A treatise on Asiatic cholera / edited and prepared by Edmund Charles Wendt, in association with Drs. John C. Peters, Ely McClellan, John B. Hamilton, and Geo. M. Sternberg.

Edmund Charles Wendt

Date:: 1885

Credit: A treatise on Asiatic cholera / edited and prepared by Edmund Charles Wendt, in association with Drs. John C. Peters, Ely McClellan, John B. Hamilton, and Geo. M. Sternberg. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Gerstein Science Information Centre at the University of Toronto, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Gerstein Science Information Centre, University of Toronto.

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$For the disinfeotion of soiled clothing, bed linen, and other articles which can be washed, a solution of mercuric chloride alone, of the strength of 1: 5,000, may be used; this will be about one drachm to five gallons of water. When circumstances are such that clothing cannot be immedi- ately immersed in boiling water, upon being removed from the patient's person or bed, this will constitute the best and cheapest method of disin- fecting it before sending it to be washed. The same solution may be used to disinfect the surface of the body of the sick, the hands of attendants, and all surfaces which have been soiled with choleniic discharges. In recommending that this potent toxic agent be introduced into the sick-room as a disinfectant, the writer is aware that there is a certain ele- ment of danger attending its use. But this may be guarded against by due care, and the dilute solution recommended could scarcely be taken by accident in sufficient quantity to produce death, as it has a distinctly me- tallic taste, and a tumblerful would hardly ])e a fatal dose. The danger is certainly not greater than that attending the use of carbolic acid, strong solutions of zinc chloride, etc. There is another possible danger, however, which I consider it my duty to point out. The question as to the action of such solutions upon lead pipes when the disinfectant and material to be disinfected are j)Oured into city water-closets, etc., is an important one. This question is being con- sidered by members of the Committee on Disinfectants of the American Public Health Association, and their report will doubtless be published within a short time. It is hardly necessary to give the caution that in practice solutions of merciiric chloride must be kept in glass, iron, or wooden vessels. Eecep- tacles made of any one of the metals with which mercury forms an amal- gam, would i\ot only be injured by contact with such solutions, but would destroy tlieir disinfecting power by decom]iosing the mercuric chloride. The Hypochlorites of Soda and of Lime occupy the first place among the oxidizing disinfectants on the score of economy and efficiency. The value of the liquor snrhv c/iloi-iiiafcp of the Pharniacopieia depends upon the amount of hypo-chlorite of soda which it contains, and this may be conveniently measured by estimating the chlorine.' The popular idea, however, that the disinfecting power is directly due to the evolution of chlorine is an error; and the direction sometimes given by physicians to hang up cloths moistened with this solution in tlie sick-room, with a view to disinfect the atmosphere, is based upon a mistaken conception of its action. In contact with organic matter the hypochlorite is decomposed and a large quantity of nascent oxygen is liberated, which is the active agent in accomplishing the destruction of micro-organisms present. The same is true as regards the chloride of limi!, or Ijleaching powder, which, owes its disinfecting power to the i)resence of the hypochlorite of lime. It is a popular notion, which is shared by many physicians, that the virtues of chloride of lime as a disinfectant depend upon the gradual liberation of chlorine, and that Avhen placed in open vessels in the sick-room, or in tV)ul places, it will act as a)iatmos])heric disinfectaiit. Its value when used in this way is extremely limited, for it is a well-established fact that the presence of chlorine, or of any other gaseous disinfectant, in the atmos- phere, in respirable quantity, is quite inadequate for the destruction of ' See Dr. Duggan's report in the Medical News, Feb. 7, 1885, p. 147.$