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ON DISINFECTION AND THE PRACTICE OF QUARAN- 

 TINE ; WItH SOME REMARKS AND COMMUNICATIONS 

 RELATIVE TO CONTAGIOUS DISEASE, AND ESPECI- 

 ALLY THE CHOLERA. 



BY ANDREW URE, M.D., F.R.S., &e. &c. 



T^HE remarkable power of chlorine, and of its officinal com- 

 pounds, chloride of lime arid soda, in decomposing and 

 destroying the fetid effluvia of animal and vegetable bodies in 

 a state of putrefaction, has been so long known, has been 

 verified in so many instances, and is susceptible of such direct 

 demonstration, as to be beyond the cavils of medical pyrrhon- 

 isni in its most wanton mood. That these effluvia are capable 

 of making morbific impressions on tne living body, is also 

 placed beyond any reasonable doubt, not only by the sickness 

 they instantly occasion, but by the many recorded cases of 

 fevers of a putrid or low typhoid type, brought on by incau- 

 tious exposure to masses of animal matter far advanced in 

 putrefaction. The power of such matter to produce fevers by 

 inoculation, has been often fatally exemplified in the dissect- 

 ing schools ; and the power of a lotion of chloride of lime or 

 soda to counteract danger from such inoculation, is now 

 equally Well ascertained. In a letter just received from my 

 son, at present House-Surgeon of the Glasgow Royal Infir- 

 mary, he says, ' Having performed several post mortem dis- 

 sections of persons who have died from malignant fevers, 

 dysentery with extensive ulceration of the mucous membrane 

 of the large intestines, peritonitis with purulent effusion into 

 the abdomen, hectic from suppuration, gangrene, &c., I have 

 never suffered the slightest inconvenience. Yet these are the 

 cases in which that peculiar animal poison is especially gene- 

 rated which has occasionally proved fatal to the demonstrator 

 of disease. I attribute the immunity I have enjoyed, in a 

 great measure, to my washing my hands immediately after 

 each inspection with the chloro-sodaic liquor of Labarraque ; 

 this I prefer to the solution of chloride of lime, as it is not so 

 apt to injure the skin. 



( A young gentleman, who acted as my colleague during 



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