When, therefore, wood is exposed to the weather (air, moisture, and ordinary temperatures), fermentation and decay will take place, unless the germs can be removed or rendered inoperative.
Experience has proved that the coagulation of the sap retards, but does not prevent, the decay of wood permanently.[3] It is therefore necessary to poison the germs of decay which may exist, or may subsequently enter the wood, or to prevent their intrusion, and this is the office performed by the various antiseptics.
We need not here discuss the mooted question between chemists, whether fermentation and decay result from slow combustion (eremacausis) or from the presence of living organisms (bacteria, etc.); but having in the preceding pages detailed the results of the application of various antiseptics, we may now indicate under what circumstances they can economically be applied.
(To be continued).
From the Transactions of the Society.
Angus Smith, 1869, "Disinfectants." S.B. Boulton, 1884, Institution Civil Engineers, "On the Antiseptic Treatment of Timber."