THE PHARMACEUTICAL JOURNAL AND TRANSACTIONS. 
[October 28, 1871. 
344 
having a better means of estimating the colour of 
this liquid having led to the invention; but the 
apparatus is without doubt capable of application in 
indicating the colour of potable waters (longer tubes 
being made use of), and in many other similar cases 
which will present themselves to the mind of the 
practical chemist. 
85, Gracechurch Street , London , JE.C. 
EXPERIMENTS MADE FOR THE PURPOSE OF 
PRESERVING RAW MEAT. 
BY DR. BAUDET. 
Since I had obtained, by a lengthy practice, some con¬ 
siderable experience as regards the antiseptic and pre¬ 
servative properties of a substance which I term spyrol 
(carbolic acid), for being applied to the tanning, tawing 
and carrying operations, I felt induced to try some ex¬ 
periments as regards the use of that body for the preser¬ 
vation of meat. 
First process : By immersion in phenic water at from 
5-10,000 to 1-1000.—On the 18th of October last year I 
took four wide-mouthed stoppered bottles, and placed 
in each 250 grms. of raw horseflesh, slightly moistened 
with phenicated water in the following proportions :— 
No. 1 , solution at 4-1000 ; No. 2, solution at 3-1000; 
No. 3, solution at 2-1000; No, 4, solution at 1-1000. 
To the contents of every bottle I added a few small 
pieces of well-burnt charcoal, with the view to absorb 
any gaseous matter which might be evolved from the 
meat; after .having hermetically closed the bottles, I 
have kept these for thirteen weeks in a room constantly 
heated at from 15° to 20° C. On inspecting the bottles 
after the lapse of time just mentioned, I found that the 
liquid which covers the meat had in all bottles become 
slightly rose-red coloured. The state of the meat, on 
examining it, was found as follows:—No. 1. The meat had 
become somewhat blackish-coloured, but was not spoiled 
at all. No. 2. Meat very w r ell preserved, colour light rose- 
red. No. 3. Meat perfectly well kept, with the natural 
colour of fresh meat. No. 4. Meat has quite well kept; its 
colour has greatly improved, considering that raw horse¬ 
flesh is naturally deep-coloured. A few days after 
having inspected and noted down, as described, the con¬ 
tents of each bottle, I have taken a portion of the 
meat of No. 3 bottle, and, without having it washed or 
drained, have fried it, and dressed as a beefsteak; on 
partaking of it, in company with several other parties, 
we found the meat excellent, having only acquired a 
slight taste similar to that of cured ham and bacon, but 
by no means disagreeable. I have kept at the same 
temperature as indicated above, and under the same con¬ 
ditions, the meat in the bottles, well-closed, and have 
not observed, up to the middle of February last, any 
other change in the meat than an external drying and 
shrivelling up, and deeper colour, but internally the na¬ 
tural colour remains. From the foregoing experiments 
I conclude that phenicated water in the proportion of 
from 1-1000 to even 5-10,000, might be applied to keep 
raw meat fresh and sweet, without imparting to it either 
any perceptible smell or taste, provided the meat be kept 
in well-closed vessels, be they casks, tinned iron canis¬ 
ters, or other vessels. 
Second process: By means of vegetable charcoal coarsely 
broken up, and saturated with phenicated water at from 
5-10,000 to 1-1000. —This process is applied as follows :— 
I cover the meat with a thin woven fabric, in order to 
avoid its direct contact with the charcoal, which might 
penetrate into the fibre of the meat, which is placed 
next into barrels, care being taken to place therein first 
a layer of the phenicated charcoal, then a layer of meat, 
and so on alternately, until the barrel is quite filled, and 
all interstices properly taken up by the charcoal. As 
regards the importation of raw meat preserved by this 
method, from South America, I would suggest that the 
meat, first covered with any thinly-woven fabric, be 
placed in bags made of raw caoutchouc, very abundantly 
obtainable in the country alluded to ; so that the impor¬ 
tation of raw meat and the importation of caoutchouc 
might go, as it were, hand in hand. The mode of filling 
in alternate layers of phenicated charcoal and meat 
would, of course, remain the same ; and there would be 
no difficulty of hermetically sealing up bags made of 
caoutchouc, either by soldering the seams together, or by 
placing a cap of caoutchouc over the mouth of the bag, 
and soldering the cap on hermetically.— The Drug. Cir¬ 
cular and Chem. Gaz., August, 1871, from Monitcur 
Scientifique. 
INAUGURATION OF THE NEW COLLEGE OF 
PHYSICAL SCIENCE AT NEWCASTLE. 
The new College of Physical Science at Newcastle- 
upon-Tyne was inaugurated on Wednesday, October 
24th. The college has every prospect of great success. 
The funds are ample; there are already a considerable 
number of students, and the appointments of the profes¬ 
sors have given the greatest satisfaction. They are Pro¬ 
fessor Herschel, B.A., Professor Aldis, M.A., Professor 
Page, LL.D., and Professor Marreco, M.A. In addition 
to the chairs occupied by these learned gentlemen, it is 
proposed to establish a chair of history and political 
economy. The chair was occupied by Sir William 
Armstrong. 
The Dean of Durham said the occasion on which they 
met was one both of satisfaction and hope to Newcastle 
and the neighbourhood. It was a matter of satisfaction 
that in little more than six months after a scheme for a 
college of scientific teaching, with a special view to the 
wants of the north of England, was proposed, they had 
been enabled to begin an effective course of instruction ; 
and it was a further gratification that their plan had 
been understood and responded to by those for whom it 
was designed, so that they were not in the rather awk¬ 
ward position which had sometimes been the lot of simi¬ 
lar institutions at' their commencement, of having pro¬ 
fessors but no pupils. He would endeavour to place 
before them that day something of an estimate of the 
place which physical science ought to hold in a good 
education for the upper and middle classes, particularly 
in a part of England whose wants were somewhat pecu¬ 
liar. If he wanted to define a good education, he should 
say that it consisted in two things,—first, in drawing 
out and disciplining the powers of the mind so as to 
make it do our bidding in our coming life, and at the 
same time in imparting along with this power a consi¬ 
derable amount of valuable information. Now, on the 
first of these points—the discipline of the mind—a great 
deal might be said for the study of language. Language 
rightly used was a kind of mental logic ; it trained the 
young mind unconsciously in accuracy of thought and 
in power of expression, and as we got older its higher 
studies introduced us to those great works of the Greeks 
and Romans which, for beauty both of thought and 
words, had never been equalled. The greatest English 
minds, and the best character of English thought, had 
been formed since the Reformation by two things, the 
Bible and the study of the classics; and those who be¬ 
lieved that this character, and all the history which has 
been its result, had been inferior to none in Europe, 
would never be disposed to give up the great works of 
the old world as one most powerful instrument of educa¬ 
tion. At the same time, he could not deny that these 
studies had been, and still were, carried on in an ab- 
surdly exclusive fashion. The fact was that in all our 
schools, public or other, we needed far more division of 
work, or what our neighbours in France and Germany 
call a “ bifurcation ” in this matter. We may give our 
boys pretty much the same general education up to 
thirteen or fourteen, but then let them “bifurcate”— 
some keep to their languages, and others go off to a 
