A NEW MEAT PRESERVER.

Patea Mail, Volume IX, Issue 1089, 21 September 1883, Page 2

A NEW MEAT PRESERVER.

An Italian Professor has discovered a new means of preserving dead meat by a liquid preparation. For some reason or other he chose to experiment in the first instance on the corpse of a man, and the result is thus described by the correspondent of the Times at Rome; “ Through the courtesy of Professor Scalxi, medical inspector of the Hospital at Santo Spirito, I had the opportunity of being present at the final examination of the body of a young man upon which Dr Pietro Toninetti, of Verona had experimented by the use of a liquid preparation he has discovered for the preservation of dead bodies, whether of men or animals, and the visible result was most stirprising. The subject died on Junel2-~ that is, nearly six weeks ago—of disease of the lungs, and the liquid was injected thirty-six hours after death. On July B— i.e., twentysix days later—the ordinary wooden coffin was opened in the presence of Professor Scalzi, representing on the occasion the Minister of Public lustruclion; Dr Fostempski, demonstrator of clinical surgery in the Roman University ; Dr Pretti, array

surgeon, and others, and the body was found in a perfect state of preservation and flexibility, and presenting the appearance of one that had only been dead a few hoars. The cranium, thorax and abdomen were then opened, and the brain, lungs, heart and vicera, all of which were found to be in a perfectly well preserved and healthy state, wenremoved. These operations completed and the proces verbal signed, the body, brain, and intestines were set apart for a continued test of time, which expired on Wednesday. On entering the operating room I was unable to detect any offensive odour. The arms and legg and other parts I felt were soft and supple, and except the absence of rigidity, presented the normal condition of recent death. Previous to the body being coffined for interment one leg and one arm were taken off for further preservation and examination; incisions were made, and pieces removed for microscopic examination, and everywhere tin* muscles and tendons presented their normal colours, and were perfectly fresh and sweet. The brains, lungs, and liver, which were on a table apart, had at first sight a very unpromising appearance. They were completely covered with a coating of green mould, and might have I een mistaken for lumps of old bronze, but on being cut across they were found to be in a perfect, slate of preservation. The condition of the brain was most remarkable. It had undergone no alteration whatever. The while and gray substances and all the convolutions were as distinct as if it had only just been removed from the cranium. In addition to the commission named by the Minister of Public Instruction with reference to the application of Dr Toninetti’s discovery, in the anatomical schools of the kingdom and in other ways connected with the medical and cbirurgical sciences, the Ministers of the Army and Navy have appointed others to consider what use can be made of it in connection with their commissariat departments. Experiments that have been made on the bodies of animals, with equal success, tend to prove that the discovery may be of great utility for ailimentary purposes, and especially in. the preservation in a perfectly fresh state of carcases of meat for exportation to long distances. As regards the liquid, Dr Toninetii declines for the present to state what materials, it, is composed of. He asserts, however, that it is perfectly innocuous and its presence imperceptible, and in proof of its harralessness drank, I am told, a tumbler of it when in Rome before proceeding to inject the body.”