DESTROYING INFECTED BODIES.

Poverty Bay Standard, Volume I, Issue 30, 3 January 1884, Page 3

DESTROYING INFECTED BODIES.

The complete destruction of the carcases of animals which have died of contagious diseases is a subject of great importance, and is now occupying the attention pf the French Academy of Science. M. Fastens has shown that burying the bodies does not kill the germs of the disease, and they maybe brought to the surface again by worms. It has been proposed to burn the bodies; but the new process of M. Girad is simpler and more economical. It consists in dissolving the bodies in cold concentrated sulphuric acid, and utilising the resulting liquid for the production of superphosphate of lime nitrogenised. At the end of eighty hours the entire carcase is dissolved in the acid and only a colored liquid remains. The destruction of germs is complete, as has been proved by inoculation of the insoluble residu of the liquid. According to recent experiments made at Saint Gobain 321 kilogrammes of sulphuric acid (at 60 deg. proof) dissolved in ten days, nine sheep weighing 204 kilogrammes. From the 525 kilogrammes of liquid remaining M. Girard extracted 25 kilogrammes of grease, and 500 kilogrammes of acid, which, mixed with 440 kilogrammes of coprolites from Ardennes, produced 940 kilogrammes of superphosphate of lime, containing 36 per cent, of nitrogen. In addition there was a quantity of soluble and insoluble phosphoric acid obtained. The value of the acid and coprolites being 46 francs, and the products fetching 83 francs, the result was a sum of 37 francs.— Engineering.