FACTS AND OBSERVATIONS. 
259 
or twelve cows have succumbed, and as many more are 
ailing. In all cases the constabulary have been duly 
apprised, and it is hoped that the severe frost and snow will 
eradicate the dangerous disease from the country.” 
Facts and Observations. 
Preservation of Fresh Meat. —M. Boussingault has 
recently published a paper in the Comptes Rendus, giving 
some striking illustrations of the value of applying a low 
temperature in the preservation of articles of food. He has 
found that beef tea, submitted to a temperature of 4° F. for 
several hours, has remained in a perfectly good condition for 
eight years. Samples of sugar-cane juice, similarly treated, 
have also been found in an excellent state of preservation 
after being kept for years. Both the sugar juice and the 
beef tea had been kept in carefully closed vessels. We have 
often thought that some better method than that of the 
Australian Meat Preserving Agency might be introduced, 
whereby perfectly fresh meat could be brought over from 
America by the fast Atlantic steamers. The carcases being 
carefully packed separately in the well-ventilated holds of the 
ship, a current of air circulating through, and the whole of 
the meat being packed in ice, ought to keep fresh during 
such a short journey. It might be better to pack the car¬ 
cases in ice-safes. During the winter months, at any rate, 
some such scheme might be attempted. Occupying barely 
ten days in its transit, the meat should be perfectly fresh on 
its arrival, and would be more acceptable to the public than 
the insipid and comparatively tasteless meat packed in tin 
cases, and deprived of all fat, now so largely introduced into 
our workhouse and prison dietaries. The poor generally 
have a strong prejudice against this Australian meat.— 
Medical Times and Gazette. 
Trichinae in Hams. —The Prussian Government lately 
called attention to the presence of trichinae in hams imported 
via Bremen from the United States, and warned purchasers 
from dealing in them.— The Lancet . 
