War Notes 239 



to its geol. characteristics. In some cem., Hke the Campo Santo of 

 Pisa, bodies decomp. rapidly, a fact which is attrib. to the alkal. of 

 the soil. In others, Hke that of St. Nazaire, the soll of which is 

 compact clay formed from disint. mica schists, which retains the 

 water permanently, decomp. is so slow that bodies have been found 

 intact 5 yr. after burial. In dry, sandy soils, on the other hand, 

 the corpse mummifies as it does in the dry cold air of St. Bernard. 

 The endeavor, then, should be to reahze the conditions which favor 

 decomp. Bordas describes some interesting exper., in the Revue 

 d'hygiene. Using bodies of animals, he ascertained that the germs 

 and ferments of manure act rapidly and power fully to produce de- 

 comp. Obviously, however, manure cannot be used to accel. the 

 decomp. of the human body. Bordas therefore made an anal, study 

 of the principal species of bacteria occurring in manure, and found 

 that one group of ferments of manure has particularly powerful 

 action — that of the ferment of urea. Bordas placed the body of a 

 horse in a trench on a bed of straw and covered it with straw 

 sprinkled with a culture of urea ferment. In 21 days nothing re- 

 mained of the body except the bones. This transf. would have re- 

 quired 3 or 4 yr. in earth under ord. conditions. To apply these exper. 

 data to human bodies, Bordas says it would be necessary to place in 

 a trench a layer of straw or leaves, to lay the bodies on this bed of 

 straw, and to cover them with a layer of straw or leaves moistened 

 with the approp. bact. culture. Earth should not be laid on top of 

 the straw; it would disturb the processes of decomp., and it is not 

 necessary, for no malodorous gases are disengaged during decomp. 

 under these conditions. In a few weeks or months, at the most, 

 nothing but bones would remain and burial might be made without 

 the least danger to the living. Paris letter: Jour. Amer. Med. 

 Assoc, 1916, Ixvi, p. 828, 



Antiseptics from sea water. The electr. decomposition of 

 sea water yields sodium hypochlorite, which is a powerful antisep., 

 at a very small cost. This fact has been turned to account in the 

 disinf. of hosp. ships, which are so largely used by us in the war, 

 by means of an appar. recently installed in the Aquitania under the 

 supervision of Dr. H. D. Dakin, and at the instance of the med. 

 research commit. of the Nat'l Insurance Act. The appar. consists of 



