years 1811 and 1813, I have through the kindness of different friends had ample opportunities of extending my experiments, and to my former list of wines, already copious, a few additions have been made, of which I have from time to time given notice, and which are put down in the following table. It does not seem necessary, in this place, to allude to the experimental details, nor to notice the precautions required in conducting the distillations, as these are fully given in the papers above noticed, I have therefore omitted the column, which will be found in the Philosophical Transactions (1811, page 345.) showing the specific gravity of the distilled liquor, upon which the calculations are founded.

bitters called Portland powder, the ginger tea of sir Joseph Banks, the Eau Medicinale of Dr. Husson, the Hellebore of Mr. Moore, or the Colchicum of sir Everard Home. They are all founded in ignorance of the general laws that regulate the physiology and pathology of the human system. The forms of gout are various; and so dissimilar, as to make us hesitate whether we should give a common name to diseases of such heterogeneous appearances. The disease is a diathesis, or constitution that has gradually become morbid; habitually, the consequence of some years of imprudence and indulgence; which sometimes occasions one part and sometimes another to be affected, as the particular part affected is less liable to resist the effect of morbid action. This gouty diathesis, or habitual morbid action producing local irregularities of the circulating fluids, may be relieved by medicine, but can only be cured by regimen; not by a medicine that is to operate as a charm. If a fit of the gout be taken off by the eau medicinale for instance, it is only to reappear with more force at a shorter period than usual. Judge Cooper took up the theory of acidity as one of the primary causes of gout, induced I suppose by his professional habit of considering subjects in a chemical point of view, and the change induced in the chemical nature of the fluids by particular modes of diet: and there is no doubt of his facts; or of his reasoning upon those facts so far as they go. But gout depends, not merely on acid and an acid state of the bodily fluids, which Í believe are always present in gouty persons, but also on morbid action of the overloaded and highly stimulated solids; stimulated if you please into morbid action by acid secretions; whereby the blood is irregularly impelled, and local plethora and inflammation, for the most part, excited. Hence a fit of the gout, is in most cases, a salutary effort of nature to relieve the system; and we ought not suddenly to remove it if we could, where it affects a part that puts life in no danger; as the toe or the ankle.

In experimenting with wines, judge Cooper took four ounces by measure of the common vinegar used for domestic purposes, and saturated it with the salt of tartar of the shops, till it would no longer change the colour of litmus paper, either blue or red. Four ounces of vinegar required of this salt of tartar to

193 grains

19

21 1-3

24

24

25 1-3

25 1-3

Hence upon the average from to part of wine, consists of vinegar of the usual strength with that commonly used at table. This vinegar in wine, consists, partly of acetic acid, and partly of tartaric acid formed or developed during the fermentation of the juice of the grape, and which is contained in far greater quantity in new, than in old wines. Both these acids, appear to be con

vertible by the usual processes of digestion and assimilation in the human body, into the lithic and phosphoric acids. The diathesis of gout occasions the lithic acid to be formed in morbid abundance. Hence the chalk stones of the gout, the gravel of the kidnies, and the stone in the bladder. Physicians who are chemists know this. Physicians who are not chemists, and who take for granted that the state and composition of the fluids of the body, have nothing to do with disease, will do well to reconsider their opinions.

About a year afterwards, Dr. Anthony Carlisle of London, F. R.S. F.S.A. F.L.S. with half a dozen more titles of honour annexed to his professional name, published an Essay on the disorders incident to old age; in which he takes the same view of the subject as judge Cooper has done: and his experiments are well worth presenting to the reader.

TABLE of the Medicinal Alkalis and Earths required to neutralize the Free Acids contained in certain Wines, and Malt Liquors.

'The Alkalis and Earths used in Medicine, as correctives for acidity in the stomach, and obtained from Apothecaries' Hall, were preferred for obvious reasons.

Specimens of several kinds of good Wines from Gentlemen's cellars were employed, without any regard to the years of vintage or the dates of bottling, and the average of numerous trials upon Wines of 'different qualitics are faithfully recorded.

'Due time was always allowed for the operation of the tests, and much pains bestowed upon ascertaining the exact state of neutralization.

The facts elicited from those trials, being wholly intended for medicinal and dietetic application, all particular minutiæ are intentionally omitted.

'Some remarkable and unexpected discordances occurred in the relative proportions of Alkalis and Earth, required to neutralize different wines, and which may be owing to the varying affinities of native acids, derived from the fruits, and the acid products of fermentation, as they regarded the several tests.

The peculiar acids of Fermented Liquors being at present but imperfectly known to Chymists, some practical good may arise from this gross display of acid liquors, both in the adaptation of the medicinal doses of anti-acids, and in the choice of wines where disordered acidity of the stomach prevails.

The annexed table exhibits gross proofs of the quantity of Free Acid contained in some ordinary fruits, and which may serve as a dietetic indication; exclusive of the additional acid produced by fermentation in the stomach.

'TABLE of the Medicinal Alkalis and Earths required to neutralize the Acid Juices contained in Lemons, Oranges, and certain Apples.

The sum of these tabulated experiments may be practically reduced to the following conclusions. An average bottle of ordinary Port Wine contains as much acid as will demand 38 grains of magnesia. or 7 of carbonate of potash, to saturate it: or the free acid in a bottle of Port wine may be roughly computed as equal to that of two lemons, or four nonpareil apples.

A habit of drinking any diluent liquors very freely, appears to be pernicious; such fluids not only relax the stomach, but also present the best medium for fermentations of the most unwholesome kind.

'Every medical man ought to possess more accurate knowledge of the disorders which have occurred in his own person, than of those which belong to others; and I am satisfied, from that source of experience, that acids not only act upon the stomach and its contents, but they likewise pervade the whole body. I have constantly had an eruption of serous pimples on the skin within two hours after eating crude fruits; and have repeatedly felt a gouty pain and swelling in the large joint of the great toe, while drinking half a pint of Claret; and similar facts have been mentioned to me by numerous patients.

'If the gout should be a humoral disease, occasioned by alimentary acids, then the diet and the corrective remedies are obvious; and experience seems to support this notion. That the gout is not a disease wholly attributable to fermented liquors is certain, because many water drinkers, and restrictive vegetable eaters, are subject to its attacks; but, perhaps, the true source of gout in such temperate persons may be found in the crude and fermentable articles of their diet. It is both an act of justice to the public and myself to add, that my practice, whenever it has come in contact with gouty persons, has been governed by the preceding views, and attended with unvarying beneficial results."

In these tables then, of Mr. Brande, judge Cooper, and Dr. Carlisle, we have a full view of the constitution and effects of wine as to the quantity of ardent spirit, and of acid it contains. Now, if the stimulus of ardent spirits be calculated to produce excessive action at first, and debility afterwards-and if an acid state of the fluids have a tendency to produce or exacerbate gout and stone, which are beyond all doubt, essentially acid disorders, then is it any wonder, that wine should produce morbid action, and acid fluids? and that acid fluids should give birth to acid calculi, and acid gout-stones?

The considerations suggested by these tables, are so obvious and so interesting, that I think your readers will be very glad to see them for the first time thus brought under one view; and be induced perhaps, not to quit the use entirely, but to use moderately a beverage, which is so mischievously agreeable.

The following verses in praise of wine, are true only, when that liquor is taken as a medicine, or in great moderation at meals. As applied to the common use of wine in this country, they are a collection of panegyrical falsehoods. It is more truly and appropri ately said, that gout is the offspring of Bacchus and Venus; nor is the child a favourite either with father or mother. In good truth, Bacchus and his offspring, have great reason to be ashamed of each other.