CHEMISTRY. 



95 



by oxidation; that the agent of oxidation is 

 ozone ; that in the soil this ozone originates 

 for the most part in the slow oxidation of or- 

 ganic matters ; and that ammonia and the or- 

 ganic nitrogen of humus, peat, and coal, are the 

 result of the reduction of oxides of nitrogen 

 either in the living organism in the acts of 

 nutrition, or by the organic matters of the 

 dead plant or animal. The union of atmos- 

 pheric nitrogen and oxygen under the influ- 

 ence of electrical tension has been shown by 

 Meissner to be preceded by the production of 

 ozone. By a long series of critically-conducted 

 observations, Daubeny has made it probable 

 that ozone appears in the vicinity of active fol- 

 iage exposed to sunlight, and concludes that the 

 oxygen set free from combination in the plant 

 is partly ozonized, as is true of that which 

 separates in the decomposition of permanga- 

 nates and chromates by oil of vitriol. The 

 plant, then, appears to be an agent of nitrifica- 

 tion when living as well as when dead, and 

 ozone is the result of a molecular change which 

 accompanies the decomposition as well as the 

 formation of oxygen compounds. 



Unwholesome Food. Dr. Letheby treated of 

 unwholesome and adulterated food in the Can- 

 tor Lectures delivered by him before the Brit- 

 ish Society of Arts. Some parts of his dis- 

 courses are particularly interesting to epicures, 

 as, when he says : 



Even game, when only sufficiently tainted to please 

 the palate of the epicure, has caused severe cholera 

 in persons unaccustomed to it; but, as Dr. Christi- 

 son observes, " the power of habit in reconciling the 

 stomach to the digestion of decayed meat is incon- 

 ceivable. Some epicures in civilized countries prefer 

 a slight taint even in their beef and mutton ; and 

 there are tribes of savages still further advanced in 

 the cultivation of this department of gastronomy, 

 who eat with impunity rancid oil, putrid blubber, 

 and stinking offal." The Zulus of Natal, according 

 to Dr. Colenso, are so fond of putrid meat that they 

 call it ubomi, which literally means to be superla- 

 tively happv. But, as a rule, there is a natural ab- 

 horrence of tainted food, insomuch that, with most 

 persons, the mere commencement of decay is suffi- 

 cient to excite disgust ; and rarely do we find, ex- 

 cept amoncr savages, that an entire meal is made of 

 putrid flesh. A little game or venison, or ripe 

 cheese, at the end of a feast, with just a piquant 

 touch of decay, is, perhaps, not objectionable ; for it 

 may, as Liebig supposes, promote digestion, by com- 

 municating its own quality of transformation to the 

 rest of the food ; but it is another thing to fill the 

 stomach with putrid flesh, for, if the corrective power 

 of the gastric juice should fail, the effect of it might 

 be serious. We have, indeed, abundant evidence of 

 the terrible consequences of admitting putrid matter 

 into the circulation, for they were once too common 

 among those engaged in the dissection of the human 

 body. In fact, the mere handling of decomposing 

 animal matter for any time will often produce dis- 

 ease of the hands or other parts of the body with 

 which it comes into ^ contact. Our safety, perhaps, 

 in using such food is in the antiseptic power of good 

 cooking ; but this is not always an easy affair ; for 

 the tissues are generally so soft from decay that 

 they will hardly bear the common action of heat : so 

 that if they be boiled for any time they will fall to- 

 pieces ; and, if they be roasted, they will shrink 

 without forming that delicious crust of osmazome 



which is characteristic of good meat. Let them, 

 however, be cooked as they may, they always re- 

 quire a nice adjustment of rather strong flavors to 

 make them palatable ; and those who have dined in 

 the cheap restaurants of Paris, or at the still worse 

 table d'hote of a German watering-place, will have 

 experienced the art of the cook in this respect, in 

 such dishes as turbot en vol-au-vent, Eaie au beurre 

 noir, sole en matelote Normande, and in the various 

 forms of fish au gratin ; or game en salmis. 



But, bad as this sort of tainted food is, it is nothing 

 in comparison to the sausage poison, which is pro- 

 duced by a sort of modified putrefaction^ to which 

 the large sausages of Germany, and especially those 

 of Wurtemberg, are occasionally subject. Accord- 

 ing to an official return, there have been more than 

 four hundred cases of poisoning from these sausages 

 in "Wurtemberg alone during the last fifty years, and 

 of these about one hundred and fifty were fatal. The 

 effects are generally observed in spring, and mostly in 

 April, when the sausages become musty, and acquire 

 a soft consistence in the interior. They have also a 

 peculiarly nauseous and rather putrid taste, and are 

 very acid to test-paper. If eaten in this condition, 

 they produce dangerous effects in from twelve to 

 twenty-four hours the first symptoms being pain in 

 the stomach, with vomiting and diarrhosa, and dry- 

 ness of the nose and mouth : then comes a feeling of 

 profound depression, with coldness of the limbs, 

 weakness and irregularity of the pulse, and frequent 

 fainting. Fatal cases end with convulsions and op- 

 pressed breathing between the third and eighth 

 day. The precise cause of these effects is still a mys- 

 tery ; some have thought that rancid fatty acids are 

 produced during the decomposition of the meat ; 

 others that in the process ol drying and smoking 

 acrid pyrpgenous acids have been developed ; others 

 that, during the decay of the sausages, a poisonous 

 organic alkaloid is generated. Liebig is of opinion 

 that the effects are due to an animal ferment, which 

 produces in the blood, by catalysis, a state of putrid- 

 ity analogous to its own, and that the molecular 

 movements of the putrefactive change in the decay- 

 ing meat are thus communicated to the living organ- 

 ism. M. Vanden Corput, who is one of the most 

 recent investigators of the subject, attributes the 

 morbific action of such meat to the presence of a 

 minute fungus, of the nature of a sarcma, which he 

 calls sarcma lotulina. This view is confirmed by the 

 fact that there is always a peculiar mouldiness of the 

 sausages ; and the poisonous property is generally 

 observed in April, when these cryptogamic organ- 

 isms are most freely developed. 



Similar effects have occasionally been produced by 

 other kinds of animal food as veal, bacon, ham, salt 

 beef, salt fish, cheese, etc., and the food has usually 

 been in a decayed and mouldy condition. It would 

 be tedious if I were to detail, or even to enumerate, 

 the cases recorded by medico-legal writers ; but I 

 may, perhaps, refer to a few of them. In 1839, there ' 

 was a popular fete at Zurich, and about six hundred 

 persons partook of a repast of cold roast veal and 

 ham. In a few hours most of them were suffering 

 from pain, in the stomach, with vomiting and diar- 

 rhoea ; and, before a week had elapsed, nearly all of 

 them were seriously ill in bed. They complained of 

 shivering, giddiness, headache, and burning fever. 

 In a few cases there was delirium ; and, when they ter- 

 minated fatally, there was extreme prostration of the 

 vital powers. Careful inquiry was instituted into the 

 matter, and the only discoverable cause of the mis- 

 chief was incipient putrefaction and slight mouldiness 

 of the meat. Dr. Deiseler relates an instance where 

 a family of eight persons were made ill by musty ba- 

 con ; and M. Ollivier has given an account of six per- 

 sons who were poisoned by mutton in a state of modi- 

 fied decay four of whom died from it within eight 

 days. In Russia, where it is the practice to eat largely 

 of salt fish in a raw condition, it is not at all uncommon 

 to witness the dangerous effects of it when it has be- 



