth  pair - of
 nerves, on each side, in some rabbits, and found that parsley,
 which  they had eaten, remained undigested in  their stomachs;
 but that on causing a current  of galvanism to  pass along the
 course of the cut nerves, the gastric juice  was again secreted,
 and digestion proceeded.  The force of this experiment, how-
 ever, is weakened by the fact,  that similar effects were  pro-
 duced  by subjecting these nerves to mechanical irritation, and
 it is hence objected that  the  galvanic fluid, in this  instance,
 acted only as a mechanical  irritant.
    The action of the galvanic  fluid on the nerves is  capable,
 not  only of causing contractions of the  muscles, but also of
  causing sensations.  Marianini,  on subjecting a frog,  which
  was prepared so that its posterior  extremities were  attached
  to the spine by the crural nerve only, to  the galvanic current, 
               Peter on  Galvanic Electricity.             II

observed  that when the current went from  the trunk  to  the
extremities of the nerves, it only produced contractions, un-
accompanied by any signs of pain; while,  when  the  current
passed in the opposite direction, namely,  from the extremities
to the trunk, the contractions were less violent than in the for-
mer instance, but the animal gave undoubted evidence of great
pain.  This  accords with the observation of Dr. James H.
Miller,  whose  name I  have  already  mentioned,  who, in
treating a case of paraplegia, in the Baltimore Alms House, by
the current of galvanism evolved from a plate of silver on the
nape of the neck  and a plate of zinc on the inside of the knee,
connected by a wire; one day, for  experiment, reversed the
position of the plates without  the knowledge of his  patient.
The man immediately began to respire with great anxiety;—-
complained of the inversion of  all  his bowels threatening suf-
focation, and of a great deal of a new kind of pain;  assert-
ing that if the plates were not immediatly removed they would
kill him: as  soon as the Doctor changed the plates again to
their original positions he  asserted that all was  right again.
   "According to Ritter, the electricity  of the positive pole
augments the vital forces, while that of the negative pole di-
minishes  them; the first tumefies  the parts, the second  de-
presses them.  The  pulse of the hand held in contact  with
the positive  pole is strengthened, while it is weakened if it is
in contact with  the  negative pole.  In the first case, accord-
ing to this ingenious  philosopher, we feel  a sensation of heat,
in the second one of cold.   Objects  appear larger,  more bril-
liant and red, to an  eye  positively electrified, than to an  eye
negatively electrified, which sees  them smaller, less distinct,
and bluish."
   Humboldt placed two blisters, of the   size of a five  franq
piece, on his shoulders.  When  the  blisters were opened the
serum flowed out, as usual, colourless.  He  covered the sore
of the right shoulder with  a  plate  of silver.  A conductor of
zinc was no sooner brought near it,  than a  new flow of hu-
mour was provoked,  accompanied by a very painful  burning
sensation.   This humour was not, like the first, white  and  of 
  13            Pkter on  Galvanic Electricity.

  a mild character.  It acquired, in a  few seconds, a lively red
  tint, and wherever it ran over the  skin it left a mark of a red-
  dish blue colour.   The most malignant ulcer does not furnish
  an humour as acrid, nor as prompt  in its action.
   Not to multiply examples of the analogy between some of
  the actions of galvanism, and those of the nervous fluid,—for
  time reminds me that I have said enough,  and it must already
  be evident  that there are some striking points of resemblance
  between them,—we will pass on to the second division of my
  subject, the therapeutical application of galvanism.  Before
  proceeding, however, I beg that I may not be misunderstood.
 While I make the assertion that there are  striking  analogies
 between the action of electricity, and nervous action, on  the
 body, I am  far from  asserting that they are  the same; it would
 be wholly  unphilosophical to say  so.  Analogical reasoning
 can  never be fully relied on, and should only serve to lead to
 new observations  and experiments on Nature.  At  the same
 time, analogy is not to be entirely neglected, as it often serves
 to connect  one discovery with another, and to lead to new
 ones; and although in the end it may  be discovered to  be erro-
 neous, yet, while it stimulates to exertion and research, it can-
 not be denied that it may sometimes be  highly useful.
  It must have been long known that electricity exerts a pow-
 erful influence on the animal system.   We have accounts that
 the shock of the Torpedo  was Used by the ancients in  the
 Cure of diseases, and to the present day  it is  still, probably,
 employed in intermittent fever; and the effects of the Gymno-
 tus were formerly  used, in  Guiana,  in the cure  of paralysis.
 Among  the  earliest accounts  that we have of the  effects of
lightning,  we  have  those of persons,  who  were previously
 paralytic, having been restored by a partial shock of that agent;
 and when the identity of common electricity and lightning was
 established,  and the electrical machine brought to a state of
 comparative perfection, the  common  electrical fluid  was em-
 ployed, in a variety  of modes, and with various degrees of suc-
 cess, in the cure of diseases. 
               Peter on  Galvanic Electricity.            13
    One of the most remarkable instances of the remedial effects
  of the electrical  fluid on  record  is  that  given  by  Mr. W.
  Scoresby, which I obtain from Becquerel.  "The packet, New
  York, left America on the 16th of April, and on the 18th was
  near the western limit of the gulph stream, in 30° N. latitude.
  Here she encountered a tremendous storm.  At half past five
  o'clock, on the morning of the 19th, the lightning, with a great
 crash, t truck the ship and filled all the  births with thick clouds
  of a  sulphureous smoke.   All the elements were in a most
  violent commotion.  In a second discharge on the vessel, which
  took place along a metallic chain which the captain had caused
 to be fastened by one  end to one  of the masts, while the other
 plunged in the sea, having  at its upper end a  pointed rod of
 iron, the vessel  appeared all on  fire by the effect of the  dis-
 charge,  the chain of communication was  melted by degrees.
 Concentrated by the conductor into a strong current, the elec-
 trical fire dispersed as soon as it penetrated into the sea, but
 a luminous vapour seems  to rise  from the water even to the
 clouds, while the re-action  which operated on the vessel was
 so violent that  several individuals  fell prostrate on the deck.
 The vessel appeared to be on fire a second  time; all the parts
 of the ship were filled, as before,  with sulphureous  vapours,
 which were so thick, that it was impossible to distinguish any
 thing at two paces distance.  One of the passengers experienced
 a singular effect from the two discharges. A man of advanced
 age, infirm, and of a remarkable corpulency', was sleeping in
 his bed; he was so little in a state to take  exercise,  that, for
 three years,  he had not walked over a space of half a mile,
 and he had  not even appeared on deck since the commence-
 ment of the voyage.  But after the discharge?, this same per-
 son left his bed, mounted  on  deck, and went from one side  to
 another with much ease and without manifesting the least pain,
 but in a state of mental aberration. Fortunately, the derange-
 ment of his intellectual faculties was only momentary, and the
 benificial influence  of  the electricity on his infirmities more
 durable; for he not  only preserved the use  of his legs during
the rest of the trip,  but  he was even able, when he landed,
to go on foot a considerable distance to his hotel." 
14            Peter  on Galvanic Electricity.

