108 APPLIED BACTERIOLOGY 



sawdust mixed with 10 per cent, by weight of crude carbolic 

 acid (Calvert's No. 5), or with a solution of mercuric 

 chloride (about 1 in 1,000). 



A fire should then be lighted in the room, both to cause 

 the air in the room to leave it by the chimney, and to be 

 available for burning anything that is sufficiently valueless 

 to be destroyed. 



All hangings, bedding and clothes should then be removed 

 to a steam-disinfector, and the walls and ceiling washed 

 down by means of a whitewashing brush and a solution 

 of mercuric chloride (1 in 2,000) or bleaching - powder 

 (G ounces to the gallon) ; the furniture should be taken 

 out of doors and scrubbed. The wall-paper is stripped and 

 burned without being taken out of the room, and the 

 carpet taken up, and (if in the country) beaten out of doors, 

 or if in town sent to the disinfector. 



The sawdust should be rubbed on the bare boards, so 

 that the bacteria may stick to it, and then swept up and 

 burned ; after this the floor should be well scrubbed with 

 hot soap and water, the ceiling limewashed, and the walls 

 repapered before the room is reinhabited. 



Disinfection by Sulphur. — The burning of sulphur in 

 rooms is probably entirely without effect, unless everything 

 has first been made thoroughly damp by boiling away a 

 quantity of water in an open vessel, and the same is pro- 

 bably true of chlorine. Both of these procedures cause 

 injury to metal- work, and hence we give preference to the 

 method indicated above, which would certainly be far more 

 effective as regards destroying the vitality of the greater 

 number of bacteria. 



Those who advocate the use of burning sulphur for the dis- 

 infection of a room consider that 1 pound of sulphur should 

 be burned for every 1,000 cubic feet of space ; this will pro- 

 duce a little over 1 per cent, of sulphurous acid gas in the 



