76 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1750. 



he expected to find all dissolvable substances endowed with some degree of this 

 quality; till on further experiments, he perceived some made no resistance, and 

 others promoted corruption. But before entering on that part of the subject, 

 he deems it proper to relate some other experiments more nearly connected with 

 the preceding. 



5. Having seen how much more antiseptic these infusions were than sea-salt, 

 he then tried whether plants would part with this virtue without infusion. For 

 this purpose, having 3 small and thin slices of the lean of beef, he rubbed one 

 with the powder of the bark, another with snake-root, and a third with camo- 

 mile flowers. It was in the heat of summer, yet, after keeping these pieces for 

 several days, he found the flesh with the bark but little tainted, and the other 2 

 quite sweet. The substance of all the 3 was firm , particularly that with the 

 camomile, which was so hard and dry, that it seemed incorruptible. Why 

 the bark had not altogether the same effect, was probably owing to its close 

 texture. 



6. He had also made some attempts towards the sweetening of corrupted flesh, 

 by means of mild substances ; because distilled spirits, or strong acids, the only 

 things known to answer this intention, were of too acrid and irritating a nature 

 to be thoroughly useful, when this correction was most wanted. As for salts, 

 besides their acrimony, it is well known that meat once tainted will not take salt. 



A piece of flesh weighing 1 drs. which in a former experiment had become 

 putrid, and was therefore very tender, spongy, and specifically lighter than 

 water, was thrown into a few ounces of the infusion of camomile-flowers, after 

 expressing the air, to make it sink in the fluid : the infusion was renewed twice 

 or thrice in as many days ; when, perceiving the faetor gone, he put the flesh 

 into a clean bottle, with a fresh infusion ; and this he kept all the summer, and 

 had it then by him, quite sweet, and of a firm texture.* In like manner he had 

 been able to sweeten several small pieces of putrid flesh, by repeated affusions of a 

 strong decoction of the bark ; and he constantly observed, that not only the 

 corrupted smell was removed, but a firmness restored to the fibres. 



Now, since the bark parted with so much of its virtue in water, it was na- 

 tural to think it would still yield more in the body, when opened by the saliva 

 and bile ; and therefore it was by this antiseptic virtue it chiefly operated. From 

 this principle we might account for its success in gangrenes, and in the low state 

 of malignant fevers, when the humours are so evidently putrid. And for inter- 

 mittents, in which the bark is most specific, were we to judge of their nature, 

 from circumstances attending them in climates and seasons most liable to the 

 distemper, we should assign putrefaction as a principal cause. They are the 



• This piece was kept a twelvemonth in the same liquor, and was then firm and uncor- 

 rupted.— Orig. 



