"It was the good fortune of chemical science that, at this time (1751), the opinions of professors were divided concerning the manner in which certain lithonthriptic medicines, particularly lime-water, acted in alleviating the excruciating pains of the stone and gravel. The students usually partake of such differences of opinion: they are thereby animated to more serious study, and science gains by their emulation. "All the medicines which were then in vogue as solvents of calculi had a greater or less resemblance to caustic potash or soda; substances so acrid, when in a concentrated state, that in a short time they reduce the fleshy parts of the animal body to a mere pulp. They all seemed to derive their efficacy from quick-lime, which again derived its power from the fire. It was therefore very natural for them to ascribe its power to igneous matter imbibed from the fire, retained by the lime, and communicated by it to alkalies which it renders powerfully acrid. It appears from Dr. Black's note-books, that he originally entertained the opinion, that caustic alkalies acquired igneous matter from quick-lime. In one of them, he hints at some way of catching this matter as it escapes from lime, while it becomes mild by exposure to the air; but on the opposite blank page is written, 'Nothing escapes--the cup rises considerably by absorbing air.' A few pages further on, he compares the loss of weight sustained by an ounce of chalk when calcined, with its loss while dissolved in muriatic acid. "These experiments laid open the whole mystery, as appears by another memorandum. 'When I precipitate lime by a common alkali, there is no effervescence: the air quits the alkali for the lime; but it is lime no longer, but c. c. c: it now effervesces, which good lime will not.'--What a multitude of important consequences naturally flowed from this discovery! He now knew to what the causticity of alkalies is owing, and how to induce it, or remove it, at pleasure. The common notion was entirely reversed. Lime imparts nothing to the alkalies; it only removes from them a peculiar kind of air (_carbonic acid gas_) with which they were combined, and which prevented their natural caustic properties from being developed. All the former mysteries disappear, and the greatest simplicity appears in those operations of nature which before appeared so intricate and obscure."