134 THE DESTRUCTIVE INFLUENCE OF 
casily able to see the changes produced by boiling 
water upon living matter—revealing themselves as 
they do by an immediately altered appearance of the 
skin, and by the terrible wound so quickly produced. 
Upon these distressing, though, unfortunately, only 
too familiar consequences of the action of heat upon 
living matter, it is not necessary for me further to 
dwell; I would merely have the reader so far bear 
them in mind that they may not be incapable of 
recall during the perusal of this article. The oc- 
casional revival of such impressions may perhaps 
prove a little instructive to those who chance to be 
at all dubious as to the destructive effects of boiling 
water upon lower organisms. 
Probably, however, some of my readers may 
already be possessed by the notion that the dis- 
astrous effects just referred to are consequences 
following rather from the fact of the high organiza- 
tion of man’s tissues than from any intrinsic incom- 
patibility of nature between living matter and boiling 
water, The thought is natural enough and not un- 
justifiable. On the other hand, it will not do to 
attach much importance to it. Let us for a moment 
consider the effects produced upon an ordinary hen’s 
egg by a brief immersion in boiling water. Here we 
have the ‘white,’ composed of albumen similar to 
that which enters so largely into the composition of 
