184 DISEASES CLASS II. 1. 3. 



lime and painting with oil have been directed, I believe, with 

 great success. 



Mr. Cruikshank has lately recommended two or three parts 

 of sulphur with one of nitre to be mixed together, and set in a 

 room close shut up, and ignited by dropping a lighted coal upon 

 it; as the nitre will supply sufficient oxygen to inflame the sul- 

 phur in a close apartment, and thus to fill the whole with the 

 sulphurous vapour; so as to pass into every minute aperture of 

 the walls or furniture. 



Another means of sweetening the air of hospitals, where many 

 ulcerous patients are crowded together, has been also recom- 

 mended, and might perhaps be used with salutary effect to restore 

 the air of play-houses, churches, close parlours, courts of law, and 

 other places, where many people resort without due ventilation, 

 which consists in well mixing four ounces of common salt with 

 two ounces of pulverized manganese in a basin; to these are then 

 to be added about two ounces of water, and afterwards three 

 ounces of concentrated sulphuric acid, in small portions at a 

 time; and when managed in this way, the gas is said not to be 

 in the least offensive itself, and at the same time destroys disa- 

 greeable smells, and perhaps also infectious miasmata. Medical 

 Review, No. 32. 



The white vapours, not the red ones, of nitrous acid have been 

 employed with wonderful success, by Dr. C. Smyth, in the hos- 

 pital ships, without removing the patients; some sand is made 

 hot in crucibles, many of which are brought into the rooms to be 

 fumigated; in this hot sand is then set a tea-cup containing about 

 half an ounce of concentrated vitriolic acid, to which, after it had 

 acquired a proper heat, an equal quantity of nitre in powder is 

 gradually added, and the mixture stirred with a glass spatula, till 

 the vapour arises from it in considerable quantity. The crucible 

 or pipkin is then curried about the wards by the nurses or con- 

 valescents, who walk about with them, like incense-pots, in their 

 hands, and by thus fumigating the ship morning and night, with 

 the care of washing the beds and clothes, and exposing them to 

 the air, the contagion appeared to be quickly stopped, and the 

 patients already affected soon recovered. 



If any metallic vessel be used, the white nitrous vapour be- 

 comes red, and what was salutary before becomes now noxious, 

 as is observed by Mr. Keir, in his letter on this subject, who 

 adds, that though much vital air is extricated from the mixture, 

 he rather ascribes its good effect to the known property of all 

 mineral acids in stopping the processes of fomentation and pu- 

 trefaction; as the contagious miasmata are presumed to consist 



