The Albany register. [volume] (Albany, Or.) 1868-18??, 1874-12-18
The Agents Of Putrefaction.

After examining the alterations pro-
duced in the living, we have to con-
slider those occasioned by fermentation
in the dead. When life has retreated
by slow degrees from all the parts of an
organized being when, after all par
tial deaths have occurred, total death
has possessed the depths of the sub
ject, and broken all the springs of its
activity. the work of putrefaction be-
gins. Its task is to unmake this body,
to destroy it's forms and dissever its
materials. The work to be done is to
disorganize it, to reduce it into solids,
liquids and gases, fit to go back again
into the vast reservoir whence new life
is necessarily issuing. This is the task
that heat, moisture, air and germss will
undertake in unison. It lis all performed
with steady diligence. Nature knows
no delays as soon as the body is cold,
the protecting coating that covers all
it's surface, the epithelium decays in
places, particularly the meister parts.
The agents of disorganization, vibrios
and bacteria, or rather the germ of
these thread-ike corpuscles, penetrate
through the skin, wind into the small
ducts, invade the whole blood, and by
degrees all the organs. Soon they
swarm everywhere, almost as numer
GUS as the chemical molecules in the
midst of which they stir and circle.
The albuminoid matters are decomposed
into fetid gases, escaping into the air.
The fixed salts, alkaline and earthly
alkaline, slowly release themselves from
the organic matters with which they
combined to form the tissues. The fats
oxidize and grow acrid; the moisture
dries away. Everything volatile van
ishes, and at the end of a certain time,
nothing remains save the skeleton, but
a formless mingling of mineral prin-
ciples, a sort of numus ready to manure
the earth. Now all these complex
operations absolutely required the in
tervention of the infusoria of putrefac-
ton. In pure air, deprived of living
germs, they could not have been ac-
compished. To check putrid fermenta-
tions, TO insure the conservation of
state of perfect integr, ty, only one
means avails, but that is an infallible
one-that of thoroughly precluding the
access to them of the aerial germs of
vibrios and bacteria Popular Science
Monthly.
Careful Traveller.
Gov. Bradley, of Nevada, got on the
train at Elko last week to go to Paliside.
L u0 CdE WAS CEOWOOO duO uO WAS COLL
PEELED to perambulate the entire length
of the car to obtain o seat. ," "Good
morning, my son; how-d'ye do, sar ?'
said the Governor in a good natured
way, to big Missourian who had gen
erously given up half his seat to the
stranger who had thus accosted him.
'' That's all right, my friend" said the
stranger but don't make yourself quite
so familiar with me, if you please +; I
have heer'd of you before-you're one
of them three card fellows-but you
can't come it over me, not much. I've
been thar myself, I have !" The Gov
ernor assured the stranger that he was
mistaken in the man, that his mission
was of a different character altogether
but was of no use, the more the Gov
ernor protested his innocence, the more
the man became convinced he had
/" dropped on one of them fellers.
Finding his protests and arguments un-
availing, and fearing the stranger might
take a notion to make him vacate the
seat, the Governor concluded to drop
the subject. The stranger turned half
round in his seat and sat watching the
Governor, as If taking the dimensions
of a supposed monster, until the train
arrived at Carlin. Here the stranger
followed the Governor to the platform,
expecting every moment to see him
'' ''spread his tricks" and take some poor
fellow in, but was surprised to see his
''monte sharp" at once surrounded by
a crowd of gentlemen. Bradley told
the joke to his friends, and the stranger
was brought up and introduced, and in
formed that his supposed highwayman
was Governor of the State of Nevada.
The Missourian collapsed, acknowl-
edged himself sold, and all hands took
a drink at the Governors expense.