EDITORIAL OBSERVATIONS. 
171 
that fermentation is set up in the “ wash/’ and it becomes 
sour by the formation of well-known acids ? Portions may 
also run on into the putrefactive stage, when ammonia will 
be evolved, and this combining with the sulphuretted 
hydrogen, will form a dangerous compound—the hydro¬ 
sulphate of ammonia. Now, if it be conceded that the 
animal matters undergoing transformation furnish cyanogen 
—and blood and offal are often thrown into the food, as the 
pig will eat almost everything—this, by uniting with hydro¬ 
gen, will form hydrocyanic acid; w hich is said to be met 
with in German sausages that have been long kept, and also 
in very rotten cheese, although, perhaps, not satisfactorily 
proved, as it might have been a product rather than an educt . 
And it is possible that other cyanides may be generated, 
equally destructive to life, such as the cyanides of potassium 
and sodium. 
Here is a sufficiently alarming catalogue of what dele¬ 
terious compounds may be formed ; but it is well that the 
vital powers are generally sufficiently strong to resist the in¬ 
fluence of them wffien not in undue quantities; or, it may be, 
that the secretions they mingle with in the stomach and 
intestines effect alterations in them and render them in¬ 
nocuous. The virus of glanders has been given to the horse 
in large quantities, yet it has never been thus productive of the 
disease; and when carbonic acid and sulphuretted hydrogen 
are taken into the stomach, they cause very different action 
on the organism to wffiat they do wffien inhaled. The same 
may be said of some other bodies. These decomposi¬ 
tions are as varied as they are important, and it is science 
alone that enables us to explain them, as well as to counter¬ 
act the injurious effects that are produced by substances 
inimical to life, commonly called poisons, or w hen these have 
been the cause of death, to demonstrate their existence. 
