Miscellanies. 367 



Whenever it is necessary to attend patients affected with conta- 

 gious diseases, such as small pox and the like, it will be found very- 

 beneficial to wash the hands with water containing a twentieth of the 

 chloride, and apply to the nose a bottle containing some of it in a 

 concentrated state. After handling the sick, it will be proper to wash 

 again with the chlorated water. 



In all places where there is a crowd of men or animals, whether 

 sick or healthy, the air becomes corrupted, and acquires deleterious 

 properties, owing principally to the animal exhalations. These ex- 

 halations may be destroyed by sprinkling the chloride diluted in 

 from twenty-five to thirty parts of water ; or by setting in these places, 

 (and they may be out of sight,) some vessels containing the chlorated 

 water, which can never be in the least injurious, whatever may be 

 the quantity. This method of purifying the air is indispensably ne- 

 cessary in lazarettos, hospitals, prisons, poor houses, manufactories, 

 churches, seminaries, convents, halls of study, and dormitories in col- 

 leges and boarding houses, cabins of ships, court rooms, crowded the- 

 atres, saloons when filled to excess on great occasions, and the hke. 



Sprinklings of the chlorated water will be more especially neces- 

 sary whenever an epidemic or contagious disease prevails ; they 

 should be made in order to guard against the deleterious influence 

 arising from the neighborhood of marshes, the rotting of flax, hemp 

 and the like. They will likewise be serviceable in the disease of 

 domestic animals, in places where silk-worms are raised ; finally, 

 in all places where the air becomes charged with exhalations, which, 

 on being accumulated, produce fatal effects. 



In cases of asphyxia, produced by the exhalations of vaults, sew- 

 ers or any considerable masses of putrefying animal substances, it 

 will be necessary for the patient to breath the concentrated chlo- 

 . ride ; and his chamber should be sprinkled with the chlorated water, 

 so as to subject him to the influence of the disinfecting agent. 



It is often necessary, sometimes from a tender and pious feeling 

 of regret, to preserve for a long time the bodies of deceased persons. 

 A fetid odor appears more or less readily, according to the tempera- 

 ture of the air, the state of the patient's body at the time of his de- 

 cease, or the disease that terminated his life. This decomposition 

 may be suddenly arrested ; indeed, it may be prevented by sprink- 

 ling the body with some chloride of soda diluted in water. For this 

 purpose, a botde of chloride should be mixed with twelve liters or 

 bottles of water ; a linen cloth should be wet in this mixture, laid on 



