462 



this month, a neat apparatus approved by the Pharmaceu- 

 tical Society, to be had at 123, Newgate-street, for five 

 shillings, whereby chlorine may be gradually but continuously 

 evolved in a quantity sufficient to impregnate the air of a 

 ten-roomed house for 24 hours at the cost of one penny. 

 As this gas has double the density of atmospheric air, 

 however, the second landing would, I think, be a preferable 

 site for the generator, to the passage or entrance hall pro- 

 posed by Mr. Smith. 



The recommendation I have thus given of chlorine, in 

 general terms, will not preclude us from entering upon a 

 review of other disinfecting agents, and especially such as 

 have of late obtained decided approval. These will be 

 found all to consist of soluble salts with metallic bases. 

 Of the whole group of them it may be safely affirmed that 

 they unquestionably possess the property of decomposing 

 those offensive effluvia in which sulphuretted hydrogen and 

 the ammoniacal gases are the active ingredients; and had 

 their respective patrons been content to rest their powers 

 on this faculty until experience had tested their more ex- 

 tended claims, the discredit attachable to the undue puffing 

 of any particular nostrum would undoubtedly have been 

 obviated. 



Siret's paste, consisting chiefly of the sulphate of zinc ; 

 Shalteman's sulphate of iron ; Burnett's chloride of zinc ; 

 Ledoyen's and the unfortunate Calvert's nitrate of lead ; 

 Ellerman's persalt of iron ; and Young's refuse manganese, 

 have all stench-destroying agencies, and are also in a greater 

 or less degree antiseptic^— a union of properties of no small 

 advantage for disinfecting purposes. As already explained, 

 it does not necessarily follow that such substances are anti- 

 dotes to or corrective of a miasm-charged atmosphere or 

 of disease-transmitting particles ; although, as I have shewn, 

 by neutralizing foetor and thus preventing a depressing shock 



