[198]. Transactions of Stockholm.
[199]. Cystic Oxide, discovered by Dr. Wollaston in 1815: it does not affect vegetable colours, and has all the chemical habitudes of an oxide.
[200]. Dr. Marcet discovered two calculi, which were not referable to any of the known species; but they are not introduced into the following table, as they may never again occur; at all events, from their extreme rarity, they cannot be considered as objects of practical interest. To one of these he has given the name of Xanthic Oxide, because it forms a lemon coloured compound when acted upon by Nitric acid. To the other nondescript calculus he has bestowed the appellation of Fibrinous, from its resemblance to Fibrine.
[201]. I am by no means disposed to reject altogether, as a popular fallacy, the general opinion in favour of the anti-lithic virtues of malt liquor; the observations which have been already offered (page 79) will explain how such agents may occasionally operate in assisting digestion. In the observations made upon the Bills of Mortality in the year 1662, by an ingenious citizen, concerning the increase of some diseases, and the decrease of others, it is observed “The Stone and Strangury decreaseth, from the drinking of Ale.”
[202]. In consultation with Dr. Baillie, some few months before his death, he said to me “although I have never published the opinion, I am satisfied that after a patient has long laboured under diseased liver, the blood becomes surcharged with alkaline matter.”
[203]. See an explanation of this term in the note, at page 112.
[204]. It is, says Dr. Prout, a very old observation, that injuries of the back produce alkaline urine; “it also appears,” continues this author, “to hold in other animals as well as in man; thus I have frequently observed jaded and worn-out horses pass great quantities of lime in their urine; I have known the same also to take place in dogs, and particularly of the sporting kinds; and in both these instances have thought it probable, that the circumstance was connected with some strain or injury of the back produced by over-exertion, or other causes.”
[205]. I have in my possession a splendid specimen of this triple salt, in large and well defined crystals, covering a portion of a decayed beam; it was sent to me by my friend Mr. Marshall, from whom I learnt that it had been taken from a privy belonging to a public house in Southwark. I lent the specimen to the late Mr. Wilson, in order that he might exhibit it in his lectures before the College of Surgeons, and he has published a description of it in his work on the Urinary and Genital Organs.
[206]. A question has arisen respecting the comparative efficacy of the two fixed alkalies upon these occasions. See Sodæ Sub-carbonas.
[207]. For an account of the celebrated remedy of Mrs. Stephens, see Liquor Calcis.