Transubstantiation

“ Some there are that will have the Food to be dissolv'd by a Menstruum, which is supply'd from the Glands of the Stomach, or some other way: But those that do so far agree in the General, as to think Concoction is perform'd by a Dissolvent, do differ in their Notions of the Nature of the Menstruum: For there are some that suppose it to be an Acid, which does erode the grosser parts of the Food, and dissolves them in the same manner as Vinegar, Spirit of Vitriol, {156} or any such-like Acid, will dissolve even so solid a Body as Iron. ”

“ To do this, he took some decaying animal or vegetable substance, such as urine, which is an extremely decomposable substance, or the juice of yeast, or perhaps some other artificial preparation, and filled a vessel having a long tubular neck with it. He then boiled the liquid and bent that long neck into an S shape or zig-zag, leaving it open at the end. The infusion then gave no trace of any appearance of spontaneous generation, however long it might be left, as all the germs in the air were deposited in the beginning of the bent neck. ”

“ I. In the separation of such an alkaloid as strychnia, for example, the suspected material is first of all acidulated by one of the weaker mineral or stronger vegetable acids (hydrochloric acid is best) , and the whole carefully heated over a water bath. After a time this mixture is to be filtered, and the filtrate well washed with boiling distilled water, and the filtered fluid subjected to evaporation. When dry the substance is to be rubbed up with distilled water, and again filtered; this process to be repeated until a tolerably pure product be obtained. ”

“ If these views are correct, it should be possible to trace such substances as are in harmony with the body, but not with the blood and its plasma, by looking for definite ferments. It is quite conceivable that, in certain diseases, the cells only partially effect the decomposition of the nutritive material and of the constituents of the body, and that, to a certain extent, materials that are harmonious only with the cells are handed on to the lymph. ”

“ For although you dissolve Antimony, or any other metal or mineral in spirit of salt, or of vitriol, or of salt nitre, or any other acid spirit, and then think to let it work with wine or any other drink, you will find that it doth not succeed; for the acid spirit will hinder the fermentation, and let fall the dissolved metals, and so spoyl the work; and besides, Tartar may be used among all drinks, and doth more agree with ones taste and stomach, than any corrosive spirit. ”

“ Of such a kind probably are, the change of albumen into fibrine; the changes which take place in the starchy matters of the food before they can be oxidized into carbonic acid; and the changes that must occur in nitrogenous substances before absorption, as well as those that accompany afterwards the downward progress of the same materials, from living tissue into Urea and Uric acid, to be finally excreted from the system. It is a curious fact that nearly every known product of organic fermentation has been discovered in the human body in health or in disease. ”

“ The absence from the solution or substance of any obnoxious or inimical substances which would destroy or retard the action of the living organism and agent. Many of the products of fermentation are themselves antiseptics, as in the case of alcohol; hence alcoholic fermentation always arrests itself at a certain point. ”

“ When all the circumstances necessary to produce fermentation do not take place, animal, like vegetable matter, is liable to a partial or imperfect decomposition, which converts it into a combustible substance very like spermaceti. ”

“ Since physiological tests are, in many cases, much more sensitive than chemical tests, they have often been used for the identification of traces of poison isolated from a body. Thus a small quantity of a particular alkaloid will produce certain characteristic physiological results when injected into the circulatory system of a small animal, and should precisely the same results be obtained by the injection of the unknown substance, the obvious inference to be drawn is that the two substances are identical. ”

“ A second error of the uric acid advocates, flowing from their first error of naming the poison, is to pour their acids and alkalies into the blood with the childlike faith that, like good children, the acids and alkalies will go in there and do just what they were told to do, neutralize the uric acid, and get out. They assume that the chemistry of the acids and alkalies is as simple inside of the body as it is outside of it and that the blood is simply a passive mixture of chemicals. ”

“ The many forms of organic acids—as the malic, tartaric, oxalic, citric, etc.—and a variety of alkaloids and other bodies are also products of destructive metabolism, which may be deposited in the various tissues as waste materials, or some of them may be changed by soluble ferments into forms which may be again utilized in the economy of the plant. The organic acids and tannin of green fruits, for example, are converted into sugar in the process of ripening by ferments formed from the protoplasm of the fruit cells. ”

“ Almost all vegetable matters are susceptible of putrefaction; but some of them rot sooner, and others more slowly. As putrefaction is only a species of fermentation, the effect whereof is to change entirely the state of the Acid, by combining it with a portion of the earth and Oil of the mixt, which are so attenuated that from this union there results a new saline substance in which no Acid is discernible ”

“ The doctor (Cullen) appears to have founded his opinion on the idea, that all vegetable substances, when taken into the stomach, undergo a fermentation, whereby an acid is evolved; and "as this entirely disappears with the progress of the aliment, without being again evident in the mass of blood," so he supposed it undoubtedly entered into the composition of the animal fluid. That an acetous fermentation takes place in the human stomach in a healthy state, we entirely reject, as will appear in what follows ”

“ They render the medium they grow in alkaline, produce different gases and elaborate more or less virulent toxins. Other species set up an acid fermentation, seldom accompanied by gas or toxin formation. ”

“ A chemical can be excreted from the body without metabolism, in which case the parent compounds may be detectable in the urine, breath, or fecal material. In other cases, the chemical may be metabolized through oxidation, reduction, hydrolysis, or a combination of these processes, often followed by conjugation with an endogenous substrate. Conjugation of a chemical or metabolite is a pathway for excretion. ”

