356 



KEW ENGLAND FARJIER. 



Aug. 



CARBOLIC ACID. 



UE efforts of sci- 

 entific men and 

 women are con- 

 stantly discovering 

 some new thing 

 which tends to 

 avert human toil, 

 to increase the pro- 

 ducts of the earth 

 or the factory, and 

 to facilitate trans- 

 portation. They 

 pry into the mys- 

 teries of the skies, 

 explore the vast beds of the ocean, and the 

 profound depths of the solid earth. 



Many of the old customs of men are fast 

 disappearing. We smile at the simple habits 

 of our English ancestors of only a few hun- 

 dred years ago, and wonder at their want of 

 intelligence and foresight in the construction 

 of their dwellings, carriages, tools, machinery, 

 and the barrenness of their homes in most ar- 

 ticles now so highly prized by us in our do- 

 mestic life. 



Now, light and air are admitted into our 

 rooms, where, with them, a "port-hole" sub- 

 served the same purposes. A stone chimney 

 and a yawning fire-place have been superseded 

 by elegant stoves of various patterns for the 

 purposes of cooking. 



Pope, the great poet, Addison, Sir William 

 Blackstone, and scores of others, are repre- 

 sented as wearing enormous wigs of hair, per- 

 haps that of some of their former friends, or, 

 perhaps, that of some favorite horse which 

 they bad ridden iu the chase ! Queen Eliza- 

 beth, in addition to her coronet of jewels, 

 wore a profusion of hair, but for a purpose 

 very far from that which Impels the ladles of 

 our day to vie with each oth'^r in loading the 

 head with the cast-off hair of others, or with 

 the grasses which imitate it. Then, the art of 

 building and warming houses was scarcely 

 worthy of the name. 



Elizabeth's parlors, drawing-rooms and 

 halls, had no vulgar mortar of sand and lime, 



"To stop a hole and keep the wind away," 

 but were covered with tapestry, in some cases 

 highly embroidered with silk and gold, and in 

 others with less rich materials. But all this 

 did not "keep the wind away," and so Pope 



wore his huge cap, and Sir William and Addi- 

 son their enormous wigs. Now, however, 

 with plastered walls, a small furnace or steamer, 

 or an air-tight stove properly arranged, the 

 whole house is warmed, and woolen caps and 

 horse-hair wigs are entirely unnecessary. But 

 still, the women wear the borrowed hair, 

 "When they will, they will, and that's the end 

 on't." 



So in medicine, in surgery, and all the range 

 of the arts, we have gone far away from the 

 habits and modes of life of our ancestors ; 

 and by this departure have added innumera- 

 ble comforts and length of days to our exist- 

 ence. They tend, also, to educate, civilize 

 and exalt us, and properly received and used, 

 will gradually raise us into a higher scale of 

 being. 



Now, in addition to the numerous blessings 

 flowing from the oil which has been so pro- 

 fusely poured from the bosom of the earth, 

 we have another which assuages pain more 

 than ether or chloroform, and still another, 

 carbolic acid, of various merits, and which 

 has suggested the foregoing remarks. 



Let us see what is said of this wonderful 

 substance, especially In matters which relate to 

 the farmer. 



Mr. GooDALE, Secretary of the Maine 

 State Board of Agriculture, in his report for 

 1869, has a chapter upon "Phenol, or Carbolic 

 Acid," which we have read with unusual inter- 

 est, lie says no feature of the remarkable 

 age in which we live is more noticeable than 

 the wonderful discoveries of science, and their 

 application to useful ends. He quotes from a 

 lecture delivered by Dr. F. G. Calvert, before 

 the "Society for the Encouragement of Na- 

 tional Industry," in France, in which the Doc- 

 tor says "carbolic acid exercises a most pow- 

 erful destructive action upon the microscopic 

 and primitive sources of life, and is, therefore, 

 an antiseptic and disinfectant much more ac- 

 tive and much more rational than those gener- 

 ally in use." 



Carbolic add was used with marked success 

 In England, Belgium and Holland, during the 

 prevalence of cholera and cattle plague. Mr. 

 W. Croakes states that he has not met with a 

 single instance in which the plague has spread 

 on a farm where the acid had been freely used : 

 Dr. Ellis says, "I^have, in m'any instances, 

 allowed whole families to return to cottages in 



