88 PRESERVATION OF FOOD BY REFRIGERATION; 
possible, until it has hung for some time in the first room. 
As it is a small matter in comparison with others, and at 
most involving a little extra trouble, there does not seem to 
be any ground for anxiety, and measures can be easily 
taken to overcome the difficulty. 
As circumstances must have occurred to give rise to the 
opinion relative to “ Noxious Gases” and “The Freezing 
in of Animal Heat,” it will be interesting to endeavour to 
ascertain what would be the condition under which such 
phenomena could most readily take place. 
As noxious gases are the result of decomposition, then, if 
any are evolved, the tissues of the meat must have com- 
menced to decompose. If this decomposition set in while 
the animal was alive, it was clearly in a state unfit for 
human food. If, on the other hand, the gases are evolved 
after death, then, also, must decomposition have com- 
menced, and as this can only occur while the meat is above 
a certain temperature, it is evident that cooling has been 
delayed too long. 
In the case where noxious gases have been evolved, the 
cooling process must have been delayed to such an extent 
that the exterior portions of the meat have retained their 
heat sufficiently long for active decomposition to have taken 
place, and, consequently, it would be hopeless to expect 
the interior portions to be sound, the meat being bad 
throughout. Inthe case where the “ freezing in of the animal 
heat’ has occurred, the process of cooling has been so far 
retarded that the interior portions only have retained their 
heat sufficiently long for the germs to make a sensible im- 
pression, and it is probable that the whole body of the meat 
would be in a more or less critical state, the exterior por- 
tion being on the verge of unsoundness, so that a warm, 
humid atmosphere, at the time of thawing, would speedily 
make the whole unfit for food. ; 
Taking the extreme case in which noxious gases have 
been evolved while the meat was hanging in a room, the 
temperature of which was very low, and through which a 
large quantity of cold air was passing, what would be the 
requisite condition to produce such a result ? 
ist. We should require the meat to be so placed that 
