Colonial North America: Countway Library of Medicine

20

Materia Alimentaria

Chyle, Sugar

able to detect an acid except when digestion was imperfect. Dr More Supposes an excess of acid to arise from a morbid secretion of the stomach, as in cases of Dyspepsia, there are few if any nutrients obtained from the Mineral Kingdom, they are merely condiments. Chyle. Is never found in the stomach, hence food is not properly digested in this organ, in proof of the Pylorus has been tyed and the absorbents of the stomach have been found distended with a limpid fluid. I believe Chyle is formed in the whole tract of the primae via. Dr Haller found Lacteals even in the Rectum. Sugar. This is one of the most nutritious articles used in the food of man, and vegitables are so in proportion to the quantity of saccharinic matter they contain. It is obtained in great quantities from the Date, Fig, Raisins, and Beets. I lived by the advice of Dr Cullen when in Edinburgh 6 months on Dates for the gout. Farina and Sugar, are naturally changed into each other in malting the farina is changed into sugar hence in vegitables sometime we obtain a large quantity of sugar, at another farina. Dr Willis observes that sugar freely used

56

Materia Medica

Astringents

an attraction between the particles of the skin, and the astringent principle which in some manner produce condensation, but reasoning on the operation of medicine from what takes place on dead matter is extremely fallacious, corrugation and increased absorption would seem to have taken place in the following instance. A physician injected into the stomach of a dog two ℥ [ounces] of a strong astringent decoction, two days after he opened the dog and found the stomach contracted. Its cavity nearly obliterated, and its pylorus closed. I have seen the most obstinate costiveness induced by eating a few tamarinds. The power of astringents are communicated verry rapidly to distant parts, we need not be surprised at this, since stimulants and tonics act with equal rapidity. I onc attended a Lady labouring under quotidian fever which had resisted the common remidies. I gave her arsenic pills, composed each of one sixteenth of a grain, one to be taken night and morning, they had the effect of checking the paroxisms in twenty four hours. Astringents also act on vegitables. I cut three slips of a branch in a horisontal direction, to the one was applied sulfate of allum in solution, to an other