DISEASED HIDES.

Press, Volume LXII, Issue 18636, 10 March 1926, Page 10

DISEASED HIDES.

BACTERIA ISOLATED. EXHIBITS IN COURT CASE. (special to "the press.") AUCKLAND, March 9. Tho routine of examination of witnesses in a case in which a Christchurch firm were the plaintiffs, and the crossing of legal swords was broken in the Auckland Supreme Court to-day, and the Courtroom assumed the aspect of a science laboratory. Mr Justice Herdman, with studious concentration, gazed through a microscope upon exhibits showing cultures of bacteria claimed to be the cause of the diseased condition of salted hides, known to the trade as "salt burn." The Bench was temporarily made use of, and Mr. F. L. Armitage, Government Bacteriologist at Auckland, mounted the steps to the Judge's sanctum. Meanwhile counsel and others interested in the case gathered round. A casual stroller into the Court might have been pardoned for imagining that ho had inadvertently entered tho science building of a University College. The exhibits, which provided a side issue in a civil action for alleged negligence in tho storage of hides, were the work of Mr Armitage who, since last-June, has been investigating the cause of "salt burn," a matter of considerable moment to those engaged in the hide and skin industry. He claims to have discovered the cause of "salt K>urn" which has loilg presented a puzzling problem. Saltßurn. The condition of "salt burn," Mr Armitage told the Court, is due entirely to bacteria and not in- any way to iron or chemical impurities m the salt. Certain bacteria, he said, have the -power of growing in the presence of large amounts of salt. One type of bacteria is pink in colour, and this eives to the diseased^. hide its characteristic reddish colour. "Salt burn' is not a disease of one organism, but of a variety. Other vultures isolated from dark x stains in the hides, were also exhibited.. ' ' ' . -. One of the most interesting points of the research, Mr Armitage said, is that the source of these pink and other organisms was foimd to be imported salt used in curing the hides. ".Tho.practical application of these discoveries still remains to bo put into effect, .requiring further experimentation under trade conditions. ~„:„:«„ His Honour expressed the opinion that the discovery of the result of the investigation would prove or great value to those engaged in the hide ana skin industry.