TO THE NERVOUS MATTER. 191 



cently that bubbles of spontaneously inflammable 

 phosphuretted hydrogen were disengaged from the 

 trough of a spring in Carlsruhe, on the bottom of 

 which fish had putrefied ; and gases containing phos- 

 phorus have also been observed among the products 

 of the putrefaction of the brain.* 



* The curator of the museum at Geneva gave to M. Leroyer, 

 apothecary, a large quantity of spirit of wine, which had been 

 used for the preservation of fishes, and which he undertook to 

 purify. He distilled it from a mixture of chloride of calcium and 

 quicklime, and evaporated the residue in the air, over a fire. As 

 soon as the mass had acquired a certain consistence, and a higher 

 temperature, a prodigious quantity of spontaneously inflammable 

 phosphuretted hydrogen was disengaged. (Dumas, V. 267.) 



