Dr. Baxter's report on