Br re 
XII. Observations of M. Boneros, Assistant Physician of 
the Infirmary at Perpignan, upon Fumigations with the 
Oxygenated Muriatic Acid *. 
Lowanbs the commencement of last year, a person ac- 
cused of a capital crime was conducted to the prison of Per- 
pignan and shut up in a cell, the capacity of which was 
about 60 or 65 cnbic metres. This unforiunate prisoner 
was afflicted with a severe dysentery. When I was called 
in, his cell exhaled a most infectious smell; the palliass 
upon which he lay, and the rags which covered him, were 
impregnated with fecal matter. The jailor opened the door 
with great repugnance, but would not enter. I immediately 
made a strong fumigation, according to Guyton Morveau’s 
process, Scarcely was the vapour of the oxymuriatic acid 
gas liberated when the fetid smell was annihilated, although 
the fecal matters still existed in this confined place. I ap- 
proached the sick man and conversed with him, experi- 
encing no disagreeable sensation: the jailor followed my 
example; he entered, and every necessary attention was 
paid to the prisoner. A fumigatory apparatus continued 
to furnish gaseous emanations during the time requisite to 
cleanse the cell. A clergyman came to visit the prisoner 
some time afterwards, and spent three quarters of an hour 
with him, without being in the Jeast incommoded. The fu- 
migation was repeated the same day. All the prisoners, 
the jailor, the turnkeys, and the gens d’armes, learnt, with 
surprise, a fact so speedily and so easily obtained. The 
jailor asked me what was necessary to renew these fumiga- 
tions. I furnished him with a sufficient quantity of the 
mixture of muriate of soda and oxide of manganese, pre- 
pared in proper proportions, and an analogous dose of sul- 
phuric acid. He has since established fumigatory vases in 
the various parts of the prison where there were bad smells. 
A few days before, I had cleared from infection a great 
part of the house of M. Durand, a very respectable merchant 
*# From Annales de Chimie, tom, lvii. p. 184. 
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