POPULAK SCIENCE. 9 



serves was obviated. Gradually we see an accumulation of 

 evidence leading up to more than one practical point. Next 

 followed the announcement by a member of the medical pro- 

 fession that sulphite of lime was, so far as his experience 

 went, an almost absolute cure for choleraic diarrhoea a 

 symptom that in times when cholera prevails runs on to 

 cholera itself. Other medical men tried this agent in their 

 practice; and having established its character, sulphite of 

 lime is now sold for that purpose by most dispensing che- 

 mists. Next dawned the idea that sulphurous acid used in 

 some form might be probably efficacious in the preservation 

 of meat. Professor Gamgee devoted himself to the necessary 

 experiments, which, so far as they have gone, are wholly suc- 

 cessful. By the adoption of his process, the details of which 

 it is unnecessary here to give, carcasses of animals home- 

 killed have been rendered, so to speak, incorruptible. It 

 remains yet to be seen whether the process be efficient to 

 protect carcasses packed in the hold of a ship during a voyage 

 of Australian sea transit. If it be, then the problem of feed- 

 ing our starving millions on good cheap animal food will have 

 been solved. 



Let us pause to reflect on some of the remarkable, even 

 stupendous, developments which have resulted from the seem- 

 ingly abstruse and unpractical experiment of the German 

 philosopher, who proved that filtered air would not prevent 

 the development of living beings in his beef-broth. Whether 

 the germs of these living beings be filtered away mechani- 

 cally, or whether they are killed by the operation of sulphur- 

 ous acid, the practical result is identical. It cannot be said 

 that the curious group of experiments detailed has culmi- 

 nated to its full practical issue ; but Dr. Tyndall has drawn 

 them to a focus, so to speak has popularised them to his 

 audiences, and is working in the new field with all his known 

 energy, and employing all his manifold resources. Although 

 he is not a medical man, yet the belief in the germ-theory of 



