Edwardsville spectator. [volume] (Edwardsville, Ill.) 1819-1826, 1820-05-09
FROM TIE ILLINOIS INTELLIGgScEn.

A writer in the Edwardsyille Specta-
tor, in commenting upon medical re-
port OF mine, observes that advanced
"a sentiment not generally acknowledge
ed by medical men, butyet may be true %
In answer to which am constrained to
state, (the opinion of the querist not
withstanding) that the sentiment is gene
rally acknowledged by medical men, and
Tor the confirmation OF which, refer the
querist to Quincy, CaIdwell's memoirs,
Sydenham on epidemics, and indeed the
whole range of medical authority from
Hippocrates, until the immortal Lavoisier
illuminated the science of medicine and
philosophy with his chemical expert
ments. Nay, will venture to premise,
that if the querist will give himself the
trouble to travel through the musty pages
of antiquity, to the epoch when the histo-
ny of diseases, philosophy, and the me-
deal science assumed systematic and
scientific character, and then down TO the
present period of modern improvements
and discoveries, he will feel convinced
ofthe fact without scruple about words
or names. Technical language. is arbi-
trary, and sometimes vague; but we are
always justified in using it, as the medi-
cal world has done before US. The terms
mlasmata, septon, mephitis, nitrogen, and
azote, (azote of the partisan nomencla-
ture) are so indiscriminately used as sy-
nonymous, that it is always justifiable to
use them SO. AZote is chemical ele-
ment from actual modern experiment,
and principle producing death to ami
nal life wherever it has been applied in
sufficient quantity and 1t has never been
denied but that septon, nitrogen, MAS
Inata, and mephitis, all meaning pretty
much the same thing, produce the like
effects. That efluvia arising from the
putretactivc process, whether animal or
vegetable, certainly contains more or less
of different qualities, and cannot be call
ed the pure azote; but Notwithstanding
chemical philosophers have not been
able to analyze it, and reduce it to the
element azote, still it has been uniform
.ly found to produce the same pernicious
effects upon the human system; hence
the general belief that it is the same thing.
Look over the volumes that have been
written on the plaques Of southern Gil
mates; glance at the many pages on pes
tilentlal distempers; view the desolating
ravages on human existence, where the
same thing has swept off whole armies,
and the querist will not be at loss for
4 moment to make up his opinion.
The reasons above, / do not offer as
amounting to a complete practical de-
monstration, this ultimatum Of evidence
not being attainable in the science of me-
dicine, or by means of chemical analysis.
1t is fact which philosophers have hi
aherto been unable to fathom, and which
we may for ages to come have to regret.
Were we to deny the existence of many
phenomena of nature, because they are
not altogether applicable, or proven by
actual experiments, it would be impiety
jim the extreme, and am not fully con-
WINGED of the motives of the querist; but
if l chose could answer in the same
Socratic manner of interrogatory for
the solution of natural phenomena and
problems in the science of medicine, that
would tend to confound, nay, perplex,
rather than enlighten and illustrate,
and all too concealed behind a fictitious
signature.
If the reasons offered are not satisfac-
tory, the querist will please to come out
in propria persona.
WIN. L. REYNOLDS.
Kaskaskia, AhrH 90, 1920.