PRODUCTS OF SLOUGHING WOUNDS. 395 
found to contain lead permanently combined with the tissue, 
and a course of iodide of potassium will bring off abundance 
of mercury by the urine years after its administration. It 
would appear by no means improbable that traces of arsenic 
occasionally introduced into the system may be stored up in 
like manner (especially in the liver), till in the course of 
years the amount becomes appreciable. Many aquatic plants 
contain much iodine, all gradually absorbed from the water 
in which they live, though it cannot be detected therein 
from the minuteness of its quantity ; the vegetable tissue, 
however, accumulates it and retains it persistently. So may 
it be with arsenic in the human bodv; and I think toxicolo- 
gists should pause before affirming that it had been criminally 
administered unless a proportionate amount of the poison is 
found.” 
PRODUCTS OP SLOUGHING WOUNDS. 
f At a recent meeting of the Manchester Literary and Phi¬ 
losophical Society, Dr. F. C. Calvert stated that he had been 
induced some eighteen months ago, by Mr. J. A. Ransome, 
to make some researches with the view of ascertaining the 
nature of the products given off from sloughing wounds, and 
more especially in the hope of throwing some light on the 
nature of the contagion known as hospital gangrene. He 
had, therefore, fitted up some apparatus to condense the 
various products given off from such wounds, but the quan¬ 
tity obtained was so small, that he deemed it advisable to 
collect the products given off from a large quantity of meat 
during putrefaction, and he had found these to be quite of 
a different nature from what has been hitherto generally 
supposed. For instance, he found that no sulphuretted nor 
phosphoretted hydrogen was given off, but, on the contrary, 
alcaloids containing the sulphur and the phosphorus. He 
further added that he had great hopes, in time, to be able 
to discover the nature of the products called miasms. He 
also stated that he was now engaged in examining the 
liquids and solids produced during putrefaction, and would 
at some future time lay the results obtained before the 
society. 
