None of the tinctures prepared with lime water grew turbid from a stream of fixed air being conveyed into them. Hence it appears that the triture of quick-lime with all the above roots did not in the least degree promote, but rather impede their solution in water; that lime water extracts the soluble parts of many, and especially their colouring principles, more powerfully than distilled water; but that this is by no means always the case, as in three instances out of six, the tinctures prepared with distilled water exceeded those with lime water in taste, and in two instances were superiour, and in one equal in colour. CHAP. IX. ON THE COMPARATIVE ANTISEPTIC POWERS OF VEGETABLE INFUSIONS PREPARED WITH LIME, &c. Sir John Pringle, in the Appendix to his excellent Observations on the Diseases of the Army, allows lime water to possess but a slight antiseptic quality. Doctor Macbride on the contrary asserts, that it has great power in resisting putrefaction, but at the same time acknowledges that it destroys the cohesion of the constituent particles of animal substances, and therefore cannot be called a _true_ antiseptic, as it absorbs the fixable air from them, and only preserves them sweet by confining it within their texture, into which the lime is enabled to insinuate itself in this dissolved state. As even this effect, if possessed by the tinctures of the antiseptic vegetables prepared with lime or its water, would be an objection to their administration in putrid diseases, I resolved to determine by experiment, how far their antiseptic powers were increased or diminished by this mode of preparation: and I thought it probable, as those prepared with the latter contain no lime when filtered, and yet in the extraction of the tinctures the vegetables are deprived of, at least, a part of their air, they might be rendered less able to resist putrefaction than either the infusions prepared with distilled water, or those with the addition of quick-lime. How far this reasoning was just, the result will discover. EXPERIMENT XXVIII. Pieces of beef, each weighing about two drachms, were separately infused in the different tinctures of Peruvian bark, snake root, Columbo, and contrayerva, prepared with lime, lime water, and distilled water, as in the preceding experiments; and the bottles containing them were exposed for two days to a degree of heat equal to that of the human blood. They were afterwards suffered to remain without any artificial heat, the temperature of the air being warm. The tincture of Columbo prepared with quick-lime was the only one not tried, the bottle containing it having been broken.