OBSERVATIONS AND EXPERIMENTS ON PUS. £3 



phosphate of lime, and potash— nothing else could now be 

 traced. 



(/) Di.slilled water, in the quantity of a pint, was once 5th soluticn, 

 more mixed with the four sorts of purulent matter uiider-^ 

 going inquiry. After^48 iiours, a pint of liquid was de* 

 canted from off each of them ; but beii^.g slightly turbid, 

 they were left to stand 24 hours. By this time a sediment 

 was deposited from each of the liquors; but being still, 

 though very slightly, turbid, they were liltrated through 

 suitable paper. They were then transparent. The trans- 

 parent filtrated liquors had their triaisparency disturbed by 

 a boihng temperature. They became also slightly milky 

 with nitrate of silver, but scarcely so with infusion of gull, 

 nut. On evaporation to the quantity of an ounce from each 

 pint, the residuary liquids appeared slightly globular. 

 These, on evaporation to dryness, yielded not more than one 

 part of animal matter, from each 500 of the transparent fil- 

 trated liquids. 



{g) On standing three or four days in a cold room, the Residuum, 

 parcels of pus, after the ablutions just related [a'—f), exhi- 

 bited a whey coloured liquor at the top, of which about f 

 of a pint was poured off from them. More turbid liquor 

 was also separated f.om the washed pus, by pouring it upon 

 a porous cotton cloth strainer, which left purulent matter of 

 the consistence of starch mucilage, amounting to about one 

 half the original weight. 



{h) The pus freed from coagulable lirapid liquid by re- Its properties. 

 peated ablutions [a — h) was white as snow — equal in con- 

 sistence — perfectly smooth — the 4th kind was less viscid than 

 before, but the others were more so — no smell — not at all 

 disposed to putrefy — on elevating its temperature to l65* 

 and higher, it did not coagulate into one mass, nor into clots, 

 or large masses of curd, but a watery fluid separated from a 

 fine soft somewhat curdlike opaque fluid ; which did not be- 

 come more curdy, even on boiling — it did not appear that 

 above a grain of this part, or state of pus, dissolved in 1000 

 waters — was highly globular under the microscope, and re- 

 mained so, although coagulated by nitrate of silver; by in- 

 fusion of gall nut; by alcohol; and supersulphate of alu- 

 mina—with rauriateof ammonia, nitrate of potash, and other 



neutral 



