ACTION OF DIFFERENT GASSES ON MEAT. Ijg 



gas, I resolved to leave it there a longer time. Accordingly 

 I did not take it out till the 25th of August, when it had 

 remained in contact with the gas for 134 days. In the first 

 months the temperature was between- 7° and 20° [47*75° and Temperatuje. 

 77" F.j, and in the last months it was between 12° and 23* 

 [59* and 83'75** F.] The temperature therefore was much 

 higher, than was necessary to favour the decomposition of 

 the meat, yet it retained a fine red and fresh colour. Results, 

 The liquor however, which had such a fine red colour, 

 lost this in some measure. Having taken the meat 

 out of the nitrous gas, to examine it more careful!}', I ob- 

 served, that, wherever it had touched the sides of the glass, 

 it had become yellowish. (This 1 presume was owing to the 

 Contact of the glass diminishing the action of the gas.) In 

 other respects, it was still of a fine red, had a good degree of 

 firmness, and did not stink in the least ; but it had a slight 

 smell of nitric acid, with which a little of a peculiar smell 

 was observed. Thus we see, that a longer time and a higher 

 temperature produced changes, which did not take place in 

 a shorter time and at a lower temperature. 



The white sediment, iflentioned in my first experiment, Fibrin depo- 

 was found on examination to be coagulated fibrin. When "'^'^• 

 agitated in water, it exhibited itself in the form of the little 

 strings, that remain after the washing of the coagulum of 

 blood. Boiling water did not dissolve, but hardened it. 



The nitrous gas, that had been used for the experiment, The gas appa- 

 when brought into contact with atmospheric air produced '^^ntly un- 

 much red vapour ; and the diminution of bulk was as great, 

 as at the moment of its preparation. 



II» Having remarked in experiments 8 and 9» that the Carbonic add 

 meat, which had remained 51 days in hidrogen gas at a tem- hidrogen^ gas, 

 perature from 7*^ to 20° [47'75* to 77° P.], rendered lime- 

 water turbid, 1 instituted the two following experiments. 



16. Hidrogen s^as. 

 I prepared this gas with zinc and dilute sulphuric acid, Exp. 16. Hi- 

 to obviate the objection, that the carbonic acid gas, con- ^^."^"^^"j^^^^nd 

 tained in the hidregen prep=»red by passing the vapour of sulphuric acid, 

 water over a red-hot iron, might have originated from eaj._o^" mittury. 

 buret of iron, 



N 2 I en- 



