A letter to Sir John Sinclair, Bart. concerning the virtues of the muriatic acid, or spirit of sea-salt, in the cure of putrid diseases / By Sir William Fordyce.

  • Fordyce, William, Sir, 1724-1792.
Date:
1790
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A letter to Sir John Sinclair, Bart. concerning the virtues of the muriatic acid, or spirit of sea-salt, in the cure of putrid diseases / By Sir William Fordyce. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    17/46 (page 7)
    Almoft thirty years have elapfed fince 1 heard by accident of a dry-falter, who had acquired a great reputation and a large for¬ tune, from poffeffing a fecret that had en¬ abled him to fend out to the Indies, and other hot countries, beef and pork. In a better (late of prefervation than any of the trade. As he was obferved to pour into each calk a fmall bottle of tranfparent liquor, it occurred to me, that this could be no other than the fpirit of fea-falt; and I began to wonder how a preparation, the greatefi: an- tifeptic in nature, and extracted from a material that had been in ufe from the be¬ ginning of time, for preferving as well as feafoning food, ihould have remained un¬ employed for the purpofe of preferving from putrefadlion the juices of the human body; while the nitrous and vitriolic acids had been fo often ufed in the pradtice of medi¬ cine. It feemed the more furprifing, now that chymidry had taught us to extradt the muriatic