1855.] of Charcoal to Sanitary purposes, 55 



to guard the wearer against fevers, and other infectious diseases. 

 Powdered charcoal has, during the last twelve months, been most 

 successfully employed both at St. Mary's and St. Bartholomew's 

 Hospitals, and in other similar establishments, to arrest the pro- 

 gress of gangrene and other putrid sores. In the case of hospital 

 gangrene we have to deal not only with effluvia but with real 

 miasmata; for gangrenous sores not only affect the individual 

 with whom the mischief has originated, but readily infect the 

 healthy wounds of any persons in its vicinity. In this way gan- 

 grene has been known to spread not only through one ward, but 

 through all the wards of even a large hospital. This, and other 

 instances which might easily be adduced, prove that charcoal is not 

 only a deodorizer but a very efficient disinfectant. A great variety 

 of other instances were mentioned, in which charcoal respirators 

 would certainly prove exceedingly useful ; such, for instance, as to 

 house-painters, the gunners in casemated batteries, persons requiring 

 to traverse unhealthy districts within the tropics, such as the Delta 

 of the Niger, the foot of the Himalaya, &c. 



Dr. Stenhouse concluded by stating it as his confident belief, that 

 if our soldiers and sailors, when placed in unhealthy situations, 

 were furnished with charcoal respirators, and if the floors of their 

 tents, and the lower decks of ships were covered by a thin layer of 

 freshly-burned wood charcoal, we would have little in future to 

 apprehend from the ravages of cholera, yellow fever, and similar 

 diseases. [J. S.] 



GENERAL MONTHLY MEETING, 



Monday, March 5. 



Frederick Pollock, Esq. M.A. in the Chair. 



J. Richard Andrews, Esq. 

 John Baily, Esq. Q.C. 

 Charles Beevor, Esq. F.R.C.S. 

 Henry Bradbury, Esq. 

 Henry Newnham Davis, Esq. 

 J. Dickinson, Esq. F.R.S., G.S. 



John Viret Gooch, Esq. F.S.A. 

 Rev. Geo. Delgarno Hill, M.A. 

 Edward James, Esq. M.A.Q.C. 

 Robert Lee, M.D. F.R.S. 

 Walter M'Grigor, Esq. 

 Leopold Redpath, Esq. 



were duly elected Members of the Royal Institution. 



George J. Lyons, Esq. 

 Edmund Macrory, Esq. and 

 John William Wrey, Esq. 



were admitted Members of the Royal Institution. 