  The application of common electricity to the cure of dis-
eases may be said to have had its day.   For a time when the
subject was new, this agent was  applied to almost every dis-
ease, and  numerous were the cases, particularly of  nervous
disorder?, which were cured or relieved  by it, but as  the nov-
elty of the thing wore off.and consequently the faith of both the
physician and  the patient in  the efficacy of this fluid, it got
gradually into  disrepute, and now scarcely any, but an old
practitioner, has an electrical machine among the  furniture of
his office.  Thus has it always been in medicine; a new reme-
dy is first  inordinately  praised, and, after a time, when expe-
rience fails to justify the extravagant assertions and  expecta-
tions which were at first made and raised, the remedy is just as
inordinately decried.
  When galvanic electricity  was first discovered, among its
earliest applications were those to medicine.  Galvani himself
employed it in this way; and up to the present day it has been
occasionally used, with more or less propriety and intelligence;
and  with such success, when judiciously  applied, as to justify
the prophecy that before the conclusion of the present century
it will be ranked among the most efficient of the therapeutical
agents.   The application of this  powerful agent cannot, how-
ever, be  successfully made except by those who are fully famil-
iar with its  laws and  actions, and of the contrivances and ar-
rangements by  which a current of this fluid may be induced.
Without this  preliminary knowledge, one who  attempted to
employ it would be groping in the dark, and be as liable to pro-
duce injury as benefit to his patient.   In proportion to the
power and  efficiency of any agent is the danger to be appre-
hended in its malapplication.
  The galvanic current may be caused to act in various ways
upon the system.  Dr. Palaprat employed it for the purpose of
cauterizing internal parts. A platinum  wire being introduced
into  the  part, placed in connection with one pole of a suffi-
ciently  powerful battery; the other pole of the  battery being
placed in connection with some  other  part of the body, the
end  of the platinum wire was immediately made white hot by 
              PeteiI  on Galvanic Electricity.            15

the galvanic current,  and a tubular eschar,  which separated
in a few days, was the result.  The same  physician  used the
pile for introducing into the system certain  medicinal agents,
in the manner indicated in the following experiment.   Having
dried, as much as possible, the two arms of a  female, he placed
on one a little compress moistened with a solution of  iodide of
potassium, and on the other another compress moistened  with
a solution of "starch;  he covered  each compress with a plate
of platinum, and put them in connection with the poles of a pile
of  thirty pairs of plates, the starch being in connection  with
the negative pole.  In a few moments the starch became  blue,
indicating the  presence of iodine, resulting from the decom-
position of the iodide  of potassuim, and which had been  con-
veyed through the body, to the negative pole, by the galvanic
current.  In this manner, by using needles for the poles, intro-
duced as in simple acupuncturation, the Doctor succeeded in
conveying  iodine, and other substances, to different parts of
 the body; and he asserts that in  this way  he was successful in
removing engorgements  that  had resisted all the  medica-
 tions that had been previously employed.
    Those who have studied the chemical action of the galvanic
 battery know, that  when any  salt, or other compound sub-
 stance, is  exposed   to the  action of its current,  the  acids
 of the compounds are soon transferred to the positive pole, and
 the alkalies or bases to the negative pole.   Let any one repeat
 an experiment of Sir H. Davy's, and he will be convinced that
 such  actions  of the pile may  take place, to a certain extent,
 through the animal body.   Let him wash his two thumbs com-
 pletely in distilled water, and then place them into two glasses,
 filled with distilled water, that are in connection with the two
  poles of a battery.   After holding  them in that position for a
  sufficient length of  time, the galvanic current traversing  his
  body, he will find, on examination of the water in the glasses,
  acids,—muriatic, phosphoric  and  sulphuric, in the positive
  glass, and  fixed alkali in the  negative glass, derived from  the
  decomposition of the salts of the fluids of the body, by the agen-
  cy of the galvanic current.   It is evident, therefore,  that in 
  1<3            Peter on  Galvanic Electricity.

  addition  to  the stimulant or irritating action of a current of
  galvanism on the nerves, other effects may be produced by the
  acids, or the bases, of the compounds in the fluids of the body,
  the elements of which, separated by the electrical agency, are
  carried to the positive and negative poles respectively.
    Davy exposed a piece of clean muscular flesh to the action
  of a galvanic pile of 150 pairs, for five days, the flesh being in
  connexion with water at each pole; and on burning the  flesh,
  at the end of the experiment, none of the salts usually found
  in the ashes of  flesh, were obtained; but in the water of the
  positive glass there were  sulphuric, nitric, muriatic, and phos-
  phoric acids, and in the negative  glass, potash, soda, lime and
  ammonia; proving that ihe salts of the flesh had  been  decom-
 posed, and their constituents carried out of the flesh to the
  several  poles of the battery.  On this  principle it has  been
  proposed to  decompose, and destroy, urinary and other calculi
 in  the body, and the method promises to be of utility, in the
 hands of persons who know how to apply it.
   In the application of galvanism to the cure of diseases much,
 no doubt, depends on the direction of the current.  A current
 passing from the trunks to the branches of the nerves, it has
 been seen, stimulates the muscles to contraction, without pain-
 fully exciting the nerves, while a current passed in the opposite
 direction,  namely, from the ramifications to the trunks of the
 nerves,  although it excites contractions,  causes on the other
 hand, painful irritation.  Some regard must be had to this cir-
 stance, as  well as to the power, continuance, and duration of
 the current, in its application to the animal economy.
  Various modes of applying the  galvanic fluid to the human
 body have been employed. Sir Wilson  Philip used the small
 battery of Cruikshank; and it will be seen, by reference to hjs
 work  "on the  Vital Functions".that  it  was instrumental,
 in his  hands,  in relieving a  number of  persons of  spas-
modic  asthma—one pole  of the  battery, the positive, being
put in connection with a silver plate laid on a moistened spot
on the nape of the neck,  and  the other, in the same manner,
on the pit of the stomach.   The same form of the instrument 
              Peter on Galvanic Electricity.            17
was used by  Dr. Munsell, who gives the history of six inter-
esting  cases, relieved by galvanism, in the 6th volume of this
journal.  In one of these cases, case 5th, that of a lady of 70
years of age, on whom the galvanic current was applied to the
head,—one pole to the nape of  the neck the other to the tem-
ple,—for the removal of a neuralgic affection, vulgarly  called
a sun-pain, a  very remarkable effect resulted.   The pain in-
stantly ceased on the contact of the wires, and for a short time
after the application of  the galvanic fluid, her vision was ren-
dered  as clear and distinct as it ever had been during her life,
so that she could read very  small  print without her  specta-
cles.
   Dr.  Mansford, in his work on epilepsy, gives an account of an-
other mode of applying a galvanic current.   Two plates were
taken, one of silver the other of zinc, and were fastened, by strips
of adhesive plaster, the one on the nape of the neck and the other
on the inside of the knee, on spots from which the cuticle had
previously been removed by small blisters.  The  plates were
connected together by a wire, soldered to each, which passed
down  the back.    To moderate the irritating effects of the me-
tals on the raw surfaces, a piece of moistened sponge was placed
under each plate, and,  under the zinc plate there was put, in
addition, a piece of fresh muscle free from  fat.   Thus the pa-
tient was enabled to move about, without  inconvenience, car-
rying  his galvanic  apparatus on  his person, and subjected to
the influence of a constant weak current of galvanism.  The
positive pole being near the brain,  the negative  on  the extrem-
ity.    It  was  necessary to remove and clean  this apparatus
every 12 or 24 hours, in order to renew the muscle, and scrape
 off from the zinc  plate the  crust of oxide which forms on it.
 In this way Dr. Mansford succeeded in relieving a number of
 cases.
   This same apparatus was employed by Dr. James H. Mil-
 ler, in the Baltimore Alms House, with decided success, in two
 cases  of paralysis;  and by  Dr. Harris, of the  United States
 Navy, one of the physicians of the Pennsylvania Hospital, in
 several cases of neuralgia. An account of the  cases of both of
                    3 
18            Peter on  Galvanic Electricity.
 these  gentlemen is recorded in the  Amer. Journ. of Mepaicl
 Science, vol. 14.
   M.  Sarlandiere applied the galvanic current to internal parts,
 by means of the introduction of  needles of steel or platinum,
 as in acupuncturation, passing the current through them.  In
 this way  M.  Majendie succeeded in  curing  some cases of
 amaurosis,  which had resisted the action of the most violent
 means that surgery could employ, such as blisters, moxas, etc.
 The first experiment was made on a young man, attacked with
 amaurosis,  with immobility of the  pupil,  on whom he  first
 tried simple acupuncturation, transfixing the nerves with his
 needles, without any beneficial result.  The needles were
 subsequently placed, the  one in the frontal nerve, and the other
 in the  superior maxillary nerve,  and put in connection with
 the two poles of a pile composed  of  twelve pair of plates, six
 inches square.   At the moment of contact the  patient experi-
 enced  a painful  shock in the  course of the nerve,—the light
 affected him visibly, and  the pupil contracted.  After a treat-
 ment of fifteen days the  disease was sensibly ameliorated,  and
 the pupil regained its ordinary dimensions.   In several other
 cases of incomplete amaurosis he obtained successful results.
 In a case of paralysis of  the third pair of nerves,  with devia-
 tion of the eye downward and outward, and depression of the
 upper  eyelid, that had resisted the common modes of treatment,
 a single application  of the current of electricity through nee-
 dles inserted into the supra-orbitary and sub-orbitary nerves,
 caused a complete cure.  Similar  happy effects resulted from
this mode of treatment in another  case, that of paralysis of the
 sixth pair  of nerves,  with deviation of the eye  inward and
 downward.
  In other cases of paralysis  it has been employed with suc-
 cess by  a  number of persons;—as  well  by Marianini, who
 treated his  patients by a succession of shocks of electricity
 caused by the continual interruption of the current, as by  Dr.
 Miller, who used  the constant weak current of the plates of
 Mansford.   It seems  evident, in fact, that it is  principally to
 nervous disorders that the galvanic current is applicable. 
Peter on Galvanic Electricity.
19
   I have now  given some of the analogies between nervous
 action  and  the  action  of the  electrical fluid, on the animal
 body, and a few of the applications of this  powerful agent to
 medicine.  Were I to attempt  to give the whole of them, a
 book would be the result, not a paper; and were all the specu-
 lations and theories, to which these analogies and actions have
 given rise, to  be recorded in one work, it would be swelled into
 numerous tomes of ponderous  size.   That the study of the
 galvanic fluid has given  rise to ardent aspirations and fanciful
 theories, cannot be denied; so have the magnificent discoveries
 of the astronomer; but  the  imaginings of the poets, or the
 conceptions of the  theorists of science, have not affected the
 truth of the discoveries either in  the one case or in the other;
 and the philosophical mind, while it may be delighted for a time
with  the beauties of the poetry of science, finds no difficulty
 in separating  from it the unimaginative but instructive prose. 
 
