1. To the Minister of Public Instruction, as an object of improvement in anatomical researches, and to reclaim the continuation of his good offices, in affording extension to the experiments for preserving objects of pathological anatomy.
2. To the Minister of Commerce and of Public Works, as an object of public salubrity. On the proposition of a member of the Academy, it was unanimously decided to send the present report to the committee of publication.
Signed, MM. Gueneau de Mussy,
Sanson,
Breschet,
Roux,
Dize, Reporter.
Certified.—The perpetual Secretary of the Academy of Medicine.
Signed, Pariset.
Reflections.—The mixture of the acid sulphate of alumine and potash, of the nitrate of potash, and the chloride of sodium, furnished me, at first, with some favourable results. But when new experiments were attempted at a temperature above 10° of centigrade, this liquid, which I only employed as a bath, did not answer my expectations. I then tried to inject bodies with concentrated solution, which were afterwards consigned to a bath of the same nature. The preservation was thus rendered more durable; but still it did not balance the influence of an atmosphere very warm and very humid, prolonged for any length of time.
I observed that after twenty-four hours of immersion of the bodies in the bath, all the alumine was absorbed: this fact, well established, was a gleam of light to me.
Since the preservation is produced by the combination of geline with alumine, and as the alumine furnished by the acid sulphate does not inherit enough of the preservative element, let us have recourse to the salts of alum, richer in alumine, and more soluble in water.
The following are the data on which I rely:
To find a salt of alum capable of effectually preserving bodies, and which, by the moderation of its price, may be extensively employed in amphitheatres. I abandoned my trials with the nitrate of alumine, this being excluded by its high price. The chloride of alumine, with which I had experimented, is liable to equal objections: 1. Because, owing to its excessive affinity for water, it instantaneously dries the internal membrane of the artery, and obliterates the canal, rendering it impossible to finish the injection. 2. Besides, admitting the injection to have been completed by the introduction, in the first place, of a little oil of turpentine, the hydrochloric acid contained in the flesh injures the instruments, and impedes dissection. Further, the chloride of aluminium, like all the soluble chlorides, is a bad agent in dissections, being hygrometric.