272 



CARBOLIC ACID ARRESTS DECOMPOSITION. 



hung up for another month. No change had taken 

 place when examined at the end of that time. 



As a companion experiment to the above, " a piece 

 of fresh meat was soaked in a I per cent, solution of 

 carbolic acid for one hour, it was then wrapped in 

 paper and hung up in a sitting-room in which there 

 was a fire almost daily ; at the end of ten weeks it was 

 examined ; it had dried up to about one-fourth of its 

 original size, but looked and smelt perfectly fresh, 

 having but a very faint odour of carbolic acid. It was 

 soaked for twenty-four hours in water, and stewed 

 with appropriate condiments, and then eaten ; it was 

 perfectly sweet, and scarcely distinguishable from 

 fresh meat, except by possessing a very faint flavour 

 of carbolic acid, not strong enough to be unplea- 

 sant." 



In the first of these experiments it was. plain that 

 the chloride of lime, one of the most potent of deodo- 

 rizers, acted merely on the gases of the existing putre- 

 faction, while the carbolic acid, exerting scarcely any 

 influence on the foetid gases, "attacked the cause 

 which produced them, and at the same time put the 

 organic matter in such a state, that it never re-acquired 

 its tendency to putrefy." 



How Carbolic Acid acts in arresting decomposition. 

 With the view of ascertaining in what way carbolic 

 acid acted in arresting decomposition, Mr. Oookes 

 next made the following experiment : " Albumen was 

 mixed with four times its bulk of water, and a one per 



