351 
THE PHARMACEUTICAL JOURNAL AND TRANSACTIONS. [October 29, 1870. 
foundation in fact. Cotton has no sharp edges; its 
fibre may he compai'ed to a tube of some thin material 
'Collapsed, and with rounded edges, ribbon-like, but more 
•or less twisted. The fibre of flax is rounded. There is 
•certainly a difference in the feeling between linen and 
cotton when applied to the skin, to whatever cause this 
may be attributed. 
The superiority of linen to cotton as a dressing for 
w T ounds is generally admitted ; and I think, therefore, 
that we may accept as a fact that cotton, in so far as it 
forms part of the linted surface, detracts from the value 
of the lint. But how is the occasional preference for 
hand-made lint to be explained ? On carefully com¬ 
paring a piece of hand-made lint with that made by ma¬ 
chinery, both being flax surfaces, I think it can only bo 
a question of the relative quantity of “ pile ” on the sur¬ 
face of either sample; and a reference to the next lint 
would seem to support my views. 
No. 5 Sample is “ Charpie,” a kind of lint used in 
the German hospitals, with reference to which I will 
quote a paragraph from one of the newspapers :—“ A 
Good Hint. —‘ Charpie ’ is a game at which all ladies 
should now be playing. It is played in this way.* Tear 
pieces of linen into fragments about three inches square, 
; and draw out every thread separately. It is capital fun, 
«especially adapted for the delicate fingers of young ladies, 
who can arrange parties for it at each other’s houses; 
and the best of all is that this charpie—a kind of lint—i's 
invaluable to the poor wounded soldiers, whose suffer¬ 
ings, for the want of such a thing, are often excruciat¬ 
ing and intolerable.” These detached threads are scraped 
into fluff, which is applied first, and then covered with 
the piece that remains, from which the threads have been 
.drawn in one direction only. 
No. 6 Sample is Marine Lint, which, through the ne¬ 
cessities of the present time, has acquired some notice. 
Eor this sample I am indebted to the kindness of Mr. 
Martindale. In a letter to the Lancet of September 2nd, 
the maker says, “ Marine lint is made from a variety of 
fibres (generally vegetable), prepared by a peculiar pro¬ 
cess, and will retain its disinfectant qualities and tarry 
fragrance for many years.” I take a piece of this, and 
•clean it by several immersions in methylated spirit. Its 
tar and its mystery disappear together. It is composed 
■ of flax or hemp fibres; in fact, it seems to me to be no¬ 
thing more than “ tow waste ” passed through a solution 
.of tar. 
One word more as to the means adopted for the detec¬ 
tion of cotton-fibre in combination with that of flax. 
The microscope is perfectly efficient for this purpose. 
The value of polarized light in determining form and 
structure is well understood by the microscopist. I 
have availed myself of it in these investigations. By its 
mid, and with a little management in manipulation, 
every fibre of which the thread or fluff is composed can 
be told with unerring accuracy. In the examination of 
.a sample of lint, I w T ould suggest that in the first place 
.a low power be employed to determine from the back of 
it the relative size of w r arp and weft, their closeness or 
otherwise; then that fibres from each and also a portion 
of the linted surface be examined separately by polarized 
light. By this means no specimen of lint can fail 
thorough investigation. 
If I have succeeded in throwing any light upon, and 
investing with interest, the subject brought before you, 
my time in the investigations and yours in listening to 
.the results will not have been spent in vain. 
I have here for distribution some lithographic plates of 
ootton and flax under the microscope, kindly supplied me 
by Mr. Suffolk, F.R.M.S., to w r hom I am indebted for 
much information and many kind suggestions on this 
subject. 
The President said that referring the different quali¬ 
fies of cotton and flax lints to the microscopic structure 
csvas an exaggeration and a popular error. If any dif¬ 
ference really existed in their relative merits, which many 
doubt, it probably was not because one fibre w r as flat and 
the other round, but because the cotton twisted by being 
wetted by the moisture from the wound, and by its 
movement caused the irritation complained of. 
Mr. Ince remarked upon the very different practice of 
this country and that of France and Germany in the 
selection of lint. In common with many others, he had 
lately given up a good deal of time to making charpie to 
send to the seat of war. In France, charpie , made by 
pulling out each separate thread of a linen or cotton 
fabric, w\as sold by weight. The French and Germans 
will not use English lint because of the fluff, and large 
quantities sent out for the relief of the wounded have 
been returned to England to be exchanged for other 
articles. The new material called “marine lint” was 
highly appreciated. 
Mr. Martindale referred favourably to the experience 
of “ marine lint ” in some of the London hospitals. As 
an antiseptic dressing, a little loosely applied as a pad¬ 
ding, placed above the ordinary lint dressing, it had been 
found efficacious, especially in cases where there was 
much fetid discharge, of which it was a most effectual 
deodorizer. The surgeons at St. George’s Hospital 
spoke w r ell of it, having used it for some time, and at the 
University College Hospital it had been used with 
success. Its application was found to add much to the 
comfort of the patient by destroying the disagreeable 
odour v T hich is often so persistent from gunshot and other 
wounds. It had been largely used for this purpose 
during the American war, w r here it was first introduced 
as a surgical appliance. 
Mr. Baildon regarded the prejudice against cotton 
lint as being without any good foundation, and stated 
that in the hospitals of Edinburgh cotton lint was used. 
As to the new “marinelint,” carbolic acid w r as evidently 
its active agent. 
SOCIETY OF ARTS. 
On Fermentation. 
BY PROEESSOR A. W. WILLIAMSON, F.R.S. 
Lecture LLL. — continued. 
I will now leave these experiments for the present, in 
order that I may tell you of some other discoveries, 
w'hich will afford a key to them. One of the most im¬ 
portant observations was made, at an early stage of the 
investigations, on the subject of ferments, by Dr. Schw r ann. 
He passed air through a red-hot tube, and he asserted, 
as the result of his observations, that air wliich had been 
so heated was incapable of producing the effects, winch 
I mentioned just now r as having been noticed by other 
observers as produced by common air; that whereas 
ordinary air starts fermentation, air which has been 
passed through a red-hot tube does not. That w r as w’hat 
he said, and in some of his observations he w r as quite 
correct, but in some others he must have been misled. 
Shortly after his observations, another German philoso¬ 
pher thought of using cotton-wool as a strainer. He 
passed air through a glass tube fitted up somewhat in 
the same manner as the one I have here, with a tolerably 
compact plug of cotton-wool, which allowed the air to 
pass through it, but at the same time acted as a strainer, 
and collected a quantity of dirt at the side where the air 
entered it; and ho found that the air winch had been 
thus strained was no longer capable of producing the 
phenomena of decomposition, w'hich air in the unstrained 
or unheated state does. Since then, Pasteur has done 
the same thing in a more accurate and more decisive 
manner; and he has repeated the experiment with heated 
air, with precautions which leave nothing to be desired. 
One novelty in Pasteur’s process is the use of a kind ot 
cotton which is soluble—cotton which has been in con¬ 
tact with strong nitric acid, w r hich is called gun-cotton. 
It retains the structure and appearance of ordinary cotton, 
