7 
Table VIII. 
A mixture of feces, thinned by the addition of 10 c. c. of a twenty-four-hour 
bouillon culture of Vibrio cholerae Asiat. and mixed with twice its bulk of a satu- 
rated solution of fer-rous sulphate, was tested at stated intervals by taking out a 
platinum wire loopful and planting in bouillon. The results are indicated below. 
Time of exposure to iron solution. 
Result. 
6 hours 
24 hours 
Good growth. 
Do. 
V. choleree recovered. 
26 hours 
Do. 
28 hours 
Do. 
30 hours 
Do. 
48 hours 
Do. 
Sulphate of iron does not show any restraining influence over the 
development of putrefactive changes unless it constitutes more than 2 
per cent of the mixture. It does not permanently restrain the devel- 
opment of putrefactive changes unless it constitutes at least 5 per cent 
of the mixture. 
As a germicide it has little or no action, even when applied under 
the most favorable conditions for disinfection. Where the material 
to be disinfected was flooded with the agent in saturated solution, in 
nearl}" all experiments, its action was not apparent, and it failed to 
disinfect under such favorable conditions seven different varieties 
of pathogenic organisms out of nine, after an exposure of one hour to 
a saturated solution. 
Tested upon feces it failed to disinfect after three days, although 
intimately mixed with the feces, and when it was applied in saturated 
solution, and in double the bulk of the material to be disinfected. 
It seems therefore that copperas or sulphate of iron is of no real 
value as a disinfectant. The strongest solution has either no disin- 
fectant action at all, or its disinfectant action is so slow and uncertain 
that its demonstration might be a matter of interest, but certainly 
could not be of practical value. 
EEFEEEXCES. 
A. Chevaliee. Revue de Therapeutique Medico-Chimrgical, Paris, 1862, X, p. 
456-458. 
Robeet Koch. Ueber Disinfektion. Mittheilungen aus dem Kaiserlichen Gesund- 
heitsamte, bd. I, 1881, article no. 7. 
Miquel. L’Annuaire de Montsouris for the year 1884. (Reviewed in Bulletin de 
Therapeutique, 1884, no. 107, p. 80.) 
Samuel Ride.al. Disinfection and Disinfectants, London, 1898, p. 98. 
D. H. Beegey. The Principles of Hygiene, Philadelphia and London, 1901, p. 282. 
Edwaed L. Muxsox. The Theory and Practice of ^Military Hygiene, New' York, 
1901, p. 782. 
Geoege M. Steexbeeg. A Text-book of Bacteriology, Xew York, 1901, p. 189-190. 
Chaeles J. Foote. The American Journal of the Medical Sciences, October, 1889, 
XCVIII, p. 329. 
O 
