CHEMICAL STERILIZATION AND DISINFECTION. 79 



less inert precipitates ; these so interfere with the pene- 

 tration of the disinfectant that many bacteria may escape 

 its destructive action entirely and no disinfection be ac- 

 complished, although an agent may have been employed 

 that would, under other circumstances, have given en- 

 tirely satisfactory results. 



In the destruction of bacteria by means of chemical 

 substances there occurs, most probably, a definite chem- 

 ical reaction — that is to say, the characteristics of both 

 the bacteria and the agent employed in their destruction 

 are lost in the production of an inert third body, the 

 result of their combination. It is impossible to say 

 with certainty, as yet, that this is in general the case ; but 

 the evidence that is rapidly accruing from studies upon 

 disinfectants and their mode of action points strongly 

 to the accuracy of this belief. This reaction, in which 

 the typical structures of both bodies concerned are lost, 

 talves place between the agent employed for disinfection 

 and the protoplasm of the bacteria. For example, in 

 the reaction that is seen to take place between the salts 

 of mercury and albuminous bodies there results a 

 third compound, which has neither all the character- 

 istics of mercury nor of albumin, but partakes of 

 some of the peculiarities of both ; it is a combina- 

 tion of albumin and mercury, commonly known by the 

 indefinite term "albuminate of mercury." Some such 

 reaction as this apparently occurs when the soluble salts 

 of mercury are brought in contact with bacteria. This 

 view has been strengthened by the experiments of 

 Geppert, in which the reaction was caused to take place 

 between the spores of the anthrax bacillus and a solu- 

 tion of mercuric chloride, the result being the apparent 

 destruction of the vitality of the spores by the forma- 



