IMPROVEMENTS IN PRESERVING MEAT, GAME, AND POULTRY
Year: 1875

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by Gilbert Edward Campbell at
the Office of the Commissioners of Patents, with his Petition, on
the 16th June 1875.
I, GILBERT EDWARD CAMPBELL, of Carrick Buoy, Ballyshannon, in
the County of Donegal, Ireland, and of St. Stephen's Club, in the City.
of Westminster, Baronet, do hereby declare the nature of the said
Invention for "IMPROVEMENTS IN PRESERVING MEAT, GAME, AND POULTRY," to
be as follows:-
7
My Invention relates to the employment of fat, sperm, or lard
specially hardened by animal gelatine boiled in oblong troughs, from
one foot and a half to two feet in depth, and from four feet, to four feet
and a half in length, and in width from two feet and a half to three feet
into which fat, sperm, or lard duly hardened with the said animal
gelatine, the meat is immersed for the space of from fifty to seventy
seconds, by which process the meat, game, or poultry becomes encased
in the preparation which hermetically seals its pores, while the heat thus
given to the food substances in question coagulates the nutritive juices
and thus totally arrests all decomposition.

page_text: It is to be noted that the meat, game, or poultry must remain exposed
to a current of air which may be generated by an ordinary winch fan, a
sail impregnated in very hot weather with either spray in order that as
must be the case invariably the animal substances intended to be
preserved are in an absolutely cool condition, and completely affected
rigor mortis, if the condition of the meat, game, or poultry be not in
an absolutely rigid condition the period of preservation is materially
lessened.
By my Invention I can preserve beef in quarters, and sheep, pigs,
deer, and calves, in half carcases, whereas other processes require that
the meat should be cut into joints or smaller pieces, thus materially
affecting their flavour and saleable value. The boiling fat, sperm, or
lard must be previously mixed with common borax in the proportion of
five pounds of borax to twenty-one pounds of fatty matter.
This mixture which is at once preservative and air excluding form an
impermeable enamel about the articles of food in course of preservation,
and when reduced in temperature to a heat of not more than 20° is
rapidly passed through a vessel containing the strongest mineral salt
finely granulated. The meat is again suspended for some hours until
perfectly cold exposed to the same current of air as before described.
Wooden cases carefully morticed and carefully prepared for the food
substances which in the event of use in tropical temperatures are lined
with two alternate layers of thick felt and tin; in these cases are placed
copious layers of clean straw previously and thoroughly saturated with
diluted sulphuric acid; in this straw is laid a thickness of fine gauze
wire or of coarse canvas thickly coated with a mixture of beeswax, borax,
and powdered saltpetre; upon these or either of them the meat is carefully
laid, the interstices being lightly filled up with sweet hay also steeped in
diluted sulphuric acid. The effect of the packing is to reduce the
temperature and to deodorize the air that may exist in the cases.
meat, game, or poultry being hermetically sealed, and also being
parboiled, is kept perfectly fresh for a period of from seventy to one
hundred days, and arrives at its destination in carcase, or in the case of
game or poultry entirely as fresh as when first killed.
The