in Army Hospitals. 135 



Note ly M. Guyton, subjoined to the two preceding 

 Communications . 



When it occurred to me to transmit these letters to the 

 Annates de Cliimie, I asked myself if there were not abun- 

 dance of observations ah-eady published on the efficacy of 

 these fumigations. I hope to be excused, however, when. 

 I inform the public that, in works professedly intended for 

 supporting the practice, even in the Btbliulheque Medicate, 

 some young physicians have inserted articles tendinc/ to 

 weaken the public confidence in these operations, and to 

 suspend their execution, notwithstanding the instructions of 

 the councils of health and the orders of government. The 

 old routine of perfumes has been recommended; and fears 

 have been started respecting the action of the oxygenated 

 muriatic acid, by ascribing the same disinfecting virtue to 

 fixed substances, which act upon those only in immediate 

 contact. 



Is it not astonishing, for instance, to see it Inserted in the 

 German Journal of Hufeland, without any critical remark, 

 that the contagious miasmata of the plague and of typhus 

 are chiefly attached to metals, that they are rather acid than 

 alkaline, that lime and the alkalis are useful for preserving 

 from any contagion ? '* IVitlioiU, fiowever, pretending to 

 dispense with the fumigations of Guvton Morveau, and 

 Smith, equally efficocions, as is proved by experience ; hut 

 more difficult in their application^ and more dangerous to 

 respiration." 



The author of this extract, in Nos. 47 and 4g of the same 

 miscellany, carries still further his vague doubts and un- 

 warrantable conclusions. He finds fumigations of sulphuric 

 acid sanctioned by Homer, because mention is made in the 

 Odyssey of the purification of a house by the combustion of 

 sulphur: he calls by the name of nitro-sulphuric fumiga- 

 tions, those made by the powder of the physicians of Mos- 

 cow, in which there are only eiglit parts bv weight of nitre, 

 and six of sulphur to tivenly-six of raspings of guaiacum, 

 with the leaves and berries of juniper and mvrrh ; he sup- 

 poses that we may purify inhabited rooms by burning 

 sulphur in them : he even gives reason to think that the 

 efficaciousness of the powder of the Moscovile physicians 

 was proved oti seven criminals condemned to deulli, who were 

 infected with the plague and recovered; whereas, as I have 

 reported according to Dr. A. Wolff", it was onlv some in- 

 fi'cted peUises that were exposed to a strong fumigation of 

 nilpliur and saltpetre combined, and nunc of the crinunals 



I 4 obliged 