7
Af-
i->
            <       .       .  :- *<u I  ,
 Art. V.—On the influence of Caloric on the living Animal Body.
   By Robert  Peter, M. D., Professor of  Chemistry and
   Pharmacy in  Transylvania University,  &c.  Lexington,
   Kentucky.

   As far as our limited knowledge of nature  will  permit us
 to judge, certain principles  or powers pervade the universe
 and act  in an  important manner on all created existences,
 animate or  inanimate.  These principles or  power?, are at-
 traction, electricity, caloric and light.  What they are in their
 intimate nature, or whether  they are not all mere modifica-
 tions of one kind of matter or influence, has never been ascer-
 tained by philosophers.  Many of their laws, actions, analo-
 gies and properties have  been ascertained,  especially of late
 years,  but  we  are as ignorant of their real nature, as were
 the barbarians who worshipped a deity  in the  sun or saw the
 anger of offended Jove in the electric flash.
   We know enough of these agents to be convinced  that a
 constant  and most powerful  influence is exerted by them on
 all nature, inanimate as well as animate, and that without their
 instrumentality all created beings would be resolved into pri-
 meval  chaos.
   Among these principles none surpass in importance caloric.
 Acting by its repulsive power among the particles of inorganic
 matter in opposion to cohesion, it modifies its form, from solid,
to liquid or  gaseous;  and  being a stimulant  to latent vitality,
without its  presence, in  a certain  degree, vegetable  seeds
 would  cease to  germinate and animals to have existence.__
 Were we to attempt  to sketch out  all its actions on inorgan-
ic and organic matter, the space allotted to this paper would
not be sufficient  for the  purpose.  We shall  confine our re-
marks, therefore, to some of its relations to living animals* a
subject of the highest importance to medical philosophy, and
which is too little studied or understood by nhvsician*
   Vol. XI  (N. S. S)  No.  2         10 
2           Peter on  the influence of Caloric.
   We "have  every reason  to  believe that  animal life could
 neither be  manifested nor sustained without the presence of
 caloric.   A certain degree of warmth is as necessary to the
 germination of the seed  of the most simple vegetable f.s for
 the continuance of the life of the most perfect animal.  The
 degree of heat which is most salutary, varies according to the
 nature of the being, and  all require  its presence  in some  de-
 gree; but all  vegetable and animal  bodies are so constituted
 as to be able to support, without  material injury,  certain va-
 riations of  temperature to which  the surface of the globe,  for
 which they are destined, is subjected in the natural rotation of
 the  seasons.
   In  addition to a  certain power of endurance of external
 changes of temperature,  most animated beings aie endowed
 with the  faculty, to a greater or less  extent, of controlling in
 some  measure the temperature of their own bodies, by gen-
 erating caloric within their systems, in greater  or less amount
 according to circumstances, or  by neutralising the influence
 of external  heat, by  certain means  not perhaps fully under-
 stood.
   All animals  who respire,  which  we presume  includes all
 the subjects of the animal kingdom, generate a certain amount
 of caloric, which, it is believed,  bears a relation to the ac-
 tivity  and  extent of  the respiratory  process.  Those which
 are denominated cold-blooded animals possess  this faculty in
 a low  degree,  so that they are unable to  preserve  a peculiar
 internal temperature much differing from the general external
 onev  The animals denominated warm-blooded, on the other
 hand, enjoying a4more perfect respiratory action, are able to
 preserve the heat of  their  bodies, under all external varia-
 tions, at nearly8a constant state; although it is necessary  to
 this end, that at some times a much greater quantity should  be
 produced  by the animal body than at others,  and that at al\
 times,  under ordinary  circumstances,  a large amount of calo-
 ric should  be  evolved by the action of  Ihe animal powers.
 How these apparently difficult desiderata  are supplied by the
animal economy is not as we have  stated, clearly compre-
hended. 
             Peter on the influence of Caloric.            *

   The subject of animal temperature has always been a puz-
 zling one to physiologists, and, like every other difficult ques-
 tion, has given  rise to numerous ingenious theories.   A num-
 ber of facts have indeed  been ascertained by experiment, in
 relation to the production of animal heat, but not enough as
 yet to form  a perfect system or prevent the clashing of con-
 flicting dogmas.   The principal facts bearing on this subject,
 are;  1.  That complete aeration  of the blood is necessary to
 the perfect performance of this animal function;—the quanti-
 ty of  caloric evolved, bearing a relation to the amount of oxy-
 gen consumed in a given time.  2. Perfect circulation of the
 arterialized  blood is also  necessary; and thirdly; a change of
 this blood, by the aetion of the nerves, from arterial to venous,
 in the round of circulation, is also necessary to the evolution
 of the proper quantity of caloric.  Any cause that may ob-
 struct or prevent either of these actions will always diminish
 or  destroy the production of animal heat, and  the complete
 performance of  them all is necessary to the  perfect  function.
   These facts,  however, may be compared to distant land-
 marks in a newly discovered country, and much labour in in-
 vestigation and discovery may  be necessary to connect them.
 Meanwhile theories take the place of ascertained truths.  The
 most rational of these is that  which  we owe to the researches
 of  Crawford, Brodie, Wilson Philip, Edwards  and others,
 which is, that  the oxygen of the inspired  atmospheric  air,
 passing into  the blood through the delicate membrane of the
lungs,  combines, in the round of circulation and during the
 process of assimilation, under the action of the nervous influ-
ence, with a sufficient amount of carbon to form  carbonic
acid, and tl at the act of combination is attended by  the evol-
 ution of caloric,  as it would be out  of  the body, and is the
principal source of animal heat.
  This theory is,  however, imperfect, for it has been ascer-
tained that the amount of caloric given out by a vigorous ani-
mal is greater than that which  would have  been evolved bv
the formation of the carbonic acid it exhales; the production 
4           Peter on the influence of Caloric.

