416 eepoet— 1879. 



The following Papers were read : — 



1. Experiments on Septic Organisms in Living Tissues. 

 By Staff-Sargeon Edward L. Moss, B.N. 



In 1874 some attempts to preserve meat in a state tit for dietetic purposes, and 

 apparently some suggestion from the eminent German, Surgeon Bilroth, induced 

 Professor Tiegel to undertake a series of experiments with tlie intention of deciding 

 whether septic organisms exist in the living tissues. 



With this object Dr. Teigel sealed up various parts of the bodies of newly-slain 

 rabbits by dropping them into melted paraffin at a temperature assumed to be high 

 enough to destroy any infection they might receive in transit from the animal's 

 body to the dish of paraffin. He found that, in most instances, the unheated 

 centre of his lumps of flesh became in a few days putrid and swarming with 

 bacteria. 1 



This result was so striking that his experiments were repeated by Dr. Burdon 

 Sanderson, 2 with the oidy difference that the red kernel of uncooked tissue dlivays 

 contained bacteria, whereas Teigel's results were not so uniform, as may be seen 

 by his reply to Professor Klebs in a number of Virchow's ' Archives ' following the 

 paper summing up his experiments. 



On the other hand, Messrs. Cliiene and Cossar Ewart reached a very different 

 conclusion after a course of similar experiments, in which, however, they laid 

 special stress on the use of an additional precaution in the shape of antiseptic 

 spray. 3 But the action of a bactericide cannot be limited to defence only, and 

 their experiments woidd have been more convincing if the pieces of meat had not 

 been exposed to an agent capable of penetrating the flesh and killing or arresting 

 the growth of any bacteria it may have contained. If, however, meat sealed in 

 air pure and simple will remain unputrefied, it is fair to conclude that the frag- 

 ments so remaining are free from the special organisms that cause putrefaction. 



In the winter of 1875, 1 sealed up a piece of musk-ox meat in clean Arctic air, 

 and it remained perfectly fresh until the glass tube containing it was accidentally 

 broken thirteen months afterward. In this case any sources of putrefaction which 

 may have existed in the flesh were possibly destroyed by the low temperature to 

 which it had been exposed. On looking up what had been written on the subject 

 I found the accounts of the experiments just referred to, and it appeared worth 

 while to try whether flesh woidd keep equally well if removed warm from the body 

 of a recently killed animal and simply sealed in an atmosphere whose freedom from 

 life could be guaranteed. 



Availing myself of the facilities afforded by the laboratory of the Royal Dublin 

 Society, I led a pipe from the nozzle of a well-weighted blacksmith's bellows, 

 through a tube of hard glass six feet long well packed with platinum foil, and 

 heated to redness in a Hoffmann combustion furnace. I thus obtained a stream of 

 air at the rate of 70 cubic feet an hour at a temperature which quickly singed 

 cotton-wool, and varied during the operation between 380° and 420° Fahr., as was 

 shown by a thermometer let into the outflowing end of the tube — a brass pipe, first 

 thoroughly cleansed by heating to redness, was surrounded by a freezing mixture 

 and served to cool the current to a temperature between 70° and 80°. 



In the air thus obtained I removed pieces of flesh from the dorsal muscles of a 

 decapitated rabbit — using a scorched knife and forceps — and sealed them in glass 

 tubes cleaned by heating to redness, and through which a current of the sterilised 

 air was kept flowing until the fragments were put in. In order to close the tubes, 

 the wider end of each was first stopped with well-baked cotton wool, the narrower 

 end then fused off from the branch-pipe conveying the current, and, finally, the 

 space of tube between the stopper of cotton wool and the flesh was fused, drawn 

 out, and closed. 



Three tubes containing muscle, and one with brain, were thus hermetically 



1 Virchow's Archives, vol. 16, p. 453. 



2 British Medical Journal, January 1878. 



3 Journal of Anatomy and Physiolagy, April 1878. 



