Dolæus upon the cure of the gout by milk-diet. Dolæus Johannes

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СКАЧАТЬ to prevent the Indolence of Matter; this active Principle or Medium giving an easy and reciprocal Transition of vegetable into animal Substances, and of animal into vegetable. I think it cannot be out of the Way here to observe, that the Change which the Aliment suffers in the human Body, is in some Measure reducible to this; for if a Man should live entirely upon acid Vegetables, acid Bread, and Fruits, drink Rhenish Wine, no Part of his Body or Juices would, upon Distillation, or other Tryal, yield the least Portion of an acid or fixed Salt, but constantly a volatile Alkali. There cannot indeed be supposed any perfect Putrefaction in the Bodies of Animals; for so soon as any Thing contained therein tends this Way, it is discharged as Excrement; all the Acids of the Aliment are subdued by the vital Powers of Animals, and converted into volatile Salts of an alkaline Nature; without an actual or real Putrefaction, yet by an Operation nearly approaching thereto: If these Salts were not discharged, before Putrefaction (as by examining the Excrement it appears they are) they must produce such terrible Effects as would immediately destroy the Animal.

      In examining vegetable Substances as Food, we must consider them as eaten Raw, as prepared by the Arts of Cookery, and as subjected to Fermentation. In the first Case they are sometimes the Food of Men, always of Animals that we feed upon; in the others the Food of Men alone.

      Raw Vegetables that become Parts of Animals, are bruised, ground, and comminuted by the proper animal Organs, and mixed with animal Juices in their Passage. By this Means their Juices are expressed; such of them as are capable of mixing with Water naturally, or by the intermediate Assistance of the Bile, are formed into one common fluid Mass or Chyle, which constitutes the first Nourishment of Animals; whence the Blood, Serum, Lymph, and other animal Juices are formed. From what was said before, this appears to be the Water, impregnated with the essential Salt, the Spirit, some Portion of its essential Oyls, mixed with the Water by Means of the Salt and the Bile; these by the vital Powers are formed into a white Liquor, which is the Chyle, not unfitly represented in the common making of Emulsions from oily Seeds. The Chyle still retains its vegetable Nature, and somewhat specifick to the Vegetable it came from; but when it hath been circulated several Times thro’ the Body, and thoroughly mixed with the Juices thereof, it acquires animal Properties; vegetable and animal Juices are pretty near of the same specifick Gravity, and consequently fit to repair each other; the different Impulses of Heat and Motion, with due Mixture, create the Difference; though this will always hold true, that an animal Body constantly repaired from vegetable Juices, cannot have so strong a tendency to a putrescent alkaline State, as a Body constantly repaired from animal Juices, already disposed to that State.

      The common Effects of the Art of Cookery upon Vegetables, will be understood by what happens in the Decoction of Plants. In boiling any Plant, its most sublime fluid Part flies off, and indeed it is incapable of bearing a greater Heat than that of the Summer Sun, the Salts of the Plant are dissolved in the Water, and its thicker and grosser Oyl rises to the Top, like a fat Scum; so long as the Plant retains any Taste or Odour, change the Water as often as you please, there will constantly arise a fat, odorous, viscous, inflammable and frothy Matter, which can be no other than the Oyl of the Plant loosened from the Salts. In Proportion then, as the Salts are dissolved in the boiling Water, the Oyl attenuated, as it must be before it can be so far specifically lighter as to arise to the Top, we are to judge how far the Art of Cookery is serviceable in the Preparation of vegetable Diet.

      From what was said before in relation to Fermentation, it is plain that the vegetable Oyls are much volatilized, rendred more active, and separated from the Salts; upon this Account it is, that they are endowed with an inebriating Quality, which is confined entirely to Wines, for no other Substance hath that Quality. No one was ever drunk with eating Grapes, or drinking Must or Wort before Fermentation. The stupifying Quality of Poppy, Henbane, Mandrakes, Nightshade, and other Plants of that Class, is very different from the Effects of Wine or its Spirit. The chief Effect of Fermentation, in Regard to Diet, is supposed to consist in rendring vegetable Substance less difficult to be overcome by the Action of animal Organs and Mixtures, and easier to the digestive Powers; but there are other good Effects not so commonly thought of; fermented vegetable Substance is very little subject to Putrefaction, and is a great Preservative against it. By the styptick Power that the Spirit is endowed with, the Tone of the Fibres is increased in Digestion, their Force enlarged, and consequently their Action greater upon the vegetable Parts, and a larger Quantity of animal Juices mixed with them; and it is no difficult Matter to imagine, that the inward Heat of an human Body should draw forth the Spirit of fermented Liquors.

