56 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



that include, with the hurtful gases named under the first head, many 

 organic forms which, transferred to a suitable soil, are capable of 

 working havoc with life and health ; and, fourthly, by those more or- 

 ganized bodies in various stages and ferments that have a definite ex- 

 istence, and that multiply the diseases to which they are most allied, 

 whenever they meet with suitable fields for propagation. 



Disinfection is practised by fits and starts. With u& it has been 

 mainly a summer practice, when our nostrils encounter the smell off 

 offensive matters. Contagion seizes a house, or a town, and for a time 

 the sanitaiw inspectors, and the awakened people themselves, distribute 

 even the most noxious disinfectants without system, and with the in- 

 evitable result of expending the most money with the least possible 

 good result. The destruction of valuable property, a senseless panic, 

 and a relapse into the indulgence of time-honored abuses, are the com- 

 mon results of outbreaks of typhus or typhoid fevers, of small-pox, 

 cholera, or any other of the many diseases by which we are punished 

 for grave derelictions of duty. We cannot neglect with impunity the 

 maintenance of personal and household cleanliness ventilation, and an 

 abundant supply of pure water. Soap and soda are the simplest ex- 

 pedients at our disposal for cleansing purposes. Experience teaches 

 us that ancient cities, and even modern human dwellings, are admirably 

 suited to act as reservoirs of contagion, and are constantly polluted by 

 the excreta of the healthy as well as of the sick. We have, therefore, 

 been compelled to resort to disinfection. But such has been our short- 

 sightedness in the matter, that the employment of any agent to destroy 

 infection is too often evaded, and has usually been rendered most dis- 

 tasteful and even painful. A nauseous coating has been put upon this 

 very simple pill. A poor woman is sent to the oil-shop for a little 

 chloride of lime ; a foul room is thereby rendered unbearable, the place 

 has to be thrown open, disinfection is not attained, and the maximum 

 of discomfort is attended with a minimum of benefit. 



Some medical men are, I fear, blamable for not estimating with 

 greater precision the real benefits derived from the use of volatile dis- 

 infectants. They are all irritating and of bad odor, and a popular be- 

 lief has arisen that, unless they are foul and caustic, they can do no 

 good service. A distinguished chemist, Mr. J. A. Wanklyn, has very 

 recently shown that the constitution of a poisoned atmosphere cannot 

 be modified even in a small dwelling by an expenditure of material that 

 woiild be certainly beyond the means of a wealthy person. To dimin- 

 ish the evils of a malign atmosphere, he says, " ventilate," and, while 

 admitting the correctness of this, I shall humbly attempt to show that 

 means may be employed for fixing the poisonous particles floating in a 

 fever-chamber without rendering the air of that chamber irrespirable, 

 or without killing a patient by draughts of cold air. 



Disinfectants are employed as deodorizers and as contagion-de 

 stroyers. Such agents as carbolic acid prevent the decomposition of 



