410 MEALS MEDICINAL. 
voyage by means of Ice. The carcases of mutton, and beef are 
put into the said chamber, when newly killed, and are kept shut 
up therein until the vessel discharges its cargo in this country. 
Owing to the slow continuous action of the sarcolactic acid, 
meat which has been frozen is often exceptionally tender. On 
the other hand, through the loosening of the inter-muscular 
tissue, bacteria can more readily penetrate into the interior of 
the thawed flesh, and thus bring about more rapid decomposition. 
Considerable care is required in the thawing, since if this be done 
too suddenly, the meat when cooked will be wanting in flavour. 
Putrefactive bacteria at low temperatures do not decompose 
the proteids of flesh. Nevertheless, stored meat frequently 
acquires a mouldy flavour because of certain bacteria which are 
found to swarm on the walls of the cement-lined storage chambers 
when moist. Frozen meat may be known from fresh meat 
because of having less juice, and being of diminished redness. 
The liquid, moreover, when a piece of frozen meat is put into 
water in a test tube, becomes coloured much more rapidly and 
intensely than when fresh meat is used. Again, the blood 
corpuscles in meat frozen to ten degrees below zero, are found 
under the microscope to have become ruptured. 
There are various machines by which artificial ice can be 
produced, even at the rate of six tons daily from each (American) 
machine. Most of the Ice used in commerce now-a-days comes 
to us from Norway. As to its purity for taking internally, we 
may derive comfort from knowing that bacilli, as of typhoid 
disease, become destroyed to the extent of 90 per cent by a 
temperature rather above the freezing point of water; and in Ice 
itself some 90 per cent of any such bacilli as may be included 
die out during the first twenty-four hours. This amounts to a 
purification of 99-9 per cent, a most successful filtration ; and we 
may therefore conclude that natural Ice cut out so as to avoid 
the uppermost layer is comparatively harmless as regards risk 
of typhoid-poisoning, or the like. Small pieces of such ice, when 
slowly sucked, will serve to arrest bleeding from the stomach, 
or lungs, whilst at the same time pounded ice is kept externally 
applied in a bladder, or a waterproof bag. 
Confectionery Ices are said to have been introduced by 
Catherine de Medici in the sixteenth century. They are made 
as water ices, and cream ices, (though these latter frequently 
consist of corn flour and milk, being entirely innocent of cream) ; 
