The Contagious Particles being by these Means got into the Blood, do there by Coagulating and Inspissating the more gross and tenacious Parts, and highly Volatilising and Attenuating others of the most Subtil, reduce the Blood into the above-mentioned State. Thus we see that _Milk_, which is the Juice of an Animal, by the Addition of a small Quantity of an Acid Spirit, changes from an equal Texture, to one of a more gross and viscous, as well as more fluid and watry Substance. The like may be observed in the White of an Egg and the Blood of an Animal it self. Analogous to this is that Experiment of _Jo. Bapt. Alprunus_, who examining the Matter of a Pestilential _Bubo_ by Distillation, found at first a _Phlegm_, then a more fat and oily Matter, and lastly a Salt ascending into the Neck of the _Retort_. But what was the most Remarkable in this Experiment, was the prodigious Stench upon opening the Vessels, exceeding as he expresses it a Thousand Wounds exposed to the Summer's Heat, and likewise a Salt so exceedingly Acrid and Pungent, as to equal, if not exceed _Aq. Regis_ it self[s]. [s] _Ph. Col._ No. II. p. 17. I shall not from hence pretend to determine, that an Acid Salt is the immediate Instrument of these Changes in the Animal Oeconomy, since the same may be wrought by Spirit of Wine, and other Liquids[t]; and Experience assures us, that the _Effluvia_, proceeding from the putrifying Parts of Animal Bodies, abound with a Volatil Alcaline Salt, as appears by Collecting them by the Bell, or in Distillation, by which they afford some Phlegm, a most Fetid Oil, and exceedingly Pungent and Volatil Salt; But this is sufficiently Evident from what has been said, that whatever the determinate Nature of the particular Particles may be, they do not only Coagulate the Animal Juices, and increase the Bulk of the Particles of the Blood, but render the remaining Part exceedingly Acrid and Pungent. [t] _Boyl_'s Hist. Humani Sang. _Friend_'s Emonalogia in Fine. Consonant to this Dr. _Hodges_ has observed a great Affinity between a Pestilential and Scorbutic Habit of Body, and that those whose Blood naturally abounded with Saline Particles, and had the rest Coagulated or Inspissated, as happens in Scorbutic Constitutions, were more grievously affected by the Pestilence; and also that most of those who Recover'd of the late Plague, were very much subject to Scorbutic Diseases: The like I have frequently observed, where the Small-Pox, Measles, _&c._ seizes those of a Scorbutic Habit. Nor is the Blood alone affected by its Mixture with these Saline _Spiculæ_, but the rest of the Animal Juices also in Proportion, and especially the Nervous Fluid, which consisting of the most fine Volatil and Subtil Parts, will be render'd extreamly Acrid and Pungent: Whence Pain, Sickness, Inflammations, _&c._ must necessarily succeed. [Decoration] CHAP. V.