Bakewell. — On Infiammatory 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 113° 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.E.S., and to Mr. E. Brudenell Carter, with specimens put 

 up in carbolized glycerine, of portions of the retinee and conjunctivae, and I 

 think other structures of the eye. Since that time I have several times 

 repeated the experiments with the same results. I am now about to 

 try what changing the blood frequently, so as to give fresh supphes 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 tlie cornea, making it quite bright like the living eye, 

 so 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 mammahan eye will undergo the following changes when 

 immersed m 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 utihzed for the purpose of taking photographs after death. 



