Improved method and means for preserving food and other substances, and for supplying sterilised air to rooms and other enclosed spaces / [Jean Effront].

  • Effront, Jean.
Date:
1894
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Improved method and means for preserving food and other substances, and for supplying sterilised air to rooms and other enclosed spaces / [Jean Effront]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    N° 15,757 A.D. 1893 Date of Application, 19th Aug., 1893 Complete Specification Left, 1st May, 1894—Accepted, 9th June, 1894 PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION. Improved Method and Means for Preserving Food and other Substances, and for Supplying Sterilised Air to Rooms and other Enclosed Spaces. I, Jean Effront of 2 Rue de l’Union, Brussels in the Kingdom of Belgium, Doctor, do hereby declare the nature of this invention to be as follows :— This invention has for its object a system of permanently preserving food or other substances which it is impossible to prevent coming in contact with the air, 5 and it consists in a mode of procedure by allowing the air which must come in contact with such substances to be radically sterilised, the substances are consequently presumed to be contained in vessels to which the air has no access except by a part which is fitted with the sterilising apparatus. The sterilising process, or rather the apparatus, is based on the principle that a 1° layer of air passing over a moist surface will leave on this moist surface all the microbes and bacteria which it contains, so that, if the place wrhere air is admitted into a suitably closed vessel is provided writh an apparatus forcing such air to circulate over hygroscopic surfaces, or zig-zags, before its access into the vessel, this latter will only contain absolutely sterile air which will not in any wrise alter the 15 food or other substances which it encounters in this receptacle. The sterilising effect may be rendered si ill more reliable and efficacious by completing the absorbent action of the hygroscopic surface by the exterminating action of antiseptics preventing the microbes and bacteria from co-existing with them. Thus, by mixing with the hygroscopic agent a suitable antiseptic, the 20 bacteria and microbes captured or retained by the moisture are simultaneously exterminated by the antiseptic action, which guarantees the permanence of the sterility of the air in the vessel. It is evident that the nature, form, dimensions, in a word, the arrangement of the sterilising apparatus or device, will vary with the size and the character of the 25 receptacle which is to be fed with sterilised air, and that the applications are of a diversity corresponding to that of the substances which are to be maintained in the sterilising medium, and even passing beyond the range of the simple preservation of substances, the process may be applied with the same advantages to therapeutics, and serves, following this train of ideas, for sterilising experimenting rooms as well 30 as for supplying sterilised air to a sick room hermetically closed on all sides and provided with a chimney for renewing the air which does not allow the admission of external air, and it is clear that, if the sterilising apparatus may be, for the first applications, a simple glass tube suitably arranged, for the second it must have the form of an actual passage with hygroscopic zig-zags in order to cope with the 35 quantity of air with which the room must be fed. It is needless to state that the dimensions and the arrangements will be the same for any sort of industrial exploitation, and where it is necessary in order to preserve the worts in large brewer’s vats, for instance, to have a sterilising apparatus of a large section and provided with zig-zags, a bung arranged as a steriliser would 40 suffice for a simple cask of beer. As the invention will have very numerous applications under the form of a preserving bung, it will now be described more in detail under such form. In this form it is shown in longitudinal section on the accompanying drawing. The old bung or plug is replaced by a conical screw V, which fits into the bung 4 > hole. The screw V has a small tap on its upper end, and it is surmounted by a tube T of tinned iron or other suitable material. This tube contains hygroscopic | Price 8J.]