The scurvy is admitted to arise from salt provisions, but in these the milder animal fluids are separated and in part decomposed; the texture of the animal fibre is also destroyed, and in reality the disease arises from a want of the supply of that bland aliment which corrects the acrimony formed by the animal process. We have evidence of the same cause producing a similar state, where unalimentary food has been for a long time taken, though without salt. It has occurred, however, only in damp, confined situations, and each cause seems to have concurred in producing debility and destroying irritability. It may be said that if this were true, bland mild nourishment should be its most effectual cure: but nourishment of this kind is not sufficiently stimulant to excite the torpid fibres; and while the state of the fluids requires acids and acescents, perhaps oxygen, the stomach is best excited by the warmer vegetables. See Scorbutus. Other acrimonies have not been distinctly pointed out. Effects similar to those of scurvy were found by Dr. Stark to arise from a diet on sugar: but he had before tried so many experiments, that his constitution was exhausted. A saccharine acrimony, if it may be called so, is conspicuous in the diabetes mellitus. We have seen a sweet secretion of a similar nature in the mouth, and have reason to suspect that the discharge in lientery is of the same kind. See Lienteria.

One other source of acrimony remains, viz. the aro-matics. They are much insisted on by pathologists, but we have found little foundation for accusing them. We have suspected their noxious influence in those diseases of the bladder which in old age are connected with a tenderness at its neck, or some affection of the prostate gland; but it is a suspicion which rests on a slender basis. Since, however, in such cases they are not necessary as medicines, they may perhaps be more safely avoided.

The subtility of modern investigators has, however, added to this subject a source of humoral diseases, not suspected in the schools of the mechanical physicians, and which has not yet received a public share of the pathologist's attention; we mean those changes which depend on the composition of the animal fluids. We may repeat shortly, that the carbone and the oxygen of vegetable bodies are converted by the animal process into nitrogen and hydrogen; but they still, in a certain degree exist, and the change of the oxygen gradually going on has been supposed the cause of animal heat. It is at least certain that a large proportion of oxygen is connected with a fresh florid colour of the blood, with increased vigour and activity of the circulating system, probably with an increased firmness of the simple solid. When therefore in excess, it constitutes a morbid state: such is the extreme of vigour, which, when the balance of the circulation is destroyed, favours topical congestions.

On the contrary, oxygen is too copiously expended in different circumstances, so that its defect is equally morbid. It is too copiously separated in the active exertions of body and mind; but the former, if in the open air, greedily attracts the necessary supply both from the atmosphere and the food for which, by exercise, a craving desire is excited. In low, damp situations, and in a confined air, it is not supplied. If the food is unalimentary, the expenditure will exceed the supply; if the bodily exertions are slight, and the mental ones considerable, the excess of expenditure will be more obvious in the symptoms. These are, languid circulation, a pale cadaverous look, diminished irritability, and impaired vigour. In such circumstances the oxygen does not always appear deficient in quantity, but is not evolved in the due proportion, since it probably produces its effects in the period of its separation. Thus oxygenated remedies are not useful in the proportion of their quantity of oxygen, but in that of its loose adherence. The oxygenated muriats are by this means more beneficial than the mineral acids; and of these the nitrous is, from the same cause, superior to the muriatic, and the latter to the vitriolic, acid. An argument we think equally decisive may be drawn from the effects of light. This principle certainly separates oxygen from those bodies which contain it; but dark apartments show in their inhabitants a deficiency of this principle. In fact, it is apparently present, but too closely united to show its peculiar effects.

With the excess and deficiency of oxygen are connected the opposite proportions of azote, or nitrogen. They seem in the human body antagonising principles; but though they form air by an union not perhaps properly chemical, we cannot trace the effects of such an union, for the halitus of the insensible perspiration, if not azote, is carbonic acid gas. With hydrogen, however, the oxygen forms water; and when the oxygen disappears we sometimes see, or suspect we see, watery effusions.

We can scarcely ever discover the consequences of an excess of hydrogen or carbone. The singular stories of the spontaneous combustion of the whole body may appear to be of this kind, and to support the delusion, we are told that the victims have been persons accustomed to excesses of drinking spirits; but from such casual facts no general conclusion can be drawn. We may, with equal truth, attribute the pimples of the drunkard's face to the brandy which he has swallowed, producing an halitus of hydrogen, instead of carbonic acid gas, or azote, while they probably arise only from continued and excessive stimulus.

We have found in the blood traces of sulphur, though we are unable to discover its source. We see its excess or its separation in cancerous sores, and some malignant ulcers, which, we are told by Dr. Crawford, discharge an hepatised ammonia. The source of this sulphur, and its deposition, seems subjects equally intricate. Is this (according to modern chemists) the most truly elementary body, really a composition ? Is azote a component part ? or what are the consequences of an union of azote and hydrogen ?"Doceat Dies !"