of some  of the animal heat, therefore, must be attributed to
the independent  action of the mysterious nervous influence.
  There is one circumstance, attending  the changes  which
take place  in respiration and  assimilation, that  has not yet
received sufficient attention  from physiologists.  Chemists
have long since been satisfied that no decomposition or combi-
nation can take place among bodies without great  disturbance
in their electrical atmospheres.  The  decomposition of water
in the cells of the galvanic battery is the cause of  the current
of electric  fluid that passes through its poles, and Mr. Farra-
4ay has established the fact, that as much electricity is evolved
when a single grain of water  is decomposed as is  contained
in a powerful flash of lightning.  The changes which attend
respiration  and assimilation, which are a series  of combina-
tions  and decompositions, must be accompanied by the  evolu-
tion of electricity, which would form circuits, of greater or
less extent, through  the  best conductors in  the body,  the
nerves.  The passage of an electric current through imperfect
conductors is  always attended by the  evolution of caloric,
greater in amount, within  certain limits, in proportion to the
imperfection  of the  conductor.  If then  the  current  passes
through one series of nerves to the great nervous centres of
the body, to be returned through another  series, and  in its
passage,  according to its known laws,  evolves caloric, we are
enabled satisfactorily to account for the production  of that part
of the animal heat attributable  to  nervous action alone, as
well as for the production  of  the  nervous fluid  itself, which
many facts seem to prove  is analogous to or identical with the
electric fluid.  For this hypothesis, the boldness of which is
justified  by  the numerous important connexions which late
researches have ascertained to  exist  between electricity and
attraction, caloric, light and even vitality, we are indebted to
Mr. Leithead, in  his  late  work on "Electricity, &c."
  Although a certain moderate temperature is  salutary and
even  necessary  to animal existence, too much heat is produc-
tive of injurious consequences.  Animals  of the higher orders,
therefore, are enabled by several means to neutralize, to some 
            Peter on the influence of Caloric.           5
extent,  the  action of a  high external  temperature.   Under
ordinary circumstances, in atmospheric air, animals exposed
to a great heat are aided  in the maintainance of their proper
temperature by the evaporation of moisture from the surface
of their bodies.  It has been  found by  Edwards and others
that the perspiration increases with the external temperature;
and the great cooling influence of the  evaporation of mois-
ture  from the surface was exemplified  in  an experiment of
Delaroche  and Berger;  who placed, in a  stove, the heat of
which varied from 126°5, to  142,°25 Fahr., during the exper-
iment, one  of those poious  earthen  vessels, "called  by the
Spaniards alcarazaz,  which  are  susceptible of evaporation
from the whole of their surfa-je,"  two moistened sponges and
a frog; and observed that they maintained a temperature, for
nearly two hours, from 27.° to 28.°7 Fah. below that of the
•urrounding medium.  The process of evaporation, in which
caloric is rendered latent in  the vapor which arises from the
body,—a certain amount of heat being necessary to produce
the change of form which the water undergoes from liquid to
vapour,—relieves it, most probably, of most of its extraneous
heat, and is the main agent in keeping down its temperature
when  it is exposed to a high heat in atmospheric air.  The
great evaporation from the body, under these circumstances
acts also in another way to  reduce  the animal  temperature.
It is a process that weakens and exhausts the nervous energies.
Blagden, who, as every one knows, made some interesting ex-
periments on  his  own person on the effects of the very hot
atmosphere of a  stove-room, found that it soon caused  his
hands to shake very much; produced  noise and giddiness in
his head, and  was followed by considerable languor  and de-
bility.   Reduction of the nervous energy must be attended
by a  corresponding  decrease  in the  temperature-producing
power, and it is, most probably, in this manner that the  ex-
ternal application of heat to  the body, lessens its power of
 evolving caloric.  Dr. Crawford, as early as 1781,* ascertained
 this fact, on placing a dog in hot water or hot air, the former
•philosophieal Transactions of ths Royal Society. 
 §            Peter  on the influence of Caloric.

 heated to  112? and the latter to 134,° and observing that al-
 though the respiratory motions  were  much increased, the
 blood was so little changed in its round of circulation, that the
 venous blood was  almost as bright as (he arterial.  Believing
 that  the evolution of animal heat attended this natural change
 in the blood, he inferred, that the  prevention of the change
 prevented also the usual developement of caloric.   Much lan-
 guor, in the animal, succeeded  the experiment.
   If  we  were permitted to theorise on the manner in which
 great evaporation  of perspirable matter from the body tends
 to exhaust the nervous  energy,  we would state our belief that
 it is,  most probably, in part by robbing it of a great amount of
 electricity.  It is a fact, well known to chemists and meteorol-
 ogists that whenever water evaporates, especially from a sa-
 line solution, like the water of the ocean, or the fluid of per*.
 spiration,the vapour carries off  with it a large amount of pos-
 itive  electricity, leaving the surface from  which it arose, in a
 negative elee'rical  state; and it has been proven by the exper-
 menls of  Hitter and others,  that while positive electricity exi
 halts  the nervous energies, the negative depresses them.
   One manifest effect  of the decreased  amount  of oxygen
 consumed in respiration, under  the influence of external heat,
 is the great increase of the  biliary  secretion, and the liability
 to hepatic derangement, in inhabitants of hot countries. It is
 well  known that the liver and skin aid the lungs in throwing
 off superfluous  carbon  from  the  blood.   In  the lungs  it is
 thrown off in  the  form of  carbonic  acid, having combined
 with  oxygen in the processes of respiration and assimilation;
 it is thrown off in a similar state from the skin; but the liver
 separates  it from the venous blood  in the  form of  bile, which
 abounds in carbon.   When, therefore, this depurative action
 is lessened at  the lungs  by  the  action  of a hot  climate, the
liver,  in its vicarious action, has an  increased labour to per-
form,  and  often secretes a  bile that is black from the great
amount of carbon in it.
  The effects  of external  variations of temperature on the
animal economy are of more  importance  than  is  generally 
             Peter on the influence  of Caloric.            7
believed, and are  worthy of  much  more attention  than  i»
usually given to them by medical men.
   There is  a certain mean temperature most favorable to the
"healthy action of the animal economy, differing in animals of
different orders and in different individuals of the same species;
but to all of them an excessively high temperature, or a very
low one, is  injurious or deleterious, according to the degree.
A temperature that would  be considered rather a low one, by
our feelings, seems most conducive to  vigorous  vital action.
 I his  fact has  been observed  by every one who has  felt the
bracing effect of a frosty morning  and the lassitude, languor
and debility, mental and bodily, produced by excessively hot
weather.   The  debilitating effect  of excessive heat is still
further proved  by the  number of deaths that occur in all our
cities during the prevalence of hot weather, by roup-de-soleil,
and on drinking cold water.  Sun-stroke is generally believed
to be  similar to apoplexy, but Surgeon Russel, who examined
the bodies of several soldiers  destroyed  by coup-de-soleil at
Madras, found the brain  invariably  in a natural  state;  but the
great congestion in the lungs,  which were  black with blood,
and the accumulation of blood in the right side of the  heart
and (he vessels which lead to it, indicated exhaustion of the
general nervous energy and that of the heart, which depend-
ed on it.  Those who die  on drinking cold water, are doubt-
less similarly affected, for it is generally believed the inges-
tion  of cold fluids is  not  likely to  injure a vigorous  body
strongly heated, but one  that has  been  exhausted  by  great
exertion or the  debilitating effects of external heat.  Under
such  circumstances the sudden application of  cold  is  often
productive of fatal consequences; not only in man but also in
the lower animals.  Vaillant, when travelling in Africa, found
that when his dogs  were much heated and exhausted, by the
chase, if they plunged into cold water, they were liable to be
injured by its sudden  influence, before he could rescue them
 from  the deceitful element.
   The debilitating influence of high  temperature on the mind
 is equally evident.  Its actions are rendered weak, laborious 
8,          Peter on the influence of Caloric.

