Miscellaneous. 151 



the heat of summer, the liquid became quite limpid, while a soft 

 white substance (caseiue) was deposited at the bottom of the tube ; 

 but neither the liquid nor the precipitate had any acid taste ; at the 

 end of three months they exhaled the odour of fresh milk. 



Some fresh milk, without the addition of borax, put into a well- 

 corked test-tube, underwent the acid fermentation after two or three 

 days ; it became quite thick by the coagulation of the caseine. 



3. A fragment of sheep's cerebellum was sprinkled with borax. 

 Eight days afterwards it gave out a spermatic odour ; later, sulphu- 

 retted hydrogen was liberated, without putrefaction proper being 

 perceptible. The substance, after presenting during several months 

 a soft consistenoe, became hard and void of any unpleasant smell. 



4. A pound of beef was placed in a concentrated solution of borax 

 in a tin box not hermetically sealed. The red colouring-matter of the 

 blood became diffused in the surrounding liquid, as well as a part of 

 the soluble nitrogenous substances of the meat. After a few weeks 

 the liquid assumed a brown colour and emitted a very unpleasant odour, 

 although there was no putrefaction of the meat, which, when removed 

 from the liquid and washed with cold water, certainly had a peculiar 

 smell, but quite unlike that of putrefying meat. To-day, after more 

 than a year and a half, notwithstanding the summer heats of 1873 

 and 1874, the liquid having been renewed three times, the flesh 

 presents not the slightest odour of putrefaction. Its colour is 

 yellowish ; but it is soft and tender like fresh meat. Taken out 

 of the preserving-liquor, it retains its condition unchanged in the 

 air. 



5. Some beef, veal, and fragments of sheep's brains were placed 

 in a borax solution in a jar filled with the liquid, and hermetically 

 closed. The liquid was soon tinged bright red ; and this colour 

 remained unchanged during several months. The meat did not 

 present the slightest unpleasant odour as long as the access of air 

 was prevented. Some meat placed in water, even in an hermetically 

 closed bottle, was rotten in a few days. 



The odour sui generis presented, on contact with the air, by meat 

 which has been preserved for a time in the borax solution, seems to 

 me to arise from the decomposition of the materials resulting from 

 the metamorphosis of the substances composing either the muscular 

 fibre or the intermuscular plasma. 



Without wishing to infer from the preceding an application to 

 the preservation of viands for culinary use, there flows from it 

 another — the preservation of anatomical preparations by means of 

 concentrated solutions of borax in well-closed jars. A great saving 

 of the alcohol used in such cases would evidently result. 



As we have demonstrated that protoplasm (that is to say, the 

 living substratum of the lower organisms) is killed by borax, this 

 substance might probably be utilized in the dressing of wounds, &c. 

 — Annales de (Jliimie et de Physique, A.pril 1875, pp. 543-549. 



