Dr. Ure on Disinfection. 85 



minutes, loses the dark colour at the bone and all offensive 

 scent ; and after being washed in water, when boiled it pos- 

 sesses the curdy firmness, sea-air flavour, and taste of newly 

 caught fish. An ounce of good chloride of lime is sufficient to 

 sweeten a very large dish. 



The phenomena of putrefactive fermentation seem to show 

 that the fetor resides in certain hydrogenated compounds, con- 

 taining carbon, sulphur, phosphorus, azote, &c. ; for gaseous 

 matter of this kind is eventually disengaged in the larger cavi- 

 ties of the trunk, as well as in the cellular tissue, causing a 

 general intumescence. There is every probability, likewise, 

 that the diffusible fomes of contagious disease resides in some 

 analogous compounds, but of so subtle a nature as hitherto to 

 have baffled every effort of chemistry to collect and analyze. 

 The same thing may be said of the miasmata of marshes. 

 The infectious virus of plague, small-pox, and putrid bodies, 

 resembles in some measure the poisonous secretion of venom- 

 ous reptiles, and is of a more durable composition and less 

 volatile (so to speak) than the effluvia of typhus, scarlatina, and 

 measles. We can therefore easily understand why an agency 

 capable of decomposing the former morbific powers, may be 

 feeble to grapple with the latter, embodied as they are in a too 

 palpable humour or a solid crust. 



Guy ton Morveau appears to have been the first man of 

 science who directed the resources of pneumatic chemistry in 

 a regular manner to the purpose of disinfection. The Cathe- 

 dral of Dijon had been for several years infested with a febrile 

 fomes or miasma, which occasioned fever in many of its pious 

 visitants, and it had become in consequence nearly deserted 

 as a place of worship. Being then (1774) Professor of Che- 

 mistry in the Academy of Dijon, M. Guyton was naturally 

 induced to exercise his science in expurgating the air of the 

 church. He accordingly filled the whole capacity of the 

 building with muriatic acid gas, disengaged from a mixture of 

 salt and sulphuric acid distributed in a number of stone-ware 

 dishes. The doors and windows were kept close for two or 

 three days, to prevent the dissipation of the acid fumes. At 

 the end of this period a free ventilation was given by opening 

 the doors and windows, after which the church was found 



