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the foul, will no longer rule over her. Separated from flesh and blood, there will remain in her none of those earthly affections which refulted from them. Tranfported into the regions of light, the human understanding will present no ideas to the will but thofe of the highest good. It will then have no other than lawful defires, and GOD will be their conftant and ultimate end. It will love HIM from gratitude; will fear HIM from a principle of love; and will adore HIM as the SUPREMELY AMIABLE BEING, and as the ETERNAL SOURCE of life, perfection, and happiness.

Chriftians, who believe this doctrine of life, can ye have any dread of death? Your immortal fpirits continually cleave to matter, and they are indiffoluble ; being henceforth united to an unperishable and differently organized body, the looks upon death as a happy tranfformation, which, by difengaging the feed from its foldage, will give a new being to the plant. "O death, where is then thy fling! Q grave, where is thy victory!”

SECT.

SECT.

XXXII.

OF OXYGEN AS RELATED TO IRRITABILITY.

THOUGH impenetrable clouds and darkness conceal the irritable and fentient principles from our view, nevertheless fome philofophers of the present day have gone fo far, as to discover the condition of its existence.

They observe first, "that every thing that increases the quantity of OXYGEN in organized bodies, increases at the fame time their irritability."

A confiderable quantity of very pure oxygen air was injected into the jugular vein of a dog. Upon opening the thorax and the pericardium of the animal, the heart was found more irritable than ordinary, and its alternate contractions and dilatations continued upwards of an hour.

The right auricle of the heart was vermilion, and it contained, as well as the right ventricle, a great quantity of blood of a bright vermilion colour. The blood contained in the left auricle, in the left ventricle, the aorta, and the arteries, was of a bright rofe colour, and mixed with bubbles of air.

All the muscles were more irritable than ordinary.

After the blood contained in the heart and arteries was discharged, the irritability of the heart and muscles was fenfibly diminished.

This experiment proves, moft decifively, that the vermilion colour which the blood affumes in paffing through the lungs is not owing to the loss of CHARCOAL and HYDROGEN; but that it proceeds from the combina tion of the blood with the oxYGEN AIR.

In the experiment I have just now defcribed, the livid colour of the venous blood in the right auricle and ventricle of the heart was changed to that of vermilion. Nevertheless it could not have lost any CARBON or HYDROGEN: it therefore only acquired OXYGEN or VITAL

GAS.

This experiment is alfo a direct proof that OXYGEN favours the principle of irritability; for by furcharging the blood with oxygen, by hyper-oxygenating it, if I may use the expreffion, the irritability of the contractile fibre was, as we have seen, confiderably increased.

The irritability also of perfons made to breathe oxyGEN AIR is wonderfully increased, as is fhewn by an univerfal increase of energy in the fyftem. But what fhews more clearly than all, fays GIRTANNER, that

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the irritability is always in proportion to the quantity of OXYGEN in the fyftem, are the phænomena attending the action of mercury and mercurial oxyds upon animals. As is this one of the most striking proofs of this theory, and as many persons, and amongst the reft, philofophers of the firft rank, fuch as Dr. CRAWFORD, have been ftruck with the novelty and fimplicity of my mode of explaining these phænomena, I cannot forbear, fays he, entering into some detail upon this fubject.

It is a well known fact among physicians, that mercury, in its metallic flate, has no effect upon the human body. I have known many people, who for many years have taken a daily portion of quickfilver, to the amount of one or two ounces, but who never perceived any effect whatever from this fingular and ridiculous cuftom. It is proved alfo by the experiments of Dr. SAUNDERS, that the effects of mercurial ointment are owing only to the fmall quantity of mercury that has been oxydated during a long trituration. It is neceffary, therefore, that mercury fhould be oxydated, to have any effect on the human body. Besides, it is well known that in perfons who have rubbed themselves with mercurial ointment, or who have taken the oxyd of mer

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cury,

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