268 
NOTE  ON  CARBOLIC  ACID,  ETC. 
and  cresol  may  be  usefully  illustrative  ;  for  the  more  feeble  Phe- 
nol, when  quite  free  from  the  other  homologues,  is,  as  here 
shown,  comparatively  odorless  and  tasteless  ;  and  this,  which  has 
been  an  advertising  card  for  it,  may  be,  and  probably  is,  a  useful 
indication  of  inferiority.  A  series  of  experiments  commenced 
at  the  end  of  February,  1869,  and  therefore  as  yet  hardly  well 
begun,  yet  appear  to  indicate  that  there  is  much  less  diiference 
in  the  antiseptic  value  of  the  two  phenols  than  in  their  azymotic 
value,  and  thus  far  exhibit  a  very  unexpected  difference  in  this 
respect.  Weighed  quantities  of  fresh  meat  digested  with 
measured  quantities  of  dilute  solutions,  and  compared  with  simi- 
lar proportions  of  meat  and  simple  water,  at  temperatures  favor- 
able to  decomposition,  do  not  thus  far  (in  seven  weeks)  show  any 
marked  difference  in  the  antiseptic  effect  of  the  two  phenols. 
The  parallel  solutions  used  were  from  one  per  cent,  down  to 
twenty-five  thousandths  of  one  per  cent.  (0*025  per  cent.),  and 
even  the  weakest  of  these  presented  a  distinct  contrast  with  the 
simple  water  during  the  first  period  of  two  weeks.  The  albumen 
was  not  visibly  coagulated  in  solutions  containing  0*5  per  cent,  or 
less,  and  the  contents  of  all  the  vessels  which  contained  over  0*1 
per  cent,  dried  up  to  smoked  meat  without  putrefaction.  It  was 
noticed  that  in  the  very  dilute  solutions  either  the  watery  vapor 
soon  carried  off  the  phenols,  or  that  the  small  amount  present  was 
used  up  or  decomposed  by  the  meat,  since  after  about  three  weeks 
no  sensible  evidence  of  their  presence  could  be  detected,  and  the 
putrefaction  thereafter  seemed  to  go  on  with  nearly  the  same 
rate  of  progress  as  with  the  simple  water.  Other  series  of  ex- 
periments were  started  in  flasks  and  covered  vessels,  and  are  to 
be  continued  through  the  summer,  in  order  to  control  and  check 
some  already  discovered  sources  of  error,  and  if  completed  the 
results  will  be  given  hereafter.  Whether  these  circumstances 
may  be  a  good  measure, — or  a  measure  at  all, — of  their  rela- 
tive intrinsic  value  in  use,  is  certainly  not  determined,  though 
in  the  writer's  judgment  it  is  so  very  probable  as  to  leave 
no  doubt  as  to  the  impropriety  of  separating  and  rejecting  the 
cresol ;  and  one  object  of  this  paper  will  have  been  accom- 
plished if  this  point  can  be  raised  for  future  experience  and 
more  accurate  research.  In  the  meantime  it  is  very  obvious  that 
