ee Ee ee ee 
Baxewet.—On Inflammatory Action in dead Animal Bodies, 117 
experiment to be:spoiled. E.g.—One night after watching from 8 p.m. until 
1 a.m. I turned away for a few minutes to get a cup of coffee. When I 
had finished I found the thermometer marked 118° F. ; half an hour after- 
wards the blood was black and smelling most offensively. It may be ob- 
served that when once molecular death has occurred in the blood and tissues, 
chemical decomposition proceeds with very great rapidity. 
The only absolutely safe plan to prevent the temperature rising too 
high, is to place a very small tube or bottle in contact with the body of a 
warm-blooded animal. The warm-blooded animal I found most convenient 
was myself, but on one or two occasions I used a fowl, tying the tube or 
bottle under its wing when at roost. I also tried a cat, but cats and fowls 
are both objectionable—the former have claws, and the latter claws and 
beaks. The objection to the healthy human body is the low temperature ; 
you can get cell-growth abundantly; you can get fatty degeneration of 
muscle, but I have not yet succeeded in- getting pus, except at a tempera- 
ture over 100° F, (38 Cent.) Having only produced pus in the chambers of 
the eye, I have not yet been able to do so except at a higher temperature than 
the healthy human body affords. I have tried every tissue of the mamma- 
lian body, except bone, repeatedly, but the most striking results were with 
eyes, and as the globe of the eye roughly removed with muscles attached, 
contains nearly all kinds of tissue except bone and cartilage, it is very con- 
venient. I will briefly describe the changes that follow immersion for from 
4 to 12 hours in defibrinated blood of the temperature 100° to 105° F. 
I sent an account of these experiments more than a year ago to Pro- 
fessor Flower, F.R.S., and to Mr. R. Brudenell Carter, with specimens put 
up in carbolized glycerine, of portions of the retine and conjunctive, and I 
- think other structures of the eye. Since that time I have several times 
Tepeated the experiments with the same results. I am now about to 
try what changing the blood frequently, so as to give fresh supplies of 
oxygen, will do. . 
It may be well to mention that the immersion of an eye in defibrinated 
blood at a temperature of 50° to 60° F., will in about half a hour restore 
the transparency to the cornea, making it quite bright like the living eye, 
. 80 as to make out all the structures with an ophthalmoscope.* 
Within a period varying from one to two hours, according to the 
temperature, a fresh mammalian eye will undergo the following changes when 
immersed in defibrinated blood of a temperature of 100° to 105°. First, the 
dull opalescent tint of the cornea will disappear and it will become bright 
and transparent. Then it loses this brightness again, and becomes of a 
* This might be utilized for the purpose of taking photographs after death, 
* 
