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1. Quick Lime. To absorb moisture and putrid fluids, use fresh stone-lime, finely broken; sprinkle it on the place to be dried, and in damp rooms place a number of plates or pans filled with the lime powders; whitewash with pure lime.

4906

2. Charcoal Powder. To absorb the putrid gases the coal must be dry and fresh and should be combined with lime; this compound is the calx-powder as sold in the shops.

4907

3. Chloride of Lime. To give off chlorine to destroy putrid effluvia, and to stop putrefaction, use it as lime is used, and if the cellars are close rooms the chlorine gas is wanted, pour strong vinegar or diluted sulphuric acid upon plates of chloride of lime, occasionally, and add more of the chloride.

4908

4. Sulphate of Iron (Copperas) and Carbolic Acid. To disinfect necessaries, cesspools, drains and sewers, and especially the vessels, grounds or places, in which the discharge from the sick with cholera and diarrhoeal diseases are evacuated, dissolve eight or ten pounds of sulphate of iron in five gallons of water and add a pint of fluid carbolic acid, stir or agitate it briskly, to make a complete solution.

4909

5. Permanganate of Potassium. To be used in disinfecting clothing and towels from patients sick with cholera, scarlatina, typhus or typhoid fevers, during the night or when such articles cannot be instantly boiled- throw the soiled article immediately into a tub of water in which there has been dissolved an ounce of the permanganate salt to every three gallons of water. Boil the clothing as soon as it is removed from this colored solution, or boil them in it. The permanganate salts must not be used with the carbolic or coal tar disinfectants. It is also best that chlorine and the chlorides should not be used at the same time, or in contact with the latter class of substances.

4910

6. Sulphate of Zinc. Sulphate of zinc should be used precisely as we use permanganate of potassium. The zinc solutions need to be much stronger than those of the permanganate. Use at least two ounces of sulphate of zinc to one gallon of water. It must be remembered that if any of these solutions are very strong they would destroy clothing. At the best they are but temporary substitutes for disinfection by boiling.

4911

7. Carbolic Acid (Fluid). This may be diluted at the rate of from forty to one hundred parts of water to one of the fluid acid. Use this solution for the same purpose as copperas is used; also to sprinkle upon any kind of garbage or decaying matter, and on foul surface or in drains. When used to disinfect clothing, carbolic acid of a pure quality should be thoroughly mixed with its owh quantity of strong vinegar, and next be dissolved in one hundred times of its own quantity of water before the clothing is immersed in it. This mixture with vinegar insures such complete solution of the carbolic acid that the clothing will not be burned by undissolved drops of the acid when disinfected in the carbolic water. This weak solution (one part to one hundred) will not injure common clothing but the acid must be of good quality, and free from tarry matter. For ordinary purposes in disinfecting clothing, the zinc solution is preferable to that of carbolic acid.

For drains, sewers, foul heaps, stables, necessaries, and cesspools, the cheap "dead oil" of coal oil. or the crude carbolic acid, answers every purpose when freely applied. Coal-tar itself is available as a disinfectant, or antiseptic paint for the walls of stables, necessary vaults, and drains. By mixing with sawdust or dry lime, coal-tar or crude carbolic acid may be used on foul grounds or heaps of refuse.

4912

8. Other disinfectants, such as the solutions, sesquichloride of iron or of chloride of zinc, are effectual in necessaries and drains, and upon foul surfaces and offensive materials. These metallic chlorides, combined with a twentieth part of carbolic acid, are most valuable disinfectants. A solution of iodine, gr. ij, and iodide of potassium, gr. xx, in 3 iv of water, kept in an open vessel at a high temperature, has been employed as a disinfectant in scarlatina. Carbolates of lime, and carbolic powders do not contain sufficient carbolic acid to render them important.

4913

9. Boiling, or High-steam Heat. Whenever foul clothing and infected things can be boiled, or have a boiling heat steadily applied and kept up for an hour, it will be found to be one of the simplest and best modes of disinfection. But until such high heat is actually applied to the infected things, some one of the disinfecting solutions must be used.