500 



PUTEOLI 



PUTRID FEVER 



opposite to the Bob ile Boulogne. Many Parisians 

 have fine villas here. There an- manufactures o 

 d \e-iiitfs anil chemicals, dyeing, and calico-print 

 ing. Pop. 15,106. 



Pute'olL See Pozzuou. 



Putnam, a town of Connecticut, on theQuinne 

 bang River, 66 miles by rail ENE. of Hartford 

 ha* ni.iniifactiirwiuf cottoiiH, boot* and shoes, &c. 

 Pop. ( 1900) 7348, including Putnam city (6667). 



Putnam. ISRAEL, a general of the American 

 Id-volution, was born in what is now Danvcr* 

 Massachusetts, 7th January 1718. In 1739 he 

 bought a farm between Pomfret and Brooklyn, 

 Connecticut, and for many years devoted biinsel! 

 to ite cultivation, gaining meanwhile a high repu 

 tation for courage by such personal exploits as 

 following a she-wolf into her lair and killing her 

 single handed. In 1755 he left as a captain in a 

 contingent of 1000 men which Connecticut sent to 

 repel a IhlMteMd French invasion of New York, 

 and was present at the battle of Lake George. In 

 1758 he was captured by the savages, tortured, and 

 then bound to a tree, and was about to be burned 

 to death when a French officer scattered the fire- 

 brands and rescued him. In 17-">!> he received a 

 regiment, in 1762 lie went on the dreadful West 

 India campaign which resulted in the capture of 

 Havanna, ami in ITiH he helped to relieve Detroit, 

 then Lsueged by Pontiac (q.v.). Ten years of 

 quiet at home succeeded, during which he made 

 his farmhouse into an inn, and was conspicuous 

 among the 'Sons of Lilwrty.' In 1775, after 

 Concord, he was given the command of the forces 

 of Connecticut, and was ranking officer on the day 

 of Bunker Hill, though not in actual command at 

 either the redoubt or the rail-fence. He was next 

 appointed bv congress one of the four major- 

 generals, and held the command at New York and 

 in August 1776 at Brooklyn Heights, where he was 

 defeated by General Howe on the 27th. He after- 

 wards held various commands, and in 1777 was 

 appointed to the defence of the Highlands of the 

 Hudson. While at Peekskill a lieutenant in a 

 loyalist regiment was captured as a spy and con- 

 demned to death j and, on Sir Henry Clinton's 

 sending a flag of truce threatening vengeance if 

 the .sentence should be carried out, Putnam wrote 

 a brief and characteristic reply : ' Headquarters, 

 7th August 1777. Edmund Palmer, an officer ia 

 the enemy's service, was taken as a spy lurking 

 within our lines ; he has been tried as a spy, con- 

 demned as a spy, and shall be executed as a spy, 

 and the flag is ordered to depart immediately. 

 Israel Putnam. P. S. He lias accordingly been 

 executed.' In 1778, in western Connecticut, 

 Putnam made his famous escape from Governor 

 Tryon'a dragoons hy riding down the stone steps 

 at Horseneck. The next year he had a stroke of 

 paralysis, and the rest of his life was spent at 

 home. He died 19th May 1790. See Life by 

 Increase N. Tarlmx (1876), and article by Pro- 

 fenor John Fiske in Appleton's Cyclopaedia, of 

 Amer. Biog. (1888). 



His cousin, RUFUS PUTNAM, l>orn 9th April 

 1738, served against the French from 1757 to 1760, 

 and then settled as a farmer anil millwright. On 

 the outbreak of the war he received a lieutenant - 

 colonel's commission, and rendered good service as 

 an engineer. In 1778 he helped his cousin to 

 fortify West Point. Afterwards he commanded 

 a regiment till the end of the war, and in 17*3 he 

 wax promoted to brigadier general. In 1788 he 

 founded Marietta. Ohio; in I7H9 he was appointed 

 a judge of HIP supreme court of the North \v>t 

 Territory ; and from 1703 to 1803 he was urve\or 

 general of the I'nited Stales. Me died in Marietta, 

 Ut May 1824. Israel'* grand-nephew, GKOBOE 



PALMER PUTNAM, born in Itrnn-uick. Maine, 7th 

 February 1814, in 1840 became partner in the l>ook- 

 lirni of Wiley & Putnam, New York, established a 

 branch in London in IS4I, and in 1848 returned to 

 the United States and started business alone. In 

 Is.VJ lie founded Putnam's Magazine. In ISii.'i he 

 retired from hii-im-ss. |,,it in 1866 he established 

 the firm of <;. 1'. Putnam & Sons (now (J. 1'. 

