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It moves actively through the stagnant water in its passage to the surface, aerifying it, and at the same time doing faithfully its work as scavenger by consuming vegetable germs and putrefying matter.
There are forms of sickness in which the man goes about, and to each inquiry says, 'I am perfectly well, though everybody else can see death written on his face. And so it is with this terrible malady that has laid its corrupting and putrefying finger upon us all.
In a famine in Egypt, as pictured by the Arab Abdullatif, the putrefying debris of animals, as well as their excrement, was used as food, and finally the human dead were used; then infants were killed and devoured, so great was the distress. In many sieges, shipwrecks, etc., cannibalism has been practiced as a last resort for sustaining life.
So pure is the atmosphere in the interior of our continent that fresh meat may be cured, or jerked, as it is termed in the language of the prairies, by cutting it into strips about an inch thick, and hanging it in the sun, where in a few days it will dry so well that it may be packed in sacks, and transported over long journeys without putrefying.
It is made by trampling a mass of putrefying prawns and shrimps into a paste with bare feet. This is seasoned with salt. The smell is penetrating and lingering. Our men made the boat fast, rinsed their mouths, washed their hands, and ate, using their fingers instead of chopsticks. Poor fellows! they had done twelve hours of splendid work. Then one of them prepared the betel-nut for the rest.
The huts which served for hospitals were surrounded with filth, and with the putrefying hides of slaughtered cattle almost sufficient of themselves to have engendered pestilence; and when at last orders were given to erect a convenient hospital, the contagion had become so general that there were none who could work at it; for besides the few who were able to perform garrison duty, there were not orderly men enough to assist the sick.
If this be hypocrisy, it is a process which shows itself occasionally in us all, to whatever confession we belong, and whether we believe in the future perfection of our race or in the nearest date fixed for the end of the world; whether we regard the earth as a putrefying nidus for a saved remnant, including ourselves, or have a passionate belief in the solidarity of mankind.
It was supposed that the putrefying flesh of a dead animal actually was converted by a sudden process into maggots, and that rotten wood would breed, out of its own substance, ships' barnacles and even young geese and mice an opinion contested only 200 years ago by Sir Thomas Browne!
Proceeding from this general law, and reviewing a variety of cases in which gases lie contiguous to membranes, we are enabled to demonstrate or to explain the following more special laws: 1st. The human or animal body, when surrounded with any gas not already contained within the body, absorbs it rapidly; such, for instance, as the gases of putrefying matters: which helps to explain malaria. 2d.
Here he gazed about him with much interest; the cellar was damp and gloomy and his entrance with the light disturbed a legion of rats, which went scampering off in every direction, from a corner in which they had collected together; as the young man approached that corner, a fetid, sickening odor saluted his nostrils and a fearful thought flashed across his mind; a moment afterwards, his blood curdled with horror, for before him lay the dead body of a man, entirely naked, and far advanced in state of decomposition; and upon that putrefying corpse had the swarm of rats been making their terrible banquet!