206 
ON THE CHLORINE LAMP OF DR. HILDRETH. 
the Pharmacopoeia. The latter does not furnish a sufficient quantity of the 
gas to be efficacious. If the former is not easily attainable, a tincture of 
chloroform, of the strength of one part of chloroform to six or eight of alco- 
hol, will answer quite as well ; in fact, the ' strong chloric ether ' is nothing 
more than a tincture of chloroform. 
" The lamps used for burning camphene are well adapted for this purpose, 
being provided with a small cap or extinguisher, which covers the wick 
and prevents evaporation of the ether when not in use. I have made, ex- 
temporaneously, a very excellent lamp by inserting two or three inches of 
glass tubing, of the diameter of a No. 16 bougie, through the cork of a wide- 
mouthed phial." 
The proposal in the foregoing communication would offer a very 
neat mode for evolving chlorine for either inhalation or fumiga- 
tion, if the gas produced was mainly chlorine. But the experiments 
which I have made in the burning of tincture of chloroform, have 
much disappointed the hopes with which, notwithstanding Dr. H.'s 
admission of the presence of muriatic acid, I first received the an- 
nouncement. That chlorine is evolved, is unquestionable. But 
the proportion of this is so small, and that of chlorohydric acid so 
large, in the products of the combustion, that I greatly doubt 
whether it can be brought into useful competition, in any way, 
with the other methods of obtaining the disinfecting — certainly not 
the bleaching — effects for which chlorine is so well known. For 
some purposes of inhalation, it may possibly prove useful, con- 
veying as it does the chlorine gas to the patient in a very dilute 
and not very disagreeable form; but this must of course be confined 
to cases in which the presence also of muriatic acid gas is not ob- 
jectionable ; unless, by the intervention of a vessel of water the 
latter could be absorbed, and the chlorine alone, with the requi- 
site dilution by atmospheric air, applied to the lungs or other ab- 
sorbing vessels of the patient, as required. 
Dr. Hildreth speaks of the " strong chloric ether used for inha- 
lation " being the proper kind to burn, " and not the chloric ether 
of the Pharmacopoeia." What he has in view by the latter, I do 
not know, as there is no such thing in the United States Phar- 
macopoeia, nor, so far as I am aware, in any of those of the British 
Colleges. But from several trials that I have made, I am in- 
clined to think that the " strong chloric ether," made by dissolving 
one part of chloroform in two parts of alcohol, will not answer for 
burning, nearly so well as a tincture made by mixing two fluid 