 Putnam's Sons). He died 20th December IsT-J. 

 He wrote and compiled several books, and was the 

 author of the (hut Plea fur International Copyright 

 (1837) printed in America. 



I'll! nr> . a suburb of London, in Surrey, 6 miles 

 \VS\V. of Waterloo, on the south side of the tidal 

 Thames, which, here nearly 300 yards broad, i- 

 i io-sed by a new granite bridge ( 1884-86), leading 

 to I 11 HIM in, and founded and opened by the Prince 

 of Wales. It is a great rowing place, the starting- 

 point of the Oxford and Cambridge boat-race ; and 

 from ite read^- access to Town, the river, Putney 

 Heath, and Wimbledon Common, has grown rapidly 

 of recent years, its principal feature that there are 

 no poor. The parish church, with a I .lib century 

 tower and the chantry of Bishop West of F.ly. 

 mainly rebuilt in ISM] in the chinclnard is 

 Toland's grave. Putney is the birthplace of 

 Thomas Cromwell and Gibbon, the residence of 

 Mr Theodore Watts and Mr Swinburne, and the 

 deathplace of Pitt and Leigh Hunt. From Put- 

 ney's old bridge Mary Wollstonecruft tried to 

 drown herself; and on Putney Heath Pitt fought 

 his duel with Tierney (1798), Castlereagh his with 

 Canning (1809). Pop. (1851) 6280; (1881) 13,235; 

 (1891)17,771. 



Putrefaction is the term given to the decom- 

 position of organic substances when accompanied 

 by an offensive smell. It was long supposed to be 

 ordinary chemical change due to the complexity, 

 resulting instability, and atlinity for oxygen of 

 organic matter. It is now known to IK> t lie result 

 of the living activity of certain minute plants called 

 Bacteria (q.v.), which also cause fermentation 

 (q. v. ) and many diseases (see GKKM ). The spores of 

 these plants are present in great nuniliers in the 

 lower levels of the air, in water, and on the surface 

 of the earth ; and, as they are only almut '001 mm. 

 in diameter and two to four times" as lone, it is not 

 surprising that they were not seen, and tiiat putre- 

 faction was supposed to lw spontaneous, lint, if we 

 lioil an infusion of organic stuff and so kill the 

 bacteria in it, and, while the steam is coming freely 

 off, close it up with a plug of cotton wool, which, 

 while allowing free access to air, prevents anv 

 yeims or siNires from reaching the fluid, it will 

 remain without any change for years, but will 

 begin to putrefy in a day or two' if the plug be 

 removed. A low temperature, although it will not 

 kill the bacteria, will stop their growth and the 

 resulting destructive changes; hence the use of 

 freezing food on shipboard. Salicylic, carbolic, 

 and other acids also check growth, bttt there seem 

 to be only a few poisons, such as corrosive sub- 

 limate, chlorine, and bromine, that actually kill. 

 Drying stops growth and kills the developed plant 

 in a few days, but the spores will live for a long 

 lime in a dried condition. The effect of oxygen is 

 i-arions : some s]>ccieH require it, while others are 

 limit-red in their growth by it ; and a high pres- 

 sure of oxygen will kill evei, tit..-.- kinds that need 

 i ceitain amount in a few- days. Of the precise 

 hcniical changes that takfc place as a result of the 

 if'- of bacteria we are still largely ignorant ; the 

 chief final results of these ch:u ilied 



inder FKKMKNTATION. For an inve-tigation in 

 be causes of putrefaction, see Tyndall'a 

 nHrrofthe ^ir (1881). 



Putrid Fever. See JAIL FKVKB. 



