176 REPORT— 1866. 



and, as it would seem to the unlearned, an immaterial agency acts by known 

 rules and in obedience to the human will*. 



The day will soon come when we shall know the mode bj^ which these agencies 

 act upon the body through the nervous expanse : we shall follow out the living 

 organism as so much matter moveable and transformable or transmutable, 

 built in, and I had almost said upon, a refined medium, itself unchangeable, 

 all-pervading, and establishing a bond of union between our own material 

 parts, ourselves, our planet, our ^^niverse. We shall see how this fluid, itself 

 physical, subjected to various influences, is disturbed, and how it communi- 

 cates such disturbance to the grosser matters which it permeates ; then a 

 vast number of strange and, as they now appear to us, conflicting phenomena 

 will resolve themselves into a single and simple law, and physiology, in its 

 wholeness, the science of the sciences, will be the most useful and the most 

 exact. 



I have said that when the motion of the heart has once been stopped, the 

 influence of the nitrite of amyl ceases ; that the nitrite can quicken the living 

 action, but cannot restore the lost action. These are the facts as they stand 

 at the moment ; but I must add as a qualification that the negative result may 

 perchance be due to inadequacy of experiment, and that new and continuous 

 experiment may change the argiiment. 



The Amtls as Antiseptics, 



The second new line of inquiry to which the amj'l-compounds were 

 subjected, was to determine whether they could be turned to account, practi- 

 cally, as antiseptics. I had already found that every one of the series is 

 preservative, and I therefore took one (the acetate) and subjected it to special 

 inquiry. The reason for taking the acetate (essence of pears) was that it 

 is most easily obtainable, is comparatively innocuous, and is removed entirely 

 from any organic substance by the process of cooking. 



The experiments Averc made in the following manner :— 



1. By placing organs of soft texture of dead animals, such as the spleen, 

 kidneys, and liver, in lightly closed earthenware chambers, in which the 

 acetate of amyl was also placed, in a small open dish, or in cloth or sawdust. 



2. By painting over the substance to be preserved with a mixture of size 

 and acetate of amyl. 



3. By injecting the body of a rabbit through the arteries with a fluid con- 

 sisting of glycerine, water, and acetate of amyl. 



4. By subjecting the quarters of a sheep to a solution of acetate of amyl, 

 and then burying the parts in melted fat or melted size. 



The results of the experiments are as foUow : — 



By the first method, animal substances may be preserved fresh when the 

 temperature is below 46° Fahr. for three weeks ; and when the tempe- 

 rature is above 46° and under 65° for a week. When the temperature is 

 over 65°, the eftect of the acetate is very uncertain. The change that takes 

 place in the meat when the effect of the acetate ceases, is a change differing 

 from ordinary putrefaction ; it is a process of white odourless softening. 



The second method, that of painting over the surface with a gelatinous 

 envelope containing acetate of amyl, was not successful. 



The third method, that of injecting the tissues by the arteries, is a good 

 method. The body keeps well, even when exposed to the air at 60°, for four- 



* I could make every heart in a room rise ten beats, at least, within a minute without 

 diffusing a detectable odour, as surely as I could vary the motion of a steam-engine by 

 movins tlie lever. 



