on Animal putrefaction. 231 



the change which had afterwards taken place on these last 

 were different, but were always related to the electric state 

 which they had assumed, that is, with their affinity. I ob- 

 served, for example, ammoniacal products, and those of car- 

 bonated hj'drogen in the muscles which were in contact with 

 the zinc ; and much acid and acetate of copper in those which 

 were in contact with the copper. These results prove suffi- 

 ciently that muscle, put in contact with zinc, having become 

 electro-negative, and being no longer able to unite with the 

 oxygen, have been slow in decomposing; but have at last 

 yielded to the affinity, though weak, of the hydrogen and the 

 azote, while, on the contrary, the muscular fibre, placed on 

 copper, were combined entirely into acid products. We may 

 then, in this manner, retard putrefaction, that is, by eluding 

 the action of one of the two elements of the atmosphere. I 

 have thus obtained similar and perhaps more marked results 

 by determining an electric state in the animal fibre, not by 

 electro-motive action, but by placing them as conductors at 

 the poles of a pile. 



By setting out with these considerations, it appears to us 

 that we may, with more certainty, explain the antiseptic pro- 

 perty of some bodies, an explanation, however, which is not 

 the same for all. There are some, for example, which act by 

 taking away water ; others by forming true imputrescible com- 

 binations ; others, in my opinion, by determining a particular 

 electric state. Of this kind is the property of vegetable char- 

 coal. It is a settled fact in practical surgery, (as has been 

 shown by Dr Palman in a pamphlet lately published in Paris) 

 that if we put vegetable charcoal on purulent sores and on 

 putrid sores, it is not long in depriving them of their bad 

 smell, and preventing the ulterior developement of fetid mat- 

 ter. 



Effects like these cannot depend solely on the action of poro- 

 sity, for they would cease by continued contact ; and we may 

 explain them better by regarding the action of charcoal as elec- 

 trical, in consequence of which, by establishing in purulent 

 sores, and in putrid flesh, electrical states, they lose those affi- 

 nities in virtue of which they separate the purulent matters, 

 or destroy them by a rapid putrefaction. — Ann, de Chimie. 



