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Sir Gilbert Blane^[168] has lately advanced another hypothesis to account for the effects of mercury as a sialogogue; he considers the salivary glands as one of the outlets for the ramenta of the bones, for by analysing the saliva we discover the principles of which they consist; indeed the osseous matter not unfrequently concretes on the teeth, and sometimes on the salivary ducts, in the form of what is called Tartar: “does not this fact,” says Sir Gilbert Blane, “in some measure account for these glands being the parts upon which determination is made by the operation of mercury, which consists in exciting an active absorption of solid parts, as I have elsewhere observed?”^[169]

But do not the kidneys, and other excretory glands also furnish outlets, through which the detritus of the body is eliminated. How does it happen, therefore, that the kidneys are not as equally affected as the salivary glands by the action of mercury? In the present state of our knowledge it will be more prudent to rest on the phenomenon as an ultimate fact, than in attempting to ascend higher in the scale of causes, to involve ourselves in impenetrable darkness.