“ We know that, following the intake even of non-purin-containing foodstuffs, an increase in uric acid excretion ensues, and that the same is the outcome of the stimulation of general nuclein metabolism. [199] Is it not conceivable that the responsible toxin acts in like fashion, and haply by disturbing the orderly sequence of those exquisitely delicate enzymatic reactions which culminate in the formation of uric acid, and with which potentialities every living cell in the organism is dowered? ”

“ Yeasts cause the decomposition of saccharine substances into alcohol and carbon dioxide, acetic and lactic ferments produce from sugar or from alcohol the organic acids causing the souring of food, moulds as a rule cause oxidation and complete destruction of organic matter, nitrogenous or saccharine, while most bacteria act mainly upon the nitrogenous constituents, producing albumoses and peptones and breaking up the complex albumen-molecule into numerous smaller molecules often allied to alkaloids, generally with the production of evil-smelling gases. ”

“ The disharmonious product is decomposed into indifferent by-products which are harmless to the cell. More energetic means are often employed, and the material is oxidized or reduced according to the special needs of the cell. Even in these simple forms of life it is probable that many substances are rendered harmless by combining to form fresh compounds, just as, in the metabolism of a more complicated organism, rearrangements of different kinds are undergone which alter such materials as are undesirable, so that they may be excreted in this form out of the body. ”

“ When left to itself, the process of fermentation in most of these sugary or starchy liquids will come to a standstill after a while, because the alcohol, when it reaches a certain strength in the liquid, is, like all other toxins, or poisons produced by germs, a poison also to the germ that produces it. ”

“ The products of either class are inimical to the free growth of members of the other. The species which produce acids are more resistant to the action of acids. Thus, when the contents of the stomach possess a normal or excessive proportion of free hydrochloric acid, a much larger number of putrefactive and pathogenic organisms in the food are destroyed or inhibited than of the bacteria of acid fermentation. ”

“ Further, it is possible that the substances, which we artificially introduce into the body, are not sufficiently fine in structure to produce specific ferments, specially directed against them. The cell gives off its particular disharmonious substances with their specific features stamped on them, while we, on the contrary, bring into the circulation material that has already been altered. ”

“ Thus if alkaline salts of organic acids be taken into the stomach, the organic material is oxidized, probably during the action of respiration, while the alkali passes into the urine in the state of carbonate. If, however, the organic acid be taken uncombined, it escapes decomposition, and, passing into the urine, produces an abundant precipitate of salts of lime. In the case of the tartaric acid and oxalic acids, some organic bodies, as aspharagine and the oil of turpentine, are decomposed, and the products which they form are execreted, giving to the urine peculiar odors ”

“ Diastase determines the change from starch to dextrine and sugar—saccharification; yeast, the change from sugar to alcohol—fermentation; mother of vinegar, the change from alcohol to acetic acid—acetification; and a peculiar mould, the change from acetic acid to CO2 and water. But what is far more wonderful and significant is, that, associated with each of these ferments, except diastase, and therefore with each of these descensive changes, except the change from starch to sugar, or saccharification, there is a peculiar [Pg 185] form of life. ”

“ Toxins are divided into two groups; namely exogenous, those formed in the alimentary canal from fermentation and decomposition following imperfect or faulty digestion. If the fermentation is of vegetables or fruit, the toxins are irritating, stimulating and enervating, but not so dangerous or destructive to organic life as putrefaction, which is a fermentation set up in nitrogenous matter--protein-bearing foods, but particularly animal foods. Endogenous toxins are autogenerated. They are the waste products of metabolism. ”

“ Is there not a contradiction between our methods of research, and the ideas developed above with respect to the cause of the origin of the defensive ferments? If we surmise that the defensive ferments serve the purpose of decomposing disharmonious substances, built up from numerous units, into their single units, then we must further agree that ferments are present which can carry on the decomposition at least so far, that the specific characteristics of the cells are entirely destroyed. ”

“ We may imagine that a ferment is directed against a simpler product of decomposition, and yet that it attacks at the same time a more complicated molecule, in so far as the group through which it attacks the substrate is actually present therein and within reach. ”

“ About the middle of this century there arose a new sect of chemical philosophers, somewhat better informed than the last. They imagined that most diseases depended on the predominance in the blood of acid or alkalic humours, and that each of these conditions should be counteracted by a direct chemical antidote. They supposed also that the various secretions were the products of fermentations in the blood which took place in the neighbourhood of the glandular organs. (Vide Eliminatives.) ”

“ Tin is absorbed in the course of its action, and may be detected in the liver, spleen, and urine, by boiling them in water acidulated with hydrochloric acid, evaporating the decoction to dryness, charring the residue by means of nitric acid as directed for copper, treating the carbonaceous mass with a mixture of twenty parts of hydrochloric acid and one of nitric acid, evaporating the solution to dryness so as to expel any excess of acid, dissolving what is left in hydrochloric acid diluted with twice its volume of water, and then transmitting hydrosulphuric acid gas. ”

“ Alcohol, chromic and picric acids, and bichromate of potash, preserve the corpuscles, though they alter their form. The preservative fluids are those whose composition approaches nearest to serum, such as the iodised serum of Schultze, an excellent preparation made with amniotic fluid, to which are added a few drops of the tincture of iodine, so as to give it the colour of white wine ”

“ We know that these microbes are kept at bay by the vitality of the tissues : if this vitality is lowered they may prevail: as soon as life departs they set to work, and decomposition is the result. It is, therefore, not very surprising that an agent, like alcohol, which, we have seen, lowers the vitality of constructive protoplasm, should, on the other hand increase the vitality of destructive protoplasm. ”