December 2S, 1372.] THE PHARMACEUTICAL JOURNAL AND TRANSACTION?. 
515 
placed in the hood, and subjected, during 24 hours, to 
the influence of the gases evolved from one ounce of 
bleaching powder, decomposed by acid. With these points 
I successfully re-vaccinated two persons, hut with the 
other points I failed. Six charged points were next ex¬ 
posed to the gases evolved from two ounces of chloride 
of lime per 16^ cubic feet; but attempts to vaccinate 
with these points proved unsuccessful. 
The results of these experiments show that bacteria 
and the contagious particles of vaccine lymph resist, 
when protected by an extremely thin film ot solid, or 
semi-solid matter, the action of chlorine and sulphurous 
■acid gases applied to them in larger quantities than are 
•usually employed in disinfection. The filtered meat- 
juice used in these experiments contained only five grains 
of solid matter, per ounce of 480 grains—rather more than 
■one per cent. The object-glasses were dipped in this 
liquid, and many of them allowed to drain before being 
.subjected to experiment. We may readily conceive 
.then how extremely thin the film was that separated 
the bacteria from the gases set free in the hood. It is 
•extremely improbable that the actual contagious parti¬ 
cles of small-pox or cholera, or similar diseases, are ever 
detached from the serum and other matter with which 
they are associated when thrown off from the body. They 
ure, no doubt, invested with some such film as that 
which protects the contagious granules in vaccine. If 
•ordinary gaseous disinfection sometimes fails to destroy 
the vitality of vaccine, and has no effect on ordinary 
microzymes, we cannot rely upon it as a means of de¬ 
stroying the contagia of zymotic diseases which cer¬ 
tainly are near akin, if not to bacteria, at least to the 
virus of vaccine. The recent experiments of Crace- 
Calvert show that bacteria sustain a very high tempera¬ 
ture without being killed ; and on the other hand, Mel- 
sens in the ‘Journal de Pharmacie et de Chimie ’ tor Sep¬ 
tember, 1870, shows that vaccine lymphretains its activity 
when exposed to the intense cold of 80° Centigrade. The 
low forms of life are often capable of resisting influences 
which, in the case of the most highly organized animals, 
would produce fatal results. 
No doubt, chlorine, sulphurous acid, and some other 
•of the so-called disinfectants, destroy bacteria and con¬ 
tagia ; but in order to do this, they must be employed 
in much larger quantities than they have hitherto been 
used. Strong solutions of disinfectants, when mixed 
with liquids containing microzymes, kill these animal¬ 
cules, and the germinal matter from which they, are 
evolved; but gases appear to have comparatively little 
effect in destroying bacterium life. 
The following directions for disinfection, issued to the 
medical officers of the army, will serve to illustrate the 
•absurdity of the present methods of disinfection :— 
“ To fumigate a room 60 feet long, 20 wide, and 12 
high, 
1. Take common salt .... 4 ounces. 
„ oxide of manganese .1 ,, 
,, sulphuric acid ... 1 „ 
„ water.2 ,, 
“ The water and acid to be mixed together, and then 
poured over the ingredients, in a delf basin, which 
should be placed in a pipkin of hot sand. 
“ With nitrous acid gas, 
2. Take copper shavings . . \ ounce. 
,, nitric acid .... 14 ,, 
,, water.1| ,, 
■‘•Pourthe acid and water upon the copper, in a small jar. 
“ With sulphurous acid gas, 
Burn two ounces of sulphur in a pipkin/’ 
The complete disinfection of a room tainted with the 
-poison of contagious disease can only be accomplished 
by the most thorough cleansing. The paper should be 
removed from the walls, and the latter scraped. The 
-ceiling should be washed and whitewashed, the wood¬ 
work and floors should be scoured; all these detergent pro¬ 
cesses remove—probably without utterly destroying them 
—the contagious particles. The old-fashioned plan of 
simply whitewashing the walls and ceiling of a room, and 
washing the woodwork has much to commend it, and it 
is infinitely more efficacious than gaseous disinfection 
without liquid applications. If the whitewash does not 
kill the bacteria, it certainly imprisons them securely. 
The disinfection of the air of the room is best accom¬ 
plished by a solution of chloride of lime, carbolic acid, 
chromic acid, chloralum, etc., applied in the form of 
spray ; but this process is not likely to be generally 
adopted. A little chlorine may be generated in the room, 
and if it do no more than remove a bad odour, it will 
prove useful. As people cannot comfortably breathe in 
a room which has just been disinfected by sulphurous 
acid, or chlorine, they are obliged to open doors and 
windows, in order to admit the fresh air. In this way 
the use of disinfectants is to be commended, because it 
obliges people to ventilate their apartments. If solu¬ 
tions of disinfectants be applied to the walls and wood¬ 
work, they should be strong ones—say half a pound of 
chloride of lime to an imperial gallon of water. With 
respect to clothing and furniture, unless they can be 
treated with strong disinfecting solutions, or exposed to 
a temperature of 320° Fahr. for eight hours, it were 
better to destroy them by fire. 
In the discussion that followed the reading of this 
paper— 
Dr. Malachi Burke said he thought Dr. Cameron’s 
paper one of great importance. He wished to refer to what 
had been recently stated by a distinguished member of 
the Public Health Committee of the Corporation, 
that a house or a room could be disinfected in two 
or three hours. If the work of disinfection could be 
done so rapidly, what were they to say to Dr. Cameron s 
paper ? He wished to ask Dr. Cameron what time he 
would consider necessary for the disinfection of a 
house ? 
Dr. Grimshaw said the gentleman referred to by Dr. 
Burke stated that the Corporation disinfected clothing 
by heat in two hours, but Dr. Cameron said it would 
take at least eight to do it effectually. The process of 
disinfection was carried out by the officers of the Public 
Health Committee after this fashion. A man comes 
with a pint of chloride of lime in an old battered tin; he 
dilutes it with sulphuric acid, places it in a vessel in the 
middle of the room, shuts it up and leaves it there until 
the next morning. The usual course when he turned 
his back was for the owner of the room to throw the 
disinfectant out of the window. There were but two men 
at present employed by the Public Health Committee 
disinfecting the whole of Dublin, so that chemical 
disinfection, or disinfection by gas, was not fairly tested 
in that city; and it appeared that only one in thirty-five 
of all the houses reported as being infected by small-pox 
had been disinfected. The whole question that Dr. 
Cameron had discussed depended on a point which was 
by no means sufficiently determined ; he did not beheve 
it was proved that bacteria were the essential accom¬ 
paniments of contagious disease, so that the killing or 
non-killing of those organisms could not be taken as a 
proof that disinfection had been effectually accomplished 
or not. So far as they knew at present, the only 
effective disinfectant was a high heat, and even more 
important were detergent measures. . It was only 
recently it had been announced in Dublin that gas was 
a disinfectant. Formerly such a thing was. never 
attempted as trying to purify a house by fumigation. 
The houses in which there had been contagious disease 
were all cleaned, scraped, and swept out. Ihis was the 
plan pursued until the matter was taken up b) the city 
authorities, and they seemed to have assumed that a 
small quantity of chlorine spread in a room would effect 
its purification. . . „ ,. 
Dr. ‘Darby said that in the process of disinfection 
now employed they were using chemical agents to 
