An inaugural dissertation : being an attempt to disprove the doctrine of the putrefaction of the blood of living animals. Submitted to the examination of the Rev. John Ewing, S.T.P. provost; the trustees, and medical professors of the University of Pennsylvania, for the degree of Doctor of Medicine; on the 8th. day of May, A.D. 1793. By Adam Seybert, of Philadelphia; honorary member of the Philadelphia, and member of the American, medical societies. [One line from Leviticus].

Date:
M,DCC,XCIII. [1793]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: An inaugural dissertation : being an attempt to disprove the doctrine of the putrefaction of the blood of living animals. Submitted to the examination of the Rev. John Ewing, S.T.P. provost; the trustees, and medical professors of the University of Pennsylvania, for the degree of Doctor of Medicine; on the 8th. day of May, A.D. 1793. By Adam Seybert, of Philadelphia; honorary member of the Philadelphia, and member of the American, medical societies. [One line from Leviticus]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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    was produced. If the contagious matter had mixed with the blood fo as to produce a chemical change therein, nei- ther the plague nor the mealies would have been the re- lult of the Experiments •, as by this mixture, they would both have loft their former properties, and a new com- pound would have been produced by their union, not poffelfing the properties of the contagious matter or of the blood. The fixth law of the affinity of compofition, reads thus : “ Two or more bodies, united by the affini- ty of compofition, form a fubftance, whofe properties are very different from thofe of any one of the bodies before their combination.”* Confequently a difeafe very differ- ent from the plague or mealies muft be produced, if a chemical union had been formed.f With refpecft to Dr. Home’s Experiment, I beg leave to make one or two obfervations : He fays, “I thought that I Ihould get the blood more fully faturated with what I wanted, if it was taken from the cutaneous veins amongft the mealies, than if I took it from a large vein, where there was a much greater proportion of blood from the more internal parts than from the Ikin. I therefore or- dered a very fuperficial incifion to be made amongft the thickeft * Fourcroy’s Chemiflry, Vol. I. p. 64. f We have already proved that the blood in the velTels of living animals was not fubjetf to the laws of fermentation, and that no fer- mentation could be excited in it by the introdudtion of ferments; therefore if a change had been produced in the blood in the above inflances, it nmft have been by a chemical union, and confequently muft be fubje£l to the laws of chemical affinity.^ t