and painful, and, with  the rest, even the moral faculties lose
much of their force,  and the individual becomes slothful, pee-'
vish and irritable.  We are told that (he Italians were so well
convinced  of this fact, that according to a former law,  the
punishment for crime, committed while the  hot sirocco  was
blowing,  was less  than  at other  times, because the people
were  supposed  to  be in  part divested  of their  reason during
the prevalence of the hot wind.  Montesquieu, in his Espiit
des Lois.t  is supposed to  attribute too much influence to hot
climate in debilitating the bodies and the minds  of men, but
his observations seem to  be strongly supported by  the facts in
the case; although a  comparison instituted, in this particular,
between  (he  several races of  men  that inhabit the  different
portions of the globe, is  not a fair one.
   Much has bevn  said by physiologists of the great power,
possessed  by  man and the warm-blooded animals generally,
of resisting  the  effects  of a very high temperature.  The
celebrated  experiments of Fordyce,  Blagden  and others in
1775, who  supported a temperature, in  air, of from 240° to
268° Fahr. for eight minutes,—high enough to  cook eggs and
beef-stakes;—that  of the oven-girl in France, who astonished
Messrs, Duhamel  and Tillet,  in 1760,  by  remaining twelve
minutes in on oven heated to 264.° Fahr.; as well  as the com-
mon feats our soi-disant Fire-kings, are,  however, all to a cer-
tain extent deceptive.  Atmospheric air is  such an imperfect
conductor that, although  it might be intensely heated, it would
part   with  its Galoric very slowly to bodies immersed in it;—
a good conductor, at a  much lower  temperature than that
above mentioned, would  not only speedily kill, but disorganize
the body  of an animal  exposed to its influence.   Moreover,
the great 'evaporation  which takes place in hot dry air,  lends
its aid to keep down  the  temperature of the  body.  Air satu-
rated with  vapour  is  a better conductor of heat than dry air,
and permits less  evaporation, consequently animals are not
able to support so high a temperature in it as in the former.
   M. Delaroche could not  support, above  ten  minutes and a
half; a vapour bath, which, at first, at 99,°5  Fahr.  rose, in 
             Peter on the influence of Caloric.           9
 eight minutes,  to 124,°25 Fahr. and  afterwards fell one de-
 gree.
   "M. Berger  was  obliged in twelve nrnutes and a half to
 come out of a vapor bath, of which the temperature had risen
 from  106,°25  Fahr.  to 128,75.  He was weak, and  tottered
 on his legs,  and was affected  with vertigo.  The  weakness
 and thirst lasted the remainder of the day.   These gentlemen
 however, supported for a considerably longer  time, without
 much inconvenience, a higher temperature  in dry air."
   In water,  which is a better conductor than dry air or vapor,
 the temperature which is supportable is still lower. *"Lemon-
 nier, being at Bareges, plunged into the hottest spring, which
 was about 113° Fahr.  He could not remain in it above eight
 minutes.  Violent agitation and giddiness forced him out."
   Moreover, in all the experiments made on the effect of in-
 tensely heated air, the individuals exposed to it remained un-
 der its influence but a short time; not long enough, if the im-
 perfect conducting power of the air be  considered, to expe-
 rience its full effects.   Yet even these individuals were more
 or less affected.  The temperature  of their bodies was raised
 some  degrees  and the  circulation accelerated. "A young
 man, in Dobson's experiments, remained for twenty minutes,
 without great inconvenience, in a stove, the  air of which was
 at 210° Fahr., but his pulse, which  commonly was 75 per
 minute, beat  164 in this hot air."   Had he  been kept in this
 heated atmosphere for a greater length of time, serious con-
 sequences would  no doubt have resulted.  According to the
 numerous  experiments of  Delaroche and Berger, man and
 the warm-blooded  animals generally cannot support, under
 the influence  of hot dry air, a greater elevation of their own
 temperature  than  from 12°  to 14° Fahr.  In these experi-
 ments, animals of various  kinds, exposed to an atmosphere of
 the temperature  from  122°  to  200.°, all  died, sooner or
 later, having all acquired nearly the  same increase of temper-
ature, viz:  from 11,°25, to  12.92. Fahr.

 •Edwards on the influence of Physical Agents  on Life.
  Vol. IX (N. S. 3) No. 2.                    11 
10          Peter on the influence  of Caloric.
  The direct influence of high temperature, in weakening or
exhausting the nervous action, is better exemplified by experi-
ments  in  the comparatively good conductor, water, than in
(he very imperfect conductor of caloric, air.  Dr. Edwards
found, by bis experiments on animals immersed in water, that
in cold-blooded  animals drowned in water of a temperature
from 32° to 107,°6 Fahr, the duration of their life was inversely
proportional to the elevation of the temperatui e; and that in wa-
ter at the latter temperature, 107.6, these animals died  almost
instantly.  Even at  104.°  Fahr., fish, frogs, lizards, snakes,
&c, are almost  immediately killed.   Warm-blooded animals-
are capable of supporting a greater heat in water. By drown-
ing small animals of this class in this fluid at various degrees of
heat, he ascertained that the temperature  at which they lived
longest was about  68° Fahr., above or below that degree the
duration of  their lives was proportionately lessened; but
more rapidly, when  it  rose above  than when  it descended
below that temperature.
  It must be evident, therefore, that temperature, by  acting
directly  on  the  nervous   system,   exerts  an  important
influence on the animal  economy, and that it is in the  power
of the physician, who is well acquainted with its effects,  to
employ it, often with great advantage, in the practice of his
profession.  He does, in fact, employ it, and in some  cases,.
unwittingly.  Warm  or hot baths  owe  (heir  principal ef-
fects to ihe agency of the caloric, which they impart to the
system.   The effect of  the  water itself, besides that of clean-
ing and softening the  skin, is perhaps very little.  Writers on
baths have  recorded  many  instances of the effects of the hot
bath, which are similar  to those  produced by application of
caloric, through the medium of air.  We refer the reader par-
ticularly to  Dr. Jno. Bell's compendious work "On Baths and
mineral waters."  A  hot bath is one of a  temperatuie exceed-
ing 98° Fahr.   Under  its influence  the  circulation becomes
excited and the perspiration increased, the respiratory action
is also  quickened, although the amount of oxygen consumed
stems really to be lessened;  for  the  blood  is  not as much 
          Peter on the influence of Caloric.             **

