vents Pu

Heat when the Flesh cannot cool, the Sea Salt will be almost agitated, and can fcarcely fix the volatile Salts and Corpufcles of the Body. Nay, if a fufficient Quantity of Sea Salt, be duly mixed by boiling it in Water, it will fix the volatile Salts in Flesh kept in that Fluid, and hinder them from diffolving the Flesh. I know not, whether Sea Salt hath been Upon Vetried to fix the Juices of Plants in the getables. Air, but it prevents their Diffolution in Fluids or Pickle. The Salt we call Sugar, Sugar prefheathed in a mucous Matter, or the trefaction. Juice of the Cane, mixed with Bodies divided small, or very porous, will clog the volatile Salts, and preferve the Body, if they be kept dry, or not very moist. But when that Salt is diffolved, or freed from that, or fome other Mucus by Fermentation, Diftillation, &c. it becomes volatile Spirits itself. Whether the Ferment in our Bodies frees the Spirit from the Mucus, or divides it fo fmall, I cannot tell. Sea Salt, applied outwardly to any Part of the Body, burned, inflamed, or itchy, abates or cures the Inflammation. And I think, Sea Salt will stop or abate a Fermentation in Liquor, and hinder volatile Salts from diffolving any Body in a Fluid, and perhaps abate the vola

S 3

tile

tile Force of Spirits taken inwardly. People in Sieges, &c. who cannot get Sea Salt, but eat their Meat without it, are affected with Scurvy, Itches, * Laxes, Fluxes, &c. and when they get Sea Salt to their Meat, it cures them. Flesh, cured with Sea Salt, well freed from volatile and mineral Salt, does not much incommode the Bodies of Sailors, when they eat nothing but it, and dry Bread for a long Time. Horfes that are furfeited, greafed, &c. fo that they can scarce be recovered by any Medicines, are cured, made found and fat, by feeding upon the Grafs in the Marfhes, which the Tide overflows. Sea Salt purges, and I think, all yolatile Salts and Spirits bind. Salt, adheres to, and loads the volatile Salts in the Juices of dead Flefh, that as great a Heat as that in one's Stomach, cannot agitate them much. It loads the Corpufcles of Fire, that they cannot bear off the light Corpufcles of the Fuel, which form Smoke; why may it not do the fame in our Stomachs, and difcharge them Jes Ufes downward? Nay, why might not a in feveral Quantity of Sea Salt conftantly taken, Diforders. cure Confumptions, and fuch Difeafes as

pointed at

Sea

wafte the Body? and perhaps if it were

* Diarrhoeas.

distilled,

diftilled, and the Spirits, and volatile Salts taken out that Way, or by Fire, it would be more effectual, than as 'tis commonly ufed; or Tartar, or any other fixed Salt might have the fame Effects. If Flesh in hot Seafons, and hot Countries, need more Sea Salt, to fix the volatile Salts in it If volatile Salts be the Occafions of moft of our Disorders; why may not Bodies alive, too full of volatile Salts and Spirits, and kept too hot, need more Sea Salt to clog, bear down and discharge the volatile Salts and Spirits, and moft, when they are most out of Order? Will any of our Abforbents, or &c. have the fame outward Effects? or if they had, when taken inwardly, will they not stop the Discharges? The Operations in the Stomach fhould be firft to diffolve the crafs Matter, and afterwards to bear it off. Sea Salts, or any Bodies which are angular, and can be born up, and gently agitated with other Bodies in a Fluid, may diffolve the other Bodies by Friction, and not fly off fo quickly, or raife fo great a buftle, or make fo great an Expanfion, or carry off fo great Burthens, or fo crafs Matter, as smaller, lighter, angular Bodies may, and may operate more in a thicker Fluid, and leffer in a thinner Fluid than fmaller

S 4

Of lea

ven'd

Bread.

fmaller Salts can. They ufe, about one
third Sea Salt, and two thirds Pafte mi-
xed together, and kept two
or three
Weeks to make Leaven to mix with and
begin a Ferment in Dough. Whether
the Piece of Dough would, if kept moift,
turn acid without the Salt, or whether
the volatile or mineral Salts mixed in the
Sea Salt, occafion the Ferment, or whe-
ther the acid Parts in the Dough, are freed
by Friction against the Points of the Sea
Salt; deferves to be examined and con-
fidered. All forts of Vegetables are diffi-
cult to be digefted, by Fermentation, Boil-
ing, or in the Stomach; and Grain, as
difficult as any; and the Juices only go
off, and the the greatest Part remains in
excrementitious Matter. Whether, most
of them would not be more wholesome,
if they underwent fome previous Prepa-
ration by Sea Salt; and particularly, whe-
ther Bread needs not more Fermentation,
or better Preparation for Diffolution, than
by mixing it with Barm, which only
huffs it up, and which is the tougheft,
craffeft Part, or the Excrements of Drink,
makes it fwim upon the Fluid, and en-
tangles the active Corpufcles in it, and
thofe it meets with in our Stomachs,
makes our Excrements tough and hot,

and

great

The

and more difficult to be difcharged, and The Efhath quite the contrary Effects, that Bread fects of leavened after the Manner aforefaid has, which finks in the Fluid, is fooner diffolved, &c. As the volatile Salts may do Mischief, for want of a fufficient Quantity of Sea Salt to clog them, so too much Sea Salt may fix them, and the finer Juices in our Meat and Drink, too much; make the Blood too thick, and uncapable of furnishing the finer Juices for difcharging the Excrements, &c. and in that Cafe, fresh Diet will be a Remedy, as Salt was in the other. The Quantity and Manner of ap- Quantity plying Sea Salt, whether to the Meat be- and Manfore we eat it, and how long before, or ner of whether with the Meat fresh, when we ought to ufing it eat it, deferves the most curious Obferva- be nicely tion and Experiments; and with Refpect confider'd, to the Quantity of volatile Salts or Spirits, each Perfon eats or drinks; the Degrees of Heat they use their Bodies to, &c. Sea Salt, that hath been fome Time in the Meat, is in fome Measure sheathed with the phlegmy Parts of the Meat. Whether it may not fix the volatile Salts more fo, than when it is taken naked into the Stomach, and whether that be not the Caufe that it binds us more, deferves

also