(seq. 25)

16

Introduction

Materia Alimentaria

nourishment, or into such as are easy or difficult of digestion.

Materia Alimentaria. Dr Cullen
has done more than any proceeding Author on this subject,
it is much the most correct and important part of his
treatise. He has ascribed nutrition to a vegetable acid sugar and
oil, he supposes vegitable matter absolutely necessary for
Nutrition, this he infers from all matter undergoing a
ferment in the stomach, and for the want of vegitables,
bringing on the scurvy; an acid appears in vegitables
combined with sugar and mucilage, not to mention
the native acid of sugar from experience and extensive
observation I am led to conclude that a vegitable acid
is not absolutely required for nutrition, nor is it essential
to animal life as Dr Cullen spposed, some of the most
healthy and robust nations subsist without them, even in scurvy
they are not always necessary as fresh meat is sometimes
more efficatious in curing their disease, than vegitables.
Dr Cullens fundimental physiological principle was
eronious, and no doubt contributed to increase the
number of mistakes in this work. He supposed the digestion