372 THE IMPROVED AR.T OF FARRIERY. 



blood deposits in putrefaction a sediment resembling 

 well digested pus, and changes to a faint olive-green. 

 A serum so far putrefied as to become green, is per- 

 haps never to be seen in the vessels of living animals ; 

 but in dead bodies this serum is to be distinguished by 

 the green colour which the flesh acquires in corrupt- 

 ing. In salted meat this is commonly ascribed to the 

 brine, but erroneously, for that has no power of giving 

 this colour, but only of qualifying the taste, and in 

 some degree the ill effects of corrupted aliments. In 

 foul ulcers, and other sores where the serum is left to 

 stagnate long, the matter is likewise found of this co- 

 lour, and is then always acrimonious. The putrefac- 

 tion of animal substances is prevented or retarded by 

 most saline matters, even by the fixed and volatile 

 alkaline salts, which have generally been supposed to 

 produce a contrary effect. Of all the salts that have 

 been tried, sea salt seems to resist putrefaction the 

 least ; in small quantities it even accelerates the pro- 

 cess. The vegetable bitters, as camomile flowers, are 

 much stronger antiseptics, not only for preserving 

 the flesh long uncorrupted, but likewise somewhat 

 correcting it when putrid : the mineral acids have this 

 effect in a more remarkable degree. 



Vinous spirits, aromatics, and warm substances, and 

 the acrid plants, erroneously called alkalescent, scurvy- 

 grass, and horse-radish, are found to resist putrefac- 

 tion. Sugar and camphor are found to be powerfully 

 antiseptic. Fixed air, or the carbonic acid, is likewise 

 known to resist putrefaction ; but, above all, the va- 

 pour of nitrous acid in the form of air is found to be 

 the most effectual in preserving animal bodies from 

 corruption. The list of the septics, or of those sub- 

 stances which promote putrefaction, is very short, and 

 such a property has only been discovered in calca- 



