Note 24 — Chapter VII · DIFFERENCES IN THE ACTION OF OPIUM AND ALCOHOL.

The following are the grounds on which he supports his doctrine:—“1. In experiments where animals have been killed by the injection of spirits into the stomach, I have found this organ to bear the marks of great inflammation, but never any preternatural appearances whatever in the brain. 2. The effects of spirits taken into the stomach, in the last experiment, were so instantaneous, that it appears impossible that absorption should have taken place before they were produced. 3. A person who is intoxicated frequently becomes suddenly sober after vomiting. 4. In the experiments which I have just related, I mixed tincture of rhubarb with the spirits, knowing, from the experiments of Mr. Home and Mr. William Brande, that this (rhubarb) when absorbed into the circulation, was readily separated from the blood by the kidneys, and that very small quantities might be detected in the urine by the addition of potash; but though I never failed to find urine in the bladder, I never detected rhubarb in it.”—Phil. Trans. of the Roy. Soc. of Lond. 1811. Part I., p. 178.