changed in its round of circulation, when the body is exposed
to the high temperatnre, as under  ordinary  circumstances,—
The skin  becomes  hot, swelled  and red, and if  the bath be
excessively prolonged, or usually hot, oppression, vertigo, he-
morrhage, universal weakness, syncope, apoplexy or paralysis,
may be the result.  The hot  bath is said to  be stimulating or
irritating  to  the nervous system,  but whether stimulating or
not in its  primary action,  its  secondary effect, when prolongs
ed in its action,  is to weaken  or exhaust  the nervous powers.
This is  well  known to the enligh.ened  physician, who em-
ploys it accordingly in his practice.
   To high temperature, long continued in its action, is weak-
ening and destructive to the animal  powers;—too low a de-
gree of heat, or rather too  great, long continued, or  rapid
abstraction of caloric  from the body is also injurious, although
not  to the same degree or precisely in the same manner.  A
certain degree of cold seems bracing and salutary; it increases
the muscular and mental powers, and in fact the vital  actions
generally; but in excess it contracts the surface, driving  the
blood to  the internal organs; rendering the  skin hard and in-
sensible and the mental powers dull and  inactive.   The inhab-
itants  of  countries who are  exposed to moderate cold  are
among the best developed and active of our race.   Those who
inhabit very cold regions are  curtailed in their developement;
their extremities are small and their bodies large; their skin
hard and  their mental and other vital faculties, inactive.
   Exposure to moderate cold induces  an increased production
of animal heat, and to produce this effect a greater amount of
oxygen  is consumed in a given time, and  the blood is more
thoroughly changed in its round of circulation.   The increas-
 ed oxygenation of  the blood  and the accelerated ass.m.latory
 process, are attended by a general augmentation of the vi-
 Ef cowers   The  individual feels light and active, and is more
 fitted and a'ble to sustain prolonged mental or bodily exertion
 th n when, under the influence of external heat, the  amount
 of oxygen consumed is smaller and the blood is  less changed
     Us round  of circulation-  But when the external cold »
in 
12          Peter on the  influence  of  Caloric.

greatly  increased  the  temperature-preserving  power  is too
strongly taxed  to  sustain  the internal  temperature, and the
general  nervous power  seems to become  exhausted  in the
effort.   Under  its  influence the surface becomes  shrunk and
contracted, and the blood is driven to the  internal organs.—
The result of this disturbed equilibrium is that  the process of
assimilation, and  consequently, the evolution of animal heat
in the extremities  and on  the surfaces, are  lessened, and the
internal organs become  oppressed by a load  of  the vital fluid;
weakness, stupor,  a  strong inclination  to sleep, torpor, apo-
plexy and death,  are known to be the final  effects.  Larrey,
who had a very good opportunity, during the  disastrous re-
treat of the  French army  from  Moscow, of observing these
effects of long  continued low temperature,  records  that the
"organs of visions and muscular power  were so much  debili-
tated, that it was difficult for the individual to pursue his way
and preserve his  equilibrium."  The individuals  seemed to
suffer general torpor and paralysis, and  loss  of the senses, un*
attended by much pain.  They staggered  forward, like drunken
men, supported by their companions,  and if they once wander-
ed from the moving mass of the retreating column, to sit down
on the roadside, or fall into the ditch which  bounded it, they
never rose again, but perished in a very short time.  Captain
Parry,  observed analogous facts, in those  of  his crew who
had been exposed to intense cold.   There was  paralysis of
the mental and corporeal faculties; the individual had a  vacant
stare, spoke thick, and  it would  be  difficult to persuade those
unacquainted with these effects, that  they  were not in  a state
of stupid intoxication from  drinking ardent spirit.
  A very low temperature, then, is injurious to the powers of
life. There are  many other facts that  corroborate this opinion.
For example, Larrey observed on his own person, as  well as
on that  of others,  that exposure  to great cold   was followed,
on attaining a more  moderate temperature,  by a  species of
catarrhal  typhus of  the  malignant kind,  similar  to hospital
fever; and he states  that when persons, torpid with cold, ap-
proached  a fire, gangrene commenced in the frozen or torpid 
             Peter on the  influence of Caloric.          13
extremities, and progressed  so rapidly that its course was visi-
ble to the eye.  Or  else the sufferer was suffocated by great
turgescence of the lungs and brain and  perished, as in asphyx-
ia.   John Hunter  observed that  a long continued frost was
productive of the worst kind of putrid fevers. These effects are
most visible in persons whose powers of life  are weak, such as
old persons and  infants.   Dr. Heberden* states that the "tide
of mortality" of persons above sixiy,  "follows the influence
of cold in winter.  So that a  person 'used to such inquiries.
may form no contemptible judgment of ihe severitv of any of
our winter months merely by attending to this circumstance."
The injurious effects of cold on infants, are strikingly  exem-
plied in the following extract from the Appendix to Dr. Ed-
wards' work  on  the Physical Agents, <fec.   "It is the custom
in France to convey infanls, within an hour of their birth, to
the office  of the Mayor of the quarter in which the natirity
took place, in order  that the birth may be registered, and the
child become possessed of its  civil rights.  A careful  com-
parison of the  register of births, and the register of deaths,
furnished statistical observations on so large a scale, that there
can be no room  to doubt  the correctness  of  the results.  It
appeared  that the  proportion of deaths, within a  very limited
period  after  birth, compared with the total  births, was  much
greater in winter than in summer,  and that this difference of
proportion, was  much greater in the northern and colder de-
partments, than  in the southern and  warmer."  These ob-
servations were  made by  Dr.  Milne  Edwards and Dr. Vil-
lerme,  who subsequently  continued their  investigations and
found thus their  results confirmed.  "In order to ascertain in
a more positive  manner than before,  whether the mortality
of new-born children is increased by their being carried  to the
maire immediately  after birth,  we obtained  from the minister
of the  interior,  necessary orders to have the  tables of mor-
tality of infants made in a certain number of parishes, where
the inhabitants are scattered over a larger surface of ground;
•PkUw. ?i»s. Rof. So»., 1798. 
 H           Peteii on the influence of Caloric.
and in others, where they are, on the contrary, agglomerated'"
around the moire.   It  appeared  evident  (<> us, that  if our
opinion was correct, the increase of mortality during winters,
must  btf much greater in the former parishes limn in the latter;
and such is, indeed, the  result actually afforded us by our ta-
bles."
   Moreover,  it is well known to physiologists,  that  certain
fish,  which possess the  power of giving an  electrical shock,
derive  that  power  from  the  nervous system.   A certain
elevation of  temperature is  found  necessary to  its complete
developement.  The  great  electrical  eel only exists  in the
warm basins  of the great  rivers of the tropical part of the
globe;—cold  weakens its powers; and it was stated as early
as 1775, by  Dr. Jno.  Ingenhouse, that the  Torpedo of the
Mediterranean has  but little electrical force in the winter sea-
son.
   By the foregoing facts the physician may  judge of the im-
portance of preserving a proper medium temperature, neither
too high nor  too low, in  all persons whose powers of life are
feeble.  The  temperature  most  salutary seems to be what
would be   determined by our feelings cool or  temperate,  say
from 68.°  to  75.°  Fahr.—at all events, it is  higher than the
freezing point of water, 32,° which would  be denominated
cold, and lower than the mean animal temperature, 96.° or 98,°
which would  be called hot.   A  valuable  application of a
knowledge of  these facts,  may  be  made, in the case of
young children and  aged  persons, persons debilitated by gen-
eral disease, or individuals, who  in consequence of disease or
partial  disorganization of the lungs,  or disease of the heart,
have the respiratory powers, and consequently their tempera-
ture-preserving power, materially lessened, as is manifested by
their  chilliness,  and great  sensibility to changes of tempera-
ture.   Many  other facts of high practical importance might
be added had we space; for many of them we  refer the reader
to Dr. Edwards' work "On the influence of the Physical Agents
on Life;"—a work  that should be studied by every physician.*
  •We perceive  with pleasure that Dr. Jno. Bell has republished thit important
work in hit rateable "Medical Library."                        v 
             Peter on the influence  of Caloric.           15

