DEODORIZERS AND DISINFECTANTS. 
67 
acid to neutralization, and then diluting the solution with 
water. Nitric acid decomposes sulphuretted hydrogen, 
throwing down the sulphur, and forming nitrous acid and 
water. 
In closing somewhat abruptly the consideration of these 
substances, for we have not exhausted the list, we may be 
permitted to add, that a few years since there was brought 
under the notice of the scientific world a plan proposed by M. 
Gannal to preserve animal substances. The agent em- 
ployed by him was the acetate of alumina. It was intended 
more especially for the preservation of the human body in- 
stead of embalming it, and also to keep specimens of natural 
history, it being injected into the blood-vessels. 
Mr. Goadby’s fluids, however, appear to have superseded 
it for the latter purpose, and likewise for the keeping of dis- 
sected and morbid parts. One of these consists of a 
solution of bay-salt and alum, to which is "added a very 
small quantity of corrosive sublimate ; this therefore bears 
some resemblance to M. Gannal’s fluid. The other 
contains bay-salt, corrosive sublimate, and arsenious acid 
in solution ; Mr. Goadby finding the sulphuric acid of 
the alum to act upon preparations containing carbonate 
of lime. 
Arsenious acid owes its antiseptic properties to its 
uniting with the gelatinous tissues, and corrosive sublimate 
to coagulating albumen. 
Alcohol, sugar, and salt, are well-known preservatives of 
animal matter, and the same probably may be said of 
lime ; their influence being dependent upon the abstraction 
of water, thus lessening the tendency organic substances 
have to run into the putrefactive state, when exposed to 
certain favorable conditional circumstances ; the principal of 
which are the presence of moisture, and a temperature of 
between 50° and 100°, for below the freezing point of water, 
or when perfectly dry, they undergo little or no change. 
As illustrative of this, the two following instances are 
on record. A mammoth, one of a race of animals now 
extinct, and which must have been enclosed for many ages, 
was discovered in a state of perfect preservation, frozen 
in a mass of ice. * On exposing it to the atmosphere, 
the crust of ice, after several years, disappeared, the hair 
and flesh still continuing in a perfect state. The Russian 
government, after some time, sent some naturalists to 
examine it, when they found that the flesh had been 
eaten by wild dogs and bears, and the bones alone 
remained, with the greater part of the skin. The 
