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EXAMINATION OF PASTEUR’S DOCTRINES 111 
every day with quite contrary results. Meat, fruits, — 
vegetables, the very materials of the most fermentable 
and putrescible infusions, are preserved to the extent, 
I suppose I may say, of thousands of tons every 
year by a method which is a mere application of 
Spallanzani’s experiment. The matters to be pre- 
served are well boiled in a tin case provided with a 
small hole, and this hole is soldered up when all the 
air in the case has been replaced by steam. By this 
method they may be kept for years, without putre- 
fying, fermenting, or getting mouldy.” 
A few days after this statement was made I 
visited one of the largest establishments in London 
in which meats and vegetables are preserved. For 
this opportunity, and for many particulars com- 
municated in a long conversation, with permission 
to make the facts known, I was indebted to the 
courtesy of Mr M‘Call of Houndsditch. 
A number of cases, enclosing the provisions, 
instead of being simply heated to a temperature of 
212° F., as most people would understand from what 
Professor Huxley said, are first heated in a large 
chloride of calcium bath (warmed by steam) and 
raised to a temperature of 230° to 235° F. for more 
than an hour anda half. The hole through which 
the steam has been issuing is then closed with 
solder. Of course the more or less solid contents of 
the tins would require a longer time to be raised to 
any given temperature than a fluid, but the pro- 
bability is that during the latter half of this time the 
temperature of the contents would be not far short 
or225 Py.at- least. 
