October 21, 1871.] 
THE PHARMACEUTICAL JOURNAL AND TRANSACTIONS 
325 
“ 'Waterclosets, privies, cesspools and drains can "be 
disinfected by copperas (sulphate of iron). Carbolic acid 
can be used with advantage with, or after, but not with¬ 
out copperas. A certain quantity of disinfectant will 
disinfect only a certain quantity of foul matter; and dis¬ 
infection is imperfect till all hot smell or alkaline re¬ 
action is abolished. For the disinfection of a cubic foot 
of filth, half a pound of copperas dissolved in a couple of 
quarts of soft water is sufficient. The daily addition by 
each individual using a privy or watercloset of two-thirds 
of an ounce of solid copperas to such privy, or one-third 
of a pint of the above solution to such watercloset, will 
keep it wholesome if any accumulation of filth which it 
may contain or communicate with has been previously dis¬ 
infected according to the directions given above. Carbolic 
acid, which need not be chemically pure, can be used 
after the addition of copperas till the place smells strongly 
of it. It should be used in the fluid state, its combina¬ 
tions with lime and magnesia having an alkaline reaction, 
and being therefore unsuitable for the present purpose. 
It may be diluted by being shaken up with twenty times 
its volume of water, and if poured from a watering-pot 
with a rose-nozzle over the sides of a recently emptied 
privy or cesspool will do great good. Sawdust or sand 
strongly impregnated with carbolic acid may be used for 
this purpose. Ohloralum (solution of chloride of alumi¬ 
nium of specific gravity 1160) will acidify ordinary sew¬ 
age, and destroy its living organisms when added in the 
proportion of one part to forty. It may be expected, 
therefore, to act as a disinfectant. This cannot be said 
of chloride of lime. All waterclosets and privies should, 
when epidemics of cholera or typhoid may be expected, 
be disinfected whether they be offensive or not. It is 
well at such periods to avoid using any such conveni¬ 
ences which have not been disinfected, especially if, as at 
hotels and railway stations, they may have been used by 
persons from infected localities. All the conveniences 
mentioned need ventilating as much as living-rooms 
do.” 
The subordinate position of carbolic acid is noteworthy. 
If the experiments and researches that have been under¬ 
taken in regard to carbolic acid be reliable [vide Grace 
Calvert, in the Chemical News of Dec. 9th, 1870, and Dr. 
Ballard’s remarks thereon in the same journal of Jan. 
20th, 1871), then we must admit that undoubtedly car¬ 
bolic and cresylic acids are about the most powerful of 
antiseptics; and there are few who will not admit that 
where carbolic acid can be used, it is the best for direct 
disinfection. Its odour is the objection against it, but 
still theie is a very large number of cases in which the 
odour of the disinfectant proves no bar to its employ¬ 
ment. 
The minute also assigns a low rank as a disinfectant to 
chloride of lime ; and here it will not be out of place to 
indicate the manner in which different disinfectants act 
on a mass of organic matter in incipient decomposition, 
such as fames, urine, etc. 
Copperas, chloralum and Burnett’s solution (chloride 
of zinc) absorb the most offensive products of decompo¬ 
sition, which appear to be stinking alkaloids, and in so 
doing deodorize ; they may also act as powerful antisep¬ 
tics,—that is to say, arrest putrefaction, and so prevent 
the production afresh of products of decomposition ; but 
more evidence is wanted on this point. Carbolic acid 
does not absorb the products of putrefaction which has 
already taken place, but it arrests putrefaction and so 
stops the further production of products of decomposition. 
Bleaching powder and Condy’s fluid (alkaline perman¬ 
ganate) appear to oxidize the products of decomposition, 
but they have little power as antiseptics,—that is to say, 
they have little power of preventing the organic matter 
from continuing to putrefy. These latter, therefore, arc 
not so economical as other disinfectants. 
For use in cesspools and drains there is at present in 
the market a very cheap material, known as Cooper’s 
salts, and consisting of a mixture of chlorides. It has 
considerable deodorizing power. It deserves a trial in 
privies and urinals, and indeed is known to answer in 
the latter. 
Leaving the waterclosets and cesspools, and returning 
to the sick man’s chamber, the first thing demanding 
attention is the night-stool or bed-pan, which should be 
charged either with a sufficient quanty of copperas or 
else chloralum. We think that most persons who have 
tried the two will be inclined to give the preference to 
the latter, from its superior cleanliness, and in the form 
of a dry powder sufficiently cheap to be used to cover the 
excreta it wall bo found very convenient. Charcoal or 
sand to coVer up excrement and discharges of all kinds, 
and these moistened with copperas solution or solution 
of chloralum, will also answer. But carbolic acid and 
bleaching powder may be used in the sick chamber, on 
an emergency, when nothing better is at hand. Chlor¬ 
alum is very likely the best of the non-volatile dis¬ 
infectants, but its superiority to Burnett’s fluid, sulphate 
of iron, etc., can hardly be said to be as yet established. 
The clothes worn by a patient ill with smallpox or 
cholera should afterwards be burnt, and, as far as 
possible, the bedding .too. Failing this, they should be 
boiled for half an hour with soap and water, or else ex¬ 
posed to a dry heat of 250° F. In order to produce an 
appearance of cleanliness, bleaching powder may be used 
in the subsequent washing of the linen of patients suffer¬ 
ing from infectious diseases; but it would be injudicious 
to rely on that substance as a disinfectant of the linen. 
Finally, it should be remembered that the surface of 
every solid which is for a length of time exposed in a sick¬ 
room inhabited by patients suffering from infectious 
diseases is liable to contract a taint, and will need disin¬ 
fection. The surface of the patient may even be treated, 
and with great advantage to himself and everybody con¬ 
cerned. In most cases, as is now recognized, a bath will 
at least do no harm, and in cases of smallpox the addi¬ 
tion of some convenient disinfectant to the bath has been 
found to comfort the patient. 
THE PRINCIPLES OF GAS ILLUMINATION. 
The important results which usually follow the in¬ 
vestigation upon scientific principles of a subject in 
which previously practice had been founded almost en¬ 
tirely upon empirical rules, have often been urged as a 
reason for the increased spread of scientific teaching in 
this country. Doubtless many thousands of pounds are 
wasted yearly through inability to apply the knowledge 
of first principles to the common every-day things of life. 
A fresh instance of this has been furnished recently in 
the report to the Board of Trade on the construction of 
gas-burners with reference to the principles of gas-illu¬ 
mination. 
At first it might appear that there is a certain lack of 
appropriateness in this subject for discussion in these 
columns. But questions continually arise in the de¬ 
velopment of the investigation which are akin to some 
of those of the pharmaceutical student’s studies and 
might be expected to furnish points of interest to him. 
To this may be added the perhaps somewhat more 
tangible and important fact to gas consumers, and there¬ 
fore to pharmacists, that it is considered by the gas 
referees that half a million sterling—or one-fourth of 
the whole gas rental—is a moderate estimate of the 
amount that might be saved annually, in London alone, 
by the use of good burners. And lastly, the improve¬ 
ment of burners is also a measure of sanitary reform; 
as the required quantity of light being obtained from a 
smaller quantity of gas, not only is much unnecessary 
heat avoided, but the pernicious products of combustion 
discharged into the air (viz., carbonic acid gas, the sul¬ 
phur impurities, etc.) are equally diminished. 
In the section on the illuminating power of gas with 
which the report opens, the first question discussed is, 
