212 Silk Manufacture. 



fects of mephitic vapors, might prove advantageous in silkworm 

 establishments, producing all the good effects of fumigation with 

 chlorine gas, without hazarding any of the pernicious results 

 which might accompany the latter application. 



' Among the peasants of France and Italy, there is a practice 

 of fumigating the room where the insects are kept, with some 

 kind of aromatic gum or odoriferous plant, but these only serve 

 to conceal without correcting the effluvia, which should warn the 

 attendants of the necessity for cleanhness, and instead of remov- 

 ing, increase the evil. 



' An almost incredible quantity of fluid is constantly disengaged 

 by evaporation from the bodies of the insects; and if means be 

 not taken to disperse this as it is produced, another cause of un- 

 wholesomeness in the air arises. Noticing this, count Dandolo 

 observes, " This series of causes of the deterioration of the air 

 which the worms must inhale, may be termed a continued con- 

 spiracy against their health and life; and their resisting it, and liv- 

 ing through it, shows them to have great strength of constitution." 



' Before this nobleman so zealously undertook the work of re- 

 form, the poor silkworms had to struggle through a miserable ex- 

 istence, until, their numbers thinned by death, and their frames 

 weakened by disease, they feebly began to spin that thread, which 

 would have been produced superior in quality and much greater 

 in quantity, had they been more judiciously tended. By his me- 

 thodical arrangements, the accidents of seasons and external tem- 

 perature are no longer formidable. In 1814, a year peculiarly 

 unfavorable for rearing these insects, and which proved extensive- 

 ly fatal in other establishments, he continued his operations with 

 the same unvaried regularity, and, with perhaps increased precau- 

 tions, was ultimately rewarded by the usual success. 



' In noticing the system already mentioned of distributing silk- 

 worms among the dwellings of the peasantry, count Dandolo gives 

 the following distressing picture: — " In general the rooms appro- 

 priated to rearing silkworms among the tenants, farmers, and com- 

 mon cultivators, have the appearance of catacombs; I say in gen- 

 eral, for there are some few who, although they may not have all 

 the requisites for rearing worms in perfection, yet have care suf- 

 ficient to preserve them from any very serious disease. 



' I have found, on entering the rooms in which these insects 

 were reared, that they were damp, ill lighted by lamps fed with 

 rancid oil; the air corrupt and stagnant to a degree that impeded 

 respiration; disagreeable effluvia disguised with aromatics; the 

 wickers too close together, covered with fermenting litter upon 

 which the silkworms were pining. The air was never renewed, 



