THE HOltSE-HYGIENE AND SANITARY CONDITIONS. ()55 



disinfectant. It more surely than any other agent decomposes 

 sulphuretted hydrogen than any other gas, and is an energetic 

 destroyer of any other gas. It checks putridity and the develop- 

 ment of animalcules in organic solutions, and will kill them when 

 about four per cent of it is present. It destroys organic matters 

 in the air, and deodorizes by abstracting hydrogen or by oxydiza- 

 tion. It is of great value as an antiseptic and destroyer of 

 miasmata and effluvia. 



Carbolic Acid. This is a most potent agent in preventing 

 the appearance of bacteria, and as many of our animal diseases 

 show presence of bacteria, this is a valuable article on the farm. 

 Even in a diluted form carbolic acid will destroy all the lower 

 forms of life, vegetable or animal. Hence its great value as a 

 disinfectant. It possesses remarkable power as an antiseptic. 

 It prevents putrefaction, and arrests fermentation in organic 

 matter, which lends weight to the theory that bacteria is the ori- 

 gin of, or at least always present and essential to, fermentation. 

 Its efficiency as a destroyer of bacteria is noted in the use of 

 it as a preventive of the swine plague, or so-called hog cholera. 

 Its value has been recognized by the commission which investi- 

 gated hog cholera, and reported to the commissioner of agricul- 

 ture. It is commonly used now by the most careful breeders 

 of swine. Some use it constantly about the pens and feeding- 

 floors and troughs. One writer says that even the vapor of 

 carbolic acid will destroy the spores of germs of disease which 

 float in an affected atmosphere. It prevents the development 

 of bacteria if used before it has arrived at the glia stage, or 

 massing. Dr. Stetson, of Neponset, 111., has had remarkable 

 immunity from the disease, though he raises from three hun- 

 dred to five hundred head of hogs each year, and the disease 

 has raged all around him. The beds, pens, feeding-floors, and 

 water-troughs are never free from the odor of crude carbolic 

 acid. Dr. Detmers, in his report to the department of agricul- 

 ture, 1880, says he thinks it possible by carbolic acid treatment 

 " to destroy the conditions necessary to formation of glia and 

 the development of swine plague schizophytae," by treating 

 about three weeks with regular doses of carbolic acid. With 



