CONTAGION AND MIASMS. 
285 
savoury food ; but when the spices and salt are deficient, and 
particularly when they are smoked too late, or not sufficiently, 
they undergo a peculiar kind of putrefaction, which begins 
at the centre of the sausage. Without any appreciable 
escape of gas taking place, they become paler in colour, and 
more soft and greasy in those parts which have undergone 
putrefaction, and they are found to contain free lactic acid, 
or lactate of ammonia. The death which is occasioned by 
eating the sausages in this state succeeds very lingering 
and remarkable symptoms. There is a gradual wasting of 
muscular fibre, and of all the constituents of the body similarly 
composed, the patient becomes much emaciated, dries to a 
complete mummy, and finally dies. The carcase is stiff as if 
frozen, and is not subject to putrefaction. The poisonous 
property of the sausage is destroyed by boiling water and 
alcohol, but all attempts to discover in them any matter to 
which their action can be attributed have failed. There can, 
however, be little doubt that they exercise an action on the 
organism in consequence of the stomach and other parts 
with which they come in contact not having the power to 
arrest their decomposition, and entering the blood in some 
way or other, while still possessing their whole power, they 
impart their peculiar action to the constituents of that fluid. 
Now blood is remarkable for the readiness with which it 
suffers transformations ; all the constituents of the animal 
organism are formed from it, and its nature and constitution 
is one of the most complex of all existing matter. Its com- 
ponent parts are subordinate to every attraction, and these 
are in a perpetual state of change or transformation, which is 
effected in the most various ways, through the influence of 
the different organs. It is a well-known fact that when 
blood, cerebral substance, gall, pus, and other substances in 
a state of putrefaction, are laid upon fresh wounds, vomiting, 
debility, and at length death are occasioned. It is also well 
known that bodies in anatomical rooms frequently pass into 
a state of decomposition, which is capable of imparting itself 
to the living body ; the smallest cut with a knife that has 
been used in their dissection, producing in these cases 
dangerous consequences. 
Liebig, showing in what manner these remarkable actions 
are to be considered in reference to the vital principle, says, 
<c In order to explain the effects of contagious matters, a 
peculiar principle of life has been ascribed to them, — a life 
similar to that possessed by the germ of a seed which enables 
it, under favorable conditions, to develop and multi p 
itself. But our notion of life involves something more th 
