A treatise on the chemical, medicinal, and physiological properties of creosote illustrated by experiments on the lower animals: with some considerations on the embalment of the Egyptians being the Harveian Prize dissertation for 1836 / By John Rose Cormack.

  • Cormack, John Rose, Sir, 1815-1882.
Date:
1836
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A treatise on the chemical, medicinal, and physiological properties of creosote illustrated by experiments on the lower animals: with some considerations on the embalment of the Egyptians being the Harveian Prize dissertation for 1836 / By John Rose Cormack. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    solution with cochineal, a pale yellow with santa- lum citrinum, [sandal-wood ? |] a golden yellow with saffron, a yellow with madder, a deep red with dragons’ blood, a red with Saunder’s wood, and a deep purple with sorrel. With the aid of boiling, it dissolves caoutchouc. It has no affinity for par- affine. The most important chemical property which cre- osote possesses is that of coagulating albumen, as on this depends its powerful antiseptic virtue. The action which takes place when albumen is coagu- lated by creosote is not exactly ascertained, but it may be explained according to the hypothesis of Fourcroy, by supposing that oxygen gas is absorbed. There can be little doubt that the antiseptic power which creosote possesses depends upon its coagu- lating albumen, for neither is muscular fibre by itself incapable of entering into a state of putrefaction, nor does albumen putrefy when coagulated. This pro- perty of creosote renders it applicable to a variety of useful purposes, and there is no better way of preserving anatomical preparations than by immers- ing them in a solution of creosote. M. Martin Solon has stated this in a memoir upon creosote, which he read last October, before the Academy of Medicine at Paris. I have tried a number of experiments with it upon fresh meat, from which I have reason to be-