  Extremes, both of heat  and cold, are injurious to the ner-
vous energies;—they act  however in a different manner.—
Extreme heat destroys the nervous  power, even to that the
most remote from the great centres, viz:  irritability or con-
tractility, while  extreme cold seems  rather to excite or pre-
serve the irritability  of the system.   Many  experiments,  by
Dr. Edwards and  others,  confirm  this  statement.  Sir  A.
Carlisle, in  his  Croonian  Lecture on muscular  motion,* in
1804, gives the  following  experiments.   "The hinder legs of
a frog,  attached to the pelvis, being stripped of  skin, one of
them was immersed in water at 115.° Fahr. during two min-
utes, when it ceased-to be irritable:"—while similar muscles,
kept in  a frozen state for twelve hours, were yet  irritable on
being thawed.   He drowned a hedge-hog, in water at 48.°
Fahr.;  the animal  struggled much and finally  rolled itself up
into a ball, evidently in a state of  muscular contraction; after
thirty  minutes  from the time of its  immersion it  was taken
out, and  it  yet  recovered   minutes.   But  one of these
animals, immersed in water at 94.° Fahr.  died in  ten minutes,
remaining stretched out, its muscular system completely  re-
laxed, after  the cessation of the vital functions.   It is well
 known also, that cadaveric contraction of the muscles, which
is the last  effort of the lowest animal function, irritability,
takes place to a greater extent, and lasts longer, in winter than
in summer.
   The   process  of crimping fish  illustrates this proposition.
 Fish are taken, and by a blow on the head sufficient suddenly
 to kill,  they are prevented from exhausting the last powers of
 life  by  prolonged  struggles;  before  cadaveric  contraction
 takes place, their  muscles are divided, by transverse sections
 with a knife, on both sides of  the body, and they are immedi-
 diately immersed in cold spring or well water.  In this state
 they are cooked. The effect is, that the remaining contractility
 of the  muscular fibre acts  so  powerfully, as to  make the fish
 so hard as even to crackle under the teeth.  A similar prepay
•Phil. TraM. R°7' Soe- 1805" 
 16          Peter on the  influence of Caloric.

 lion of common animal muscle, such as beef, would  make  it
 too  tough to be eaten; and hence the epicure always waits
 until the  cadaveric contraction has subsided, aud the irritabil-
 ity of the muscular fibre of his meat is completely exhausted
 before he permits it  to be brought to his table.   This,  it is
 well known, occurs much sooner in summer than in winter.
   The  preservative,  or even perhaps  exciting effects of cold
 on animal irritability or contractility, may explain  the action
 of the cold dash, in restoring suspended animation from faint-
 ing  or other causes.  No more efficient agent can, perhaps, be
 employed  to recover  individuals, who are suffering under
 the  effects  of  narcotic  poisons.   Dr.  Oppenheim, in his ac-
 count of  his travels in Turkey, records the fact that, if a per-
 son   happens to fall asleep near  a  poppy  field,  and  the
 wind from it blows over him, he gradually becomes narcotised
 and would die  if not relieved.  The country people, on  dis-
 covering any one in this situation, immediately bring cold wa-
 ter from ihe next well or spring and pour it over his face and
 body until he  is  recovered.  The  doctor  experienced in his
 own person the  beneficial effects of this practice.  It is well
 known  that an  intoxicated person may  be soon relieved by
 pouring cold water on his head,  and no more efficient means
 can  be employed, than  the cold dash, to relieve  persons who
 have been stunned by a stroke of electricity, or asphvxiated
 by breathing any deleterious gas.   Dr, Herbst, of Gottingen,
 has even shown,  that in  cases of poisoning with the powerful
 prussic or hydro*cyanic acid, no remedy is  so much to be  re-
 lied on as the cold dash.  In short, in all  cases in which the
 nervous powers  have been suddenly oppressed, as  in  narcot-
 ism or aspyhxia/rom any cause, the forcible application of cold
 water—which seems to act only by reducing the heat of the
 the body—is the most efficient remedy; while the application
 of hot water, or any  other means of heating the body, is the
 most effectual mode of destroying the latent spark of  vitality
 that  may remain  in the  body.   An experiment of Legallois
illustrates this proposition. On cutting the eight pair of nerves
 in animals, he found that the glottis  became partly closed and 
             Petbr on  the influence of Caloric.          17

they soon died from the consequent imperfection  of the respi-
ratory process.  A puppy that was warm and vigorous  died
in half an hour, after  the section of this nerve, but another,
that was torpid with cold, lived a whole day.
   These facts throw some  light on the rationale of the ex*
ceedingly injurious effects of the sudden application of heat,
to parts of the body that are frozen, or much benumbed  with
cold; and they lead us reasonably to doubt, whether the gen-
eral want of success in the efforts made to recover the  anima-
tion of persons asphyxiated by drowning, may not be as much
owing to the sudden and too  great application of heat, in
accordance with  the popular prejudices,  as to any other
cause.  And they may remind the accoucheur, that suspend-
ed animation in the new-born infant, while it may be destroy-
ed by the application of hot water, might be most probably
recovered by that of cold.
   The effects of the  momentary application of heat or cold,
are somewhat different from  those of their continued applica-
tion.  Long continued application of heat, we have seen, by
retarding the process of assimilation, lessens the temperature-
producing power in animals; but the momentary application of
heat,  by exciting the surface of the body, rendering it hot and
red with the  blood thus invited to it, increases for a time the
power of endurance of cold.   Thus,  a person who has just
warmed himself at the fire can bear great cold, for'  a short
time,  much better than one who has been  for sometime ex-
posed to a low temperature;  and the  Russians  and  inhabi-
tants  of Finland, after remaining for a  short time in their hot
vapour baths, are able to plunge into rivers, filled  with floating
ice, or roll themselves in the  snow, without any unpleasant
feeling! in fact, the cold, by reducing the too great excitement
of the skin, counteracts the weakening effects of the previous
hot bath and gives even  an agreeable sensation.   On the
other hand,  the momentary application of cold, instead of in-
creasing the power  of generating  animal  heat, as  the  long
continued  application  of a moderately low temperature  is
known to do, actually,  by  causing spasm of the surface and
   Vol. XI (N. S. 3)No. 2.                12 
  18           Peter  on the influence of Caloric.

 sending the blood to the interior—thus disturbing somewhat the
 circulation, decreases, until reaction takes  place, the  power
 of producing heat  or enduring cold.
   This obvious effect of heat and cold, in exciting or depres-
 sing the circulation and action of the skin, aid us in  explain-
 ing, what is apparently an anomaly; the fact, that the inhabi-
 tants of hot climates,  and persons of a sanguine temperament,
 are better able to  support, for a time, the  rigours of severe
 cold, than (he inhabitants of cold countries or persons of a
 phlegmatic temperament-  This fact was observed by Larrey.
 He states that the  Russians, and  the inhabitants of the cold
 and northern countries of  Europe, suffered more in  the  disas-
 trous campaign in Russia, than the French, or those who were
 from tho  hot  and southern parts.  As an example, he states,
 that of the third regimentof  Holland Grenadiers, composed
 of seventeen  hundred and  eighty-seven  men,  who  went to
 Russia, only forty-one  were alive two years  after.   On the
 same principle, the inhabitants of cold countries, whose sur-
 face is rendered hard and inactive by the long continued ac-
 tion of cold, are less seriously affected by intense heat, for a
 time after their removal to a hot climate, than  the inhabitants
 of those countries  themselves.
   The continued application of heat, we have  seen,  has the
 effect of weakening the nervous energies, and particularly the
 irritability or contractility of the system.  It may, therefore, be
 employed as an important agent in the hands of the physician
 and surgeon. It has indeed been thus employed, but not generally
 nor  extensively.  Dr. Crawford, in 1781, inferred from his ex-
 periments that the application of the "warm-bath cools the sys-
 tem, and removes the tendency to inflammation."  Professor
 Graves of Dublin,* states, "that in 1833 a violent influenza,
"accompanied  by most distressing  headache, attacked thous-
 ands ih Dublin; this intense pain'in  the head was relieved  by
 nothing  so effectually  as  by diligent steeping the temples,
 forehead, occiput,  and  nape   of  the  neck, with water  its

