Fumigations of Oxymuriatic Acid. 83 
county diseases, intermittent or continued fevers, rheurna- 
tisms, dropsies, &c., which require a particular treatment. 
Some of these patients were more or less affected ; and we 
may easily imagine the cries and confusion produced by the 
first trials of fumigation a year ago,wheti the lunatics were en- 
veloped in clouds of vapours : but experience has shown that 
such fumigations as were then used retard the cure of lunatic 
patients. At that time I employed nitric fumigations, fol- 
lowing the usual method of throwing successively small quan- 
tities of nitrate of potash into a little sulphuric acid, put ina 
glass. At other times I caused to be carried into different 
parts of the hall a mixture of muriate of soda and oxide of 
manganese in the usual proportions, pouring, by degrees, 
into it some drops of sulphuric acid, that slight vapours 
only might be formed. 
Such patients as exhale a fetid smell are confined at the 
end of the hall, and it is there where the ordinary fumiga- 
tions are used. But I think I have ascertained the source 
of the evil by remarking, that, in general, the lunatics at- 
tacked with adynamic fevers, scurvy, or even scorbutic gan- 
grene, who were brought to the infirmaries, came always 
from certain infected places, which I resolved to discover. 
' The first place [ examined was a small room containing 
fourteen beds, and in which were confined such lunatics as 
are of a very advanced age, or in a complete state of mad- 
ness or idiotism. The most of them are constantly bed-rid, 
and in such a state of stupor and imbecility that they can 
scarcely indicate the object of their necessities. The infec- 
tion must arise from the insalubrity of the air in a place in- 
habited by such unfortunate persons, heated in winter by a 
stove, and very small besides. Whatever precautions were 
at any time used, this place was always very unwholesome ; 
and it was there where adynamic fevers and scurvy were con- 
tinually cherished previous to the repeated use of fumiga- 
tions of oxymuriatic.acid gas, which were repeated once or 
twice a month in summer, and oftener in winter, producing 
little or no inconvenience on account of the state of stupor 
_ and insensibility of lunatic patients. I then mixed fifteen 
decigrammes of muriate of soda with three decigrammes of 
F3 oxide 
