344 FUMIGATIONS TO DESTROY CONTAGION. 



VIII. 



Observations on the Use of Acid Fumigations in purifying 

 the Air and stopping the Progress of Contagion, and the 

 most simple Means of completely obtaining this Effect. 

 Extracted from the Correspondence of Mr. Guyton- 

 Morveau *. 



Contagious dis- A CANNOT yet giVfe you any particulars of the disease, 

 addfumiea- y * na * prevailed at Pethiviers at the end of last summer; 

 tions. though several persons, who have seen the reports of the 



officers of health, have assured me, as I informed you at 

 ^ the time, that acid fumigations had evidently put an end to 

 it. I shall say nothing of what may have prevented the re- 

 sult from being published, or why it has not even been men- 

 tioned in the newspapers. You will scarcely believe, that 

 indifference could be carried so far on a subject of such im- 

 Obstructions to portance. No doubt it would-be otherwise, if government 

 improvements. a pp eare( j to set any value on the discovery: but there are 

 so many petty interests, that -oppose its utility being made 

 known; and it is so much more easy for a man to throw a 

 veil over the efficacy of the means, than to confess himself 

 H chargeable of having been ignorant of them, or of having 

 neglected to apply them to the benefit of mankind ! 

 Infectious dis- I have been informed, that a physician in considerable 



eases anse repute asserted a few days ago, that these fumigations were 

 •without direct r J ° 7 ~ . 



contagion. inefficacious against diseases not communicated by infection. 



It would not have been amiss to have asked him, whether 

 he thought balls and bayonets conveyed any infectious prin- 

 ciples: or whether he did not know, that, whenever a great 

 number of wounded persons were conveyed to an hospital, 

 a disease did not soon break out, that attacked the nurses, 

 the medical attendants, and often a whole town. For, as 

 I have said on a former occasion, whatever be the first cause 

 or the nature of a disease, that affects several individuals at 

 Hospital fever, the same time, it necessarily produces an hospital fever, 

 which ultimately occasions more ravage than the original 

 disorder; and it is precisely against this scourge, that mine- 



* Annales de Chimie, vol. xlvi, p. 1 14. 



ral 



