nn ee ee 
774 WORT. 
first change as the stage of oxidation. This oxi- 
dation of the gluten, then, and the transposition 
of the atoms of the sugar into alcohol and car- 
bonic acid, are necessarily attendant on each 
other, so that if the one is arrested the other 
must also cease. Now, the yeast which rises to 
the surface of the liquid’is not the product of a 
complete decomposition, but is oxidised gluten 
still capable of undergoing a new transformation 
by the transposition of its constituent elements. 
By virtue of this condition it has the power to 
excite fermentation in a solution of sugar; and 
if the gluten be also present, the decomposing 
sugar induces its conversion into fresh yeast, so 
that, in a certain sense, the yeast appears to re- 
produce itself. Yeast of this kind is oxidised 
gluten in a state of putrefaction, and by virtue 
of this state it induces a similar transformation 
in the elements of the sugar. The yeast formed 
during the fermentation of Bavarian beer is oxi- 
dised gluten in a state of decay. The process of 
decomposition which its constituents are suffer- 
ing, gives rise to a very protracted fermentation 
in the sugar. The intensity of the action is di- 
minished in so great a degree, that the gluten 
which the fluid still holds in solution takes no 
part in it; the sugar in fermentation does not 
excite a similar state in the gluten. But the 
contact of the already decaying and precipitated 
gluten or yeast, causes the eremacausis of the 
gluten dissolved in the wort; oxygen gas is ab- 
sorbed from the air, and all the gluten in solu- 
tion is deposited as yeast. The ordinary frothy 
yeast may be removed from fermenting beer by 
filtration, without the fermentation being there- 
by arrested; but the precipitated yeast of Bava- 
rian beer cannot be removed without the whole 
process of its fermentation being interrupted. 
The beer ceases to ferment altogether, or, if the 
temperature is raised, undergoes the ordinary 
fermentation. The precipitated yeast does not 
excite ordinary fermentation, and, consequently, 
is quite unfitted for the purpose of baking; but 
the common frothy yeast can cause the kind of 
fermentation by which the former kind of yeast 
is produced. When common yeast is added to 
wort at a temperature of between 40° and 50° F., 
a slow tranquil fermentation takes place, and a 
matter is deposited on the bottom of the vessel, 
which may be employed to excite new fermenta- 
tion; and when the same operation is repeated 
several times in succession, the ordinary fermen- 
tation changes into that process by which only 
precipitated yeast is formed. The yeast now de- 
posited has lost the property of exciting ordinary 
fermentation, but it produces the other process 
even at a temperature of 50° F. In wort sub- 
jected to fermentation, at a low temperature, 
with this kind of yeast, the condition necessary 
for the transformation of the sugar is the pre- 
sence of that yeast; but for the conversion of 
gluten into ferment by a process of oxidation, 
something more is required. When the power 
WOUND. 
of gluten to attract oxygen is increased by con- 
tact with precipitated yeast in a state of decay, 
the unrestrained access of air is the only other 
condition necessary for its own conversion into 
the same state of decay, that is, for its oxidation. 
The presence of free oxygen and of gluten are 
conditions which determine the eremacausis of 
alcohol and its conversion into acetic acid; but 
they are incapable of exerting this influence at | 
low temperatures. A low temperature retards 
the slow combustion of alcohol, while the gluten 
combines spontaneously with the oxygen of the 
air, just as sulphurous acid does when dissolved 
in water. Alcohol undergoes no such change at 
low temperatures, but during the oxidation of 
the gluten in contact with it, is placed in the 
same condition as the gluten itself when sulphur- 
ous acid is added to the wine in which it is con- 
tained. The oxygen of the air unites both with 
the gluten and alcohol of wine not treated with 
sulphurous acid; but when this acid is present, 
it combines with neither of them, being altoge- 
ther absorbed by the acid. Thesame thing hap- 
pens in the peculiar process of fermentation 
adopted in Bavaria. The oxygen of the air 
unites only with the gluten and not with the al- 
cohol, although it would have combined with | 
both at higher temperatures, so as to form acetic 
acid. Thus, then, this remarkable process of fer- 
mentation with the precipitation of a mucous- | 
like ferment consists of a simultaneous putrefac- 
tion and decay in the same liquid. The sugar is | 
in a state of putrefaction, and the gluten in that 
of decay.” 
WOUND. ‘The consequences and proper treat- 
ment of wounds, in the domesticated animals, 
vary according to the nature of the injuries and 
the situation of the injured parts. If the skin 
and cellular.substance only be injured, the recov- 
ery is generally easy and prompt. Division of 
the muscular fibres, with the necessary concomi- 
tant of lesion of the smaller arteries and nervous 
trunks, may oppose more obstacles to the cure; | 
but neither are these often of a serious descrip- 
tion. But should any of the greater arterial or 
venous trunks be opened, any of the cavities of 
the body be penetrated, or the internal organs | 
share in the injury, a wound must be considered 
as presenting tokens of immediate and extreme 
risk. One of the results of every wound, unless 
where it affects a part not naturally endowed 
with sensibility, as the horny crust of the hoof, 
is a sensation of pain; farther, as all the organs 
admit into their texture a greater or smaller 
number of vessels, no wound can occur without 
an effusion of some portion of the circulating fluid ; 
and lastly, the greater part of the tissues of the 
body being endowed with some share of contrac- 
tility, whether animal or organic, another general 
result of a wound is a separation of its sides, to an 
extent proportioned to the magnitude of the in- 
jury, and to the degree of contractile force pos- 
sessed by the part which has suffered lesion. _ 