      The Parts of Vegetables most used in Food, are the Seeds of Plants, our common Bread and Drink being made from them: These, by what was said before, contain the most elaborated Juices, the greatest Quantity of fine Oyl and Spirit, and are consequently most fit for Nourishment; several Fruits are eaten Raw, because their Juices are concocted to the utmost Degree of Perfection, and contain, in greatest Quantity, the finest and most elaborated vegetable Oyl, mixed with the essential Salts peculiar to each, which would be lost in Decoction: But the coarser Parts of Vegetables, as Roots, Leaves, Stalks, unripe Fruits, and Flowers, require the Arts of Cookery to be exercised upon them, to render them more easily subject to the animal Powers, and assimilable to their Juices.

      I design not to enter into the several specifick Differences of Vegetables, I hope I have said enough to explain their general Nature, and how they become reducible into animal Substances; I shall next consider these Substances in the same Manner.

      By all the Tryals yet made upon animal Substances, they are resoluble into the same Parts with Vegetables, only differently modified; that is, as we saw before, Water, Earth, Salt and Oyl, the specifick Spirit being no other than Water impregnated with the specifick and highest rectified Oyl and Salt, the Water and Earth in both are individually the same; and though there be good Reason to imagine, that there is originally but one Oyl in Nature, and that the fixt Salt of Vegetables, and the volatile Salt of Animals, may be originally the same, since transmutable into one another; yet it is necessary to examine these two Principles in animal Substances, that by comparing them with what we before discovered in Vegetables, we may have some Notion of their Differences with Regard to their Use in Diet.

      The great Excess of animal Heat and Motion, beyond what is necessary to Vegetables, the stronger and quicker Circulation of their Juices, necessarily require and occasion that the Oyls and Salts in animal Bodies should be differently modified from what they are in Vegetables. No Motion is performed in Animals without some Portion of Oyl, and perhaps Water too, to lubricate the Parts, and keep them supple; the Attrition would cause great Mischief, make the Motion uneasy, wear away and burn up the Parts, if they were not softned and moistned by an oily Fluid; and accordingly we find all the Muscles, Tendons, Joints and other Parts employ’d in Motion, to have Repositories of this Oyl placed about them, and that so artificially, that the Very Motion occasions the Diffusion of this Oyl upon them. There is an innate Principle of Heat or Fire, that attends the vital Powers, that may very well occasion the Change and Volatilization of Salts in animal Substances, in the same Manner as was before observed in the Putrefaction of Vegetables.

      Animal Oyls differ according to the Principles inherent in them, for when freed from Earth and Salts (which is very difficult by Reason of their mutual Attractions under certain Circumstances) they appear to be simple and unactive, and the same in all animal Bodies.

      By this Account then we are principally to regard the different Quantities and Degree of Volatility in these Salts, and the Degree of Consistence or Impregnation of animal Oyls with them. It must be observed, that the Salts in the Bodies of living Animals are not perfectly the same they appear to be, when extracted thence by chymical Resolutions; a great Alteration is made by the Fire, and a good deal by the Tendency all animal Substances have to Putrefaction, upon a Stagnation of their fluid Parts: Even in the Evaporation of human Blood (fresh drawn) by a gentle Fire, this Salt, though not perfectly fixed, will not rise, but only the Spirit: These Salts are of a mild attenuating Nature in healthy Bodies, whose vital Powers are sufficient to subdue the Substances they feed upon: But in such as have not that vital Power in that Degree, or commit Errors in Diet, where these Salts are not sufficiently attenuated, or the first Digestion stronger than the concoctive Powers or the Discharges, СКАЧАТЬ