The utility and application of heat as a disinfectant / by Elisha Harris.
- Harris, Elisha, 1824-1884
- Date:
- 1860
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: The utility and application of heat as a disinfectant / by Elisha Harris. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.
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![or convey specific pestilential virus; and this, even to the richest saloons,* the closest apartments, and the most hidden and inaccessible portions of any vessel or warehouse. In the practical applications of heat we have an agency the most searching that Nature aflfordsj and, as remarked by ])r. Henry, one that penetrates into the inmost recesses of matter in all its various states. It is true that there may be fouud some practical diflSculties in the application of hot air or dry heat in certain inaccessible places of a vessel, and to certain materials that possibly might imbibe febrile poison; but in all such cases and for all such materials, steam may safely be resorted to, and with very great economy, dispatch, and . satisfaction. By virtue of the almost unlimited expansive property of high steam, together with its remarkable property of latent heat,— estimated at about 1,000 F. when at its ordinary temperature of boil- ing water,— this subtile and elastic element readily conveys and inflicts a scalding heat wherever it is allowed to escape into closed apartments, while by its properties of latency and almost infinite expansiveness it will penetrate, more certainly and effectively than any other agent can, every porous substance and the most hidden and intricate openings or crevices where infectious poison might possibly be localized. It is to be regretted that the utility of steam or heat in some other form has not been experimentally and extensively tested on board infected vessels and in contaminated apartments; for it is in such vessels and apartments the question of the applicability of heat to the practical purposes of disinfection may most satisfactorily be demon- strated. All admit — contagionists and non-contagiouists alike — that pestilent febrile poisons may not only be generated in foul ships, and there become endemial, but that an endemic cause of certain maladies is liable to become obstinately fixed and perpetuated in such places; while, on the other hand, the questions relating to fomifes, so-called, may forever remain sub jitdice, or, at least, subject to doubts. As, in a somewhat extended reading of nautical medicine, we have met with no very satisfactory instances of the application of heat to purposes of disinfection in ships, we wait with interest, but with little doubt, the practical and triumphant results of this mode of purification. The writer last year suggested to the Quarantine Committee of the New York Chamber of Commerce the propriety of instituting direct experiments with heat in vessels known to be contaminated. The proposition was received with favor, and it is hoped that it may yet * The injuries liable to be prcKluced upon various rich goods or in nicely furnished apiirtinents by imrticiiliir incremciits of heat, whether by stciim or dry heating, may readily be estimated beforehand. In no case could it ever be required to raise the temperature to the degree that produces carbonization, which, as M. Violette has shown, docs not even comnionce at a point lower than 222° Fahreidieit. The acci- dental application of scalding steam to the costliest furniture and upholstcrj- of the rich saloons, in steam vessels, has too frequently demonstrated that the steam-heat which instantly destroys anijiial life, leaves those gorgeous apartm.'nts and their furniture comparatively unharmed.](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b22282154_0016.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
