The disinfectant question : review of a book by Dr. R. Angus Smith, entitled Disinfectants and disinfection.

Date:
1869
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The disinfectant question : review of a book by Dr. R. Angus Smith, entitled Disinfectants and disinfection. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    carriage and storage of which entail useless outlay. And ■when all is paid for, what are the results obtainable, in some important cases, from the latter preparation ? Let the answer be given from Dr. Smith’s book. In a table, at page 109, showing the effects of gases, &c., on flesh, we read: [State of the flesh after seven days’ exposure.] “ McDougall’s Powder, putrid and slimy; ” and immediately afterwards, as if by way of apology for having been so foolish as to expect better results, “ McDougall’s Powder was tried here simply to see if it gave off carbolic acid enough to prevent putrefaction of meat; it was found not to do sowhereas, in the same experiment, the flesh exposed to chlorine gas, at the end of twenty-eight days, was pronounced to be “unchanged, red inside, bleached on the surface.” Nevertheless, this is the preparation which Dr. Smith has so long and so confidently recommended in pre¬ ference to chlorine, the use of which he discourages in a special paragraph wherein we find (p. 50):— “ Evils. Dangers of excess in fumigation.—A slightly unpleasant smell afterwards. Strong fumigation may be used, but no one must breathe the fumes. When strong, very dangerous.” There is no risk, certainly, of McDougall’s Powder proving dangerous from the strength of its exhalations; but, as to unpleasant smell, we should say that was its most remarkable property. In the chapter entitled “ Deodorization,” our author gives three tables intended to exhibit the relative value of different disinfectants for removing smells. These, like much of the rest of the volume, are re¬ printed from the Third Report of the Cattle Plague Commission. None of the substances set out in them, carbolic acid included, proved satisfactory ; but in a note appended to the third table we learn that “ permanganate of potash or Condy’s Fluid com¬ pletely removes the smell at once.” Nevertheless, Dr. Smith, in the very next sentence, ignoring the results obtained with the latter substance, says, “ From these experiments it is clear that even the most powerful antiseptics are far from being well fitted for removing putrid smells.” In the table, as originally printed in the official Report, the above note was preceded by one stating that “ McDougall’s