  "Clinical Lectures,-p ST, Bell's Select Med. Library. 
              Pkter on the influence of Caloric.           19
  hot as could be:borne." This fact, he states, was first discover-
  ed by Mr. Smith, in 1833. who was unexpectedly relieved of
  violent headache by  bathing his head  in hot water, and he
  asserts that it was also discovered by Dr. Oppenheim.  We
  believe, however, that the  Professor is in error in relation to
  the date and author of the discovery of the  beneficial effects
  of hot water, topically applied, in cases of irritation or inflam-
  mation, for it is notorious in our region of country, that with
  Professor Dudley, of Transylvania University, this has been
  a favorite and most  successful remedy  for  a   great many
  years.  We  will  give one case,  illustrative  of  its efficaey,
  kindly communicated by Dr. Pawling,  who experienced the
 remedial effects of hot water in his own person.
   "In the month  of November, 1835, I had  a  violent attack
 of fever, attended with derangement of the digestive organs,
 great determination of blood to the brain, extreme watchful-
 ness,  and partial  delirium: so intense was the cerebral excite-
 ment, that I was unable to sleep for four days and  nights.   In
 the meantime, I was freely vomited with tartar emetic and ipe-
 cacuanha, and purged with calomel. These remedies, while they
 lessened the febrile excitement, produced no  alleviation of the
 pain and fulness of my head. At the suggestion of Dr. Bush, hot
 water was poured upon my head.   This application produced
 the most soothing and delightful sensations; "my head was  en-
 tirely  relieved and the nervous system quieted, which was fol-
 lowed by a pleasant sleep.
  "Although I continued very ill for ten or twelve days, after
 the first application of the hot water, a repetition  of it  never
 failed  to relieve the head.                          :
  "I  have been in the habit, for  manv years, of snon"iii<T  the
 body  freely with warm water  in almost every form of  fever,
 with the  most decided  benefit, yet 1 never'used it  by pouring
 it on the head until after it was applied in my own case; since
 that time, 1 have used it in every case of fever, that has come
 under  my care,  where there' Was  much puin andfulness of
 the head; and the result of my observation, is, thai it  never
fails to alleviate the pain in  the head and quiet the nervous 
20..          Pitkr on  the influence ef Caloric.
system; in truth, it is  the best  anodyne known in such cases;
it also produces an abatement of the fever and promotes the
operation of calomel or other purgative medicine."
  To prevent or allay irritation, as we have stated, bathing
with hot water, as hot as can be borne, for a sufficient length
of time, has been  long a  favorite remedy  in the practice of
Dr.. Dudley, more  particularly in  his surgical  practice; and
he is able to detail a great number of cases  in which  this
means has been almost wonderfully successful.   This part of
our subject we expect will be taken up and treated more ex-
tensively, by other hands more competent to do it full justice;
we-will.merely.,.in this place, give a concise history of two
cases,  which lately occurred in the surgical practice of Dr.
Bush, (Adjunct Professor of Anatomy  and Surgery in Tran-
sylvania University,) illustrative of the efficacy of this agent
in allaying or preventing inflammation.
   Cash I.—Early in the present month, Aug. 1838, a young man
of this city, received a lacerated wound in his right hand from
a rail-road car.   The injury was about five inches in extent,
passing obliquely  across  the  wrist  and hand; lacerating all
the soft parts, including  fascia, tendons,  nerves, and most of
the blood-vessels, quite down to the carpal bones. This wound
was dressed by drawing its edges together with adhesive strips
and passing a roller bandage over the whole, fingers, hand and
arm,   The  case was then submitted to the action of warm
water, which was applied every hour for thirty-six, as hot as
could be borne; hot enough indeed speedily to  separate the
cuticle. Under this treatment the wound healed by the first
intention, and  in three days after the accident  the  wound
was cured, except a small part of  the carpal arch, which was
suppurating finely.
   Case II.—March, 1838.  A boy, aged  sixteen, was wound-
ed in the right hand  by the discharge of a pistol.  The wad
entered at  the lower part of the wrist and passing longitudi-
nally through the palm of the hand,  came  out between the
little finger and  the  ring finger;  laying the parts open, in its
progress,  down to the inter-osseous muscles.  The wound 
Pkter on the  influence of Caloric.          21
was cleansed from  the powder and the remains of the wad,
dressed in the same manner as the  last case, and similarly
submitted to  the influence of hot water.  It  united  in about
seventy hours; the upper extremity of the wound, only, sup-
purating for a few days after.
  These  effects, we think, we may very  properly  attribute,
mainly to the  agency of caloric:—the water aided in keeping
the parts soft and clean,  but the beneficial results were most
probably the result  of the influence of the heat, in keeping
do.vn irritation and inflammation within healthy limits. Indeed
late experiments on animals, which we cannot precisely quote
at present, have proven,  that wounds are more rapidly  healed
in hot air than in cold, an effect which could only be attrib-
uted to the agency of the caloric.
  High temperature, momentarily applied,  has been used with
great success, in some cases, as an excitant or derivative rem-
edy.  Hot water, as a rubefacient or vesicatory, is very quick
in its action  and may  sometimes  be  advantageously  em-i
ployed.  In croup  particularly, it has  been latterly very high-
ly  recommended.   Professor Graves, some time ngo, in the
Dublin medical journal, directed to bathe the throat and chest
with very hot  water, in this formidable disease.
  The long continued application of cold, while it reduces the
temperature of the body, preserves, or increases its irritabili-
ty, and renders it more sensitive to the impressions of heat.
An inflamed part bathed in cold water, reacts powerfully when
the bathing is  intermitted, and a part that is frozen or render-
ed torpid by intense cold, is unable to  bear without injury the
action of the sudden  application of heat.   Hence those per
sons who are partial to  the  use of cold water or ice,  in the
treatment of fever or inflammation, are careful not to intermit
the use of tl.e cold application until their object is effected; for
the reaction,  which  would result, would more  than counter-
balance the beneficial agency of the cold.   It will be seen
that the application of either heat or  cold, above or below a
certain medium temperature, (about 68 or  70°,) tends  to re-
duce nervous action.  There is this important difference, how> 
 22          Peteii on  the influence of Culoric.

ever, in  their mode of  action on the animal  economy, viz:
that the application of heat reduces  the irritability of the sys-
tem, while cold application?, while they may reduce  the gen-
eral nervous  eneigies, seem to preserve, or even augment ir-
ritability; rendering the system more sensitive to the applica-
tion of caloric and less able to support  its effects, and hence
inducing, in some cases, a  reaction, after their  use,  which
more than counterbalances their good effects.
   To understand  these subjects fully  we conceive to be a
matter of great importance to the medical man, as it it evident
that caloric is a most powerful agent, for good or evil, in  health
or disease. It isanagent  the remedial use of which in a judicious
manner, must be of great value in a number of cases of disease;
the  action of which  affects, more or  less,  the results of
most cases.   Reflecting on these facts, it is a matter of some
surprise that caloric has  been so much neglected by writers on
the  materia  medica  and  therapeutics.   It  undoubtedly de-
serves a prominent place among remedial agents; and a more
general and thorough study of its effects on the animal econo-
my, would prevent much of the too  common abuse  of the
heroic medicines. 
 
 
 


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