STUDIES OF POULTRY. 7 



the work on frozen poultry were not given. The same paper, with 

 some additions and modifications, and entitled " The cold storage of 

 beef and poultry," was presented in abstract at the First International 

 Congress of Refrigerating Industries and published in full in the pro- 

 ceedings of the congress issued during the spring of 1909. In this 

 communication, in addition to microphotographs of frozen beef mus- 

 cle, there are several showing chicken breast muscle sectioned in a 

 frozen condition. The authors state that during freezing the me- 

 chanical action is such that the liquid portion of the muscle fiber is 

 forced through the sarcolemma, which, for the time being, is supposed 

 to assume a reticular character, at least for chemical particles, and 

 that this liquid collects in spaces between the fibers. Slow thawing, 

 the authors believe, causes a resorption of the exuded materials with- 

 out detectable alteration of the fiber either by chemical, physical, or 

 histological evidence. 



On page 314 of volume 2 of the proceedings of the congress just 

 cited, the authors state that " It is not necessary to give detailed 

 tables showing the analytical results (chemical) on cold-storage 

 chickens, inasmuch as the results are in general similar to those ob- 

 tained in the case of beef." A little later it is said that " The figures 

 indicate no bacterial action whatever (uniform ammoniacal nitro- 

 gen) and no increase in proteoses (absence of marked enzym action) 

 up to eighteen months." Again, it is to be regretted that the authors 

 give none of the data on which their statements are based, since, in 

 the present extreme paucity of analyses of cold-stored flesh of any 

 kind, and our lack of knowledge concerning the composition of fresh 

 chicken flesh, as well as frozen, all information is of value. 



Under the caption of " Unrendered animal fats in freezer storage " 

 it is stated that the abdominal fat of fresh chickens holds 0.20 per 

 cent of free fatty acid ; that three chickens four and one-half months 

 old showed, respectively, 0.40, 0.40, and 0.56 per cent of free fatty 

 acid, a practical doubling of the content of free acid, though both 

 quantities are low. After nineteen months two samples showed, re- 

 spectively, 0.96 and 0.48 per cent of free fatty acid. With only two 

 analyses from two chickens, one can not make conclusive deductions, 

 but the indications are that Richardson obtained a rise in free fatty 

 acid even after four months of storage. 



In the proceedings of the same congress Pennington reported 

 some of the work which Wiley and associates in January, 1908, 

 had stated to be in progress. Much of this report was published in 

 November, 1908, as Bulletin 115, United States Department of Agri- 



a Pennington, M. E., A Chemical, Bacteriological and Histological Study of 

 Cold-stored Poultry, Proceedings of First International Congress of Refrigerat- 

 ing Industries, 1909, 2 : 216-260. 

 [Cir. 64] 



