566 DISINFECTION 



septicemia hemorrhagica or hog-cholera. If the infecting 

 organisms are mixed with fecal matter, dirt or fodder, the prob- 

 lem is a different one than where they rest on a comparatively 

 clean surface. It matters again whether the infecting organisms 

 are in the soil (on surface), on a stable floor that is tight and 

 hard or on one containing cracks of various sizes and made 

 up of boards more or less shattered or destroyed, thus forming 

 deep crevices for the hiding away, as it were, of the specific 

 organisms. 



In the disinfection of human dwellings the fumigation 

 with formaldehyde has proven to be one of the cheapest and 

 ordinarily the most efficient procedures, but it requires a 

 tightly closed room. It is evident that such a method cannot 

 be trusted for the disinfection of most barns, stalls or .stables 

 which are usually large compared with dwelling rooms, and 

 what is of far more importance, they are too open. In the 

 disinfection for animal diseases the agents used must from the 

 nature of the buildings in most cases be applied in the form of 

 a solution. 



Jaeger's investigations brought out very clearly the neces- 

 sity of adapting the disinfecting agent to the specific kind ot 

 organism to be destroyed. For instance, while brushing the 

 surface with a i : 3 milk of chloride of lime destroyed anthrax 

 spores, it was untrustworthy as a disinfectant for the bacteria 

 of tuberculosis and of glanders. For the destruction of the 

 bacterium of tuberculosis he found carbolic acid and the other 

 coal-tar phenols very eflficient, especially when acidulated with 

 hydrochloric acid. For this purpose he recommended espe- 

 cially Laplace's 4 per cent solution of crude carbolic acid with 

 two per cent of hydrochloric acid. In the hands of Jaeger, 

 the power to destroy anthrax spores with certainty has been 

 shown only by solutions of carbolic acid and the thick chloride 

 of lime mixture. 



A thick milk of lime applied once with a brush Jaeger 

 found efficient in the destruction of the microorganisms of 

 chicken cholera, hog cholera, swine erysipelas, typhoid fever, 

 glanders, anthrax (without spores) and Staphylococcus pyogenes 

 aure7is. 



