ON DEODOR I ZATION AND DISINFECTION. 
461 
In Quebec, Dr. Painchaud, sen. # , of the Marine and Emigrant 
Hospital, wrote out an excellent plan for testing the comparative 
deodorizing powers of the Burnett and Ledoyen fluids, by which 
the judges were to give their opinions, unconscious of whose fluid 
it was, in favour of which they were voting. The result of this 
trialt was in favour of the Burnett fluid ; and it afforded no little 
amusement to the other umpires, and caused no small vexation to 
himself, that M. Ledoyen’s zealous and enthusiastic colleague was 
found to have voted (of course, unconsciously) against their fluid : 
M. Ledoyen himself conducted his own part of the trial, while I 
experimented with the other fluid, and neither of us voted. 
Pereira, after enumerating the various medicinal and the poison- 
ous effects of the preparation of lead, describes each preparation 
separately, and of the nitrate of lead he observes, that “ its gene- 
ral effects are similar to those of the other soluble salts of lead.” 
A non-professional reader glancing at these pages might think 
that, as he has heard of lead preparations being employed as in- 
ternal medicines, Ledoyen’s solution cannot be very objectionable ; 
but he may be informed that, when a lead preparation is prescribed 
internally, it is in small doses, in some diseased state, such as in- 
ternal haemorrhage, &c., where a sedative and astringent remedy 
is peculiarly suitable ; where its effect is daily watched by the 
medical attendant, and new directions, if necessary, given for its 
use; and where, also, it is combined with opium, or some other 
medicine, to prevent its producing its objectionable effects, which, 
however, sometimes appear, notwithstanding all possible precau- 
tions. 
Far different, however, is the method which the proprietors of 
Ledoyen’s fluid recommend for using their solution of the nitrate 
of lead : they think that it ought to be used indiscriminately, and 
without any precautions, by the public generally ; nor would it be 
a sufficient defence of its use to say that the nitrate of lead, acting 
on the ammonia in the feculent matter or in the air, and so becom- 
ing nitrate of ammonia, would prevent any bad consequences : as 
any remaining nitrate of lead not decomposed by the ammonia, 
might go on to produce one or other of its poisonous effects. 
While M. Ledoyen’s fluid is so objectionable, on account of 
being a solution of a poisonous salt, Sir Wm. Burnett’s fluid, the 
* Whom I take this opportunity of thanking for the obliging disposition 
he shewed while I was making trials of the fluid in the hospital. 
t Detailed in the Montreal Courier of the 20th October, and other papers, 
and in the London Medical Gazette of the 26th of November, and Dublin 
Medical Press of the 8th of December. One or two periodicals erroneously 
supposed that the judges in this trial considered they were experimenting on 
something more than the deodorizing properties of the fluids. 
