NOTE  ON  CARBOLIC  ACID,  ETC. 
357 
"crystallized  carbolic  acid."  When  a  bottle  of  it  has  been 
treated  in  this  way,  the  person  who  adds  the  water  should  indi- 
cate it  by  passing  a  pen  mark  through  the  word  "  crystallized  " 
m  the  label,  or  by  some  other  significant  mark  on  the  label.  It 
is  a  curious  circumstance  in  connection  with  the  use  of  this 
crystallized  Phenol  that  when  thoroughly  melted  it  will  often 
remain  liquid  for  days  and  weeks,  and  no  agitation  or  moving 
the  stopper,  or  other  ordinary  means,  will  cause  it  to  re- 
crystallize.  But  sooner  or  later  a  time  will  come  when,  even 
without  change  of  temperature,  it  will  be  found  solid.  The 
writer  has  seen  this  crystallization  commence  in  a  pound  bottle* 
which  had  been  liquid  for  many  days,  and  be  completed  within 
a  few  seconds.  The  dropping  into  the  liquid  a  particle  of  the 
crystals  from  another  bottle  will  determine  the  crystallization  at 
once.  Cooling  down  by  ice  water  will  also  cause  it  to  crystal- 
lize, but  it  must  be  cooled  far  below  its  melting  point. 
The  saturated  solution  is  useful  for  many  surgical  and  medi- 
cal purposes,  but  chiefly  as  a  disinfectant  for  pouring  upon  in- 
fected clothing  and  washing  infected  furniture  and  utensils  in 
time  of  epidemic  or  contagious  disease,  etc.  If  the  circumstance 
developed  in  the  experiments  with  dilute  solutions  be  accepted,* 
namely,  that  the  creasote  is  itself  destroyed  or  used  up  in  pro- 
portion to  what  it  accomplishes,  it  will  serve  as  a  key  to  its  use 
in  more  or  less  concentrated  form.  It  is  often  if  not  commonly 
used  in  great  excess,  and  up  to  this  time  no  one  appears  to  know 
how  little  will  serve  the  purposes  to  which  it  has  been  success- 
fully applied. 
The  standard  solution  is  a  one  per  cent,  solution,  and  is  made 
by  agitating  one  measure  of  either  the  crystallized  or  the  liquid 
creasote  with  one  hundred  measures  of  water,  and  filtering 
through  two  or  three  thicknesses  of  wet  paper  when  necessary. 
^  Reference  is  here  made  to  some  collateral  observations  in  the  ex- 
periments with  very  dilute  solutions  which  were  not  investigated,  much 
less  proved.  And  as  the  indications  are  in  opposition  to  the  generally 
received  opinion  they  cannot  be  trusted.  The  bare  circumstance  is  that 
dilute  solutions  made  with  water  containing  organic  matters,  appeared 
to  give  less  taste  and  smell  than  when  made  with  distilled  water,  and 
appeared  to  lose  a  part  of  their  taste  and  smell  on  standing  but  a  short 
time. 
