Air expelled from Magnesia by the nitrous acid, sweetened a piece of
the same putrid flesh suspended in the neck of the bottle during the
effervescence. The beef smelled of the nitrous acid, but remained
equally sweet when washed from it in water. Very little change was
produced in another piece exposed to the smoaking spirit of nitre.
It may be some additional evidence in support of the sweetening
properties of fixed air, to declare that the highly offensive, sanious
discharge of a cancer has been rendered considerably sweeter by it[x];
and that I have seen a case of a dysenteric fever, attended with
extremely foetid and bloody stools, in which fixed air was directed,
by the Physician who attended, to be thrown into the intestinal tube
by way of clyster; the consequences of which were the correction of the
putrid smell of the discharges, and the reduction of the inflation of
the abdomen, together with contributing considerably to the ease of
the patient after each injection of air[y]. A third case of this kind
has very lately occurred to Dr. Percival, in which the injection of
fixed air removed the foetor of the stools, and the patient recovered
without the assistance of any other medicine, except the moderate use
of wine as a cordial, and of a decoction of Peruvian bark during the
convalescent state. I have also experienced the removal of a very
large and deep slough, and the healing of the ulcer in the putrid sore
throat, more expeditiously by the inspiration of fixed air than by any
other method.[z]
[x] Directions for impregnating Water with Fixed Air, by Joseph
Priestley, L.L.D. F.R.S.
[y] This case, together with another similar to it, will probably
appear more fully in the next volume of the Philosophical Transactions,
with Dr. Priestley's papers on factitious air.
[z] The patient in this last case being a lady in the country, at such
a distance that I could not frequently visit her; by continuing to
inspire the fixed air, after the ulcer was cleansed, and in a healing
state, brought on a considerable inflammation of the fauces.
One circumstance in the twenty ninth experiment peculiarly attracted
my attention, viz. that the air in the bottle was so very putrid,
though the beef exposed to it was restored to sweetness. The septic
effluvium therefore did not appear to be destroyed, but to have changed
place. From this fact it occurred to me that there might possibly be
an affinity between the fixed air and the septic particles, and that
this air might act as a menstruum on the effluvia emitted by putrid
bodies. I have since had the pleasure to see that Dr. Priestley, whose
investigation into the nature of factitious air has lately been laid
before the Royal Society, and must contribute to exalt him to a still
higher rank as a Philosopher, has taken notice of something similar
hereto. I am sensible that difficulties attend this theory. Doctor
Percival, in the second volume of his Essays, which is now in the
press, has offered some ingenious conjectures on the subject, and to
them I refer the reader. I shall only mention one experiment which
seems to give some force to this doctrine.