ON PUTREFACTION, 



53 



I took an eight ounce phial and put six ounces of fresh beef Repetition of 



(a portion of the diaphram) in the bottom of it, and secured it ^"P^ 



there. In procuring this beef I was so careful as to go to the flesh closely 



butcher's myself, and have it cut off the moment the animal was surrounded or 



t rr immersed in 



dead. Upon this meat while thus warrn^. and not affected by mercury. 



external air, I placed a column of mercury, by rilling the phial 



with that fluid. The phial was corked, and to the cork was 



adapted one leg of a syphon, which perforated the cork, all 



which was made perfectly air tight by luting and sealing. 



The syphon was filled with mercury completely, and passed 

 into the mercurial cistern. Over this was placed a glass vessel 

 filled with mercury and inverted, in order to collect any gas 

 that should come over. 



That there was now a complete column of mercury from the 

 meat to the top of the vessel inverted in the cistern. My object 

 in the first place, was to prove by the first phial containing the 

 meat covered with a col u am of mercury, whether putrefaction 

 could take place in that situation where the possible access of 

 air was cut off by the mercury. My object with the syphon 

 and other apparatus was to collect and to examine the products, 

 if putrefaction should proceed : the thermometer stood during 

 this experiment at yo\ 



In about three days the putrefactive process was evidently 

 going on. 



These experiments were sufficient to satisfy me, that atmos- Conclusion. 



pheric air or oxygen gas, is so far from being essential to putre- nei^heTewen- 8 



faction, that it has no influence on that process where it has tial to, nor has 



free access to the putrefying substance. These experiments f„ Vmrefac-' 



have since been repeated and confirmed by my friend Dr. tiou: 



Mitchill at my request. 



Therefore I am disposed to believe, that putrefaction must but that it is 

 . caused by 



depend on the destruction of the equilibrium of attractions, changes in the 



which in the living state of animals exists among the elementary substance 

 principles of which they are composed, by the loss of vitality : 

 by which new attractions are called into action, and new com- 

 binations and decompositions take place. 



My next object was to examine the products of putrefaction Products of 

 which had taken place without extrinsic oxygen. putrefaction 



The first product was a bloody serum. Serum, 



The second was a transparent gas, possessing the transparency, Gas. 



elasticity, 



