Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 9.djvu/566

 ■WILSON PAOKING 00. V. CHICAGO PACKING & PROVISION 00. 651 �for preservation, and these boxes or cases were hermetieally sealed in order to make them air-tight. �The evidence seema to show that at the present time, in order most surely to preserve meat, it is necessary to subject the case or can in which the meat is packed to what is called "procesaing," -which we imderstand to mean this : There is an opening in the can through which the meat is introduced. When the can is filled the hole is soldered up. It is then subjected to beat, a pnncture made, the air and steam permitted to escape, and then the pnncture also soldered up. This is not a new operation, but bas long been known. In fact, it is substantially described in the Durand patent as a part of the Appert mode of preserving meat; for, although the details here described are not fully given in the Durand patent, still, they are necessarily implied from the statement that the aperture is left in the vessel until the beat shall have produced the proper effect, when it is to be closed. In Appert's method of preserving animal and vegetable food, vessels containing it were placed in a boiler filled with cold water, and then beat was applied up to the boiling point, and vegetables were to be put into the vessels in a raw or crude state — animal substances raw or partly cooked. The "processing," as it is termed, is not set fortb in the William J. Wilson patent, unless necessarily implied from the statement that in thus preparing and packing the meat in an air-tight box or case it is a part of the operation. AU that the patent says is that after the meat is put into the box or case, and the proper pressure is applied, the box or case is then closed air-tight upon the meat ; and if it is aleo implied that the box, as we have heretofore assumed, is hermetically sealed, still, it is not stated that it is to be subjected to the "ordinary process" in eanning. �It seems to be conceded that the reasons which render this neces- sary, in order to properly preserve meat or vegetables, were not well known at the time it was adopted. The theory at present received upon this subject is that it is necessary to expel from the can or case the air, and what are called the germs of fermentation and putrefac- tion which exist in the air, and which are destroyed when a bigh degree of beat is applied ; and the air being thus expelled, before it can re-enter, the box is made air-tight. These invisible germs, supposed to be floating in the air, must be killed or removed, or they will enter into the vegetable or animal substances, and, in a short time, pro- duce putrefaction, and, of course, destroy them as an article of food. There seems to be, therefore, nothing left in the description of the ��� �