272 m. ledoyen's disinfecting fluid. 
ammonia from a volatile into a fixed substance, and thereby- 
preventing its escape and loss, it preserves in the night-soil the 
principle which renders it chiefly valuable as a manure, while 
it presents that principle to the plant in a form which is known to 
be highly beneficial to vegetation. 
"6. That, as it renders the removal of night-soil practicable 
without creating a nuisance, it ought, in our opinion, to be made 
a matter of police regulation, that no privy or cesspool should 
be emptied without the previous use of a sufficient quantity of it 
to destroy all offensive smell." 
The reporters have evidently avoided the chief question 
at issue, and directed their answers merely to the action of 
the fluid on sulphuretted hydrogen, without noticing other 
deleterious gaseous exhalations or referring to the powers 
of the liquid in disinfecting miasmatic and contagious atmos- 
pheres. The following exposition of the case was submit- 
ted to the referees by Dr. Leeson of St. Thomas's Hospi- 
tal, and is so clear in reference to the objects proposed to 
be accomplished by the discoverers, that it is introduced here 
without abridgement : 
"The decomposition of animal and vegetable substances gives 
rise, as it is well known, to septic or infectious miasmata. 
Those arising from vegetable putrescence, generating disease 
and fevers of a remittent type, whilst those arising from animal 
matter are distinguished by a typhoid character. 
" Such miasmata, although so dangerous, are not, it is believed, 
to be distinguished by the smell, and are most probably com- 
posed of vegetable and animal organizations so minute and sub- 
tle, as to e'ude the cognizance of those methods and instruments 
of investigation which have hitherto been employed. 
"The foetid and offensive gases or vapours consist of com- 
binations of hydrogen with sulphur, phosphorus, nitrogen and 
ca rbon. 
" The most offensive compounds are those of hydrogen with 
sulphur and phosphorus, forming sulphuretted hydrogen (or, 
as it is otherwise termed, hydro-sulphuric acid) and phosphu- 
retted hydrogen gases. 
" The ammonia resulting from the combination of hydrogen 
