629 
of Edmhurgh, Session 1865 - 66 . 
it, with the hope of obtaining useful results. These I now submit 
to the Society, imperfect as they are, trusting that they may not 
prove altogether useless, and that they may lead to further inquiry. 
1. Of Degree of Temperature as modifying Change. 
It is well known how rapidly meat undergoes the putrefactive 
change in the height of summer, and in tropical climates at all 
seasons; and, on the contrary, how long it may be kept free from 
putridity during our winter, and more especially at the freezing 
temperature, and degrees of temperature approaching the freezing, — 
in this, as in the preceding instance, fully exposed to the air of 
ordinary atmospheric humidity. 
In the comparative trials I have made in each season, for the sake 
of precision, the meat used has been divided into two portions, — 
one, suspended by a thread, has been fully exposed to the air of the 
room; the other has been suspended in a receiver over a little 
water, — the receiver, so covered as to admit air, and yet prevent 
rapid desiccation by evaporation. 
In one experiment on portions of lamb, made at a temperature 
varying from 60° to 65° of Fahr., between the 11th and 12th of 
August, the results were strikingly different. The portion fully 
exposed to the air lost weight rapidly, and soon became dry and 
hard, without acquiring any putrid taint ; whilst the other, on 
the contrary, softened, and for most part actually liquified, at the 
same time becoming extremely putrid.* I have mentioned these 
results in a note, in a paper published in the last volume of the 
Society’s Transactions,! and in the same note have adverted to the 
fact of the perfect preservation of the meat during the like time 
and temperature over water in vacuo. 
In a second trial made in winter, a portion weighing 141-1 grs., 
exposed freely to the air, became dry and hard in twenty-three 
days, viz., from the 27th of October to the 19th of November, the 
thermometer in the room averaging about 55°. During this time 
The droppings from the putrifying meat have had some resemblance to 
chyme, being found to consist of a fluid coagulable by heat, in which were 
suspended, as seen with a high magnifying power, innumerable granules, 
some fibres, and some minute crystals. 
t Transactions, vol. xxiv. p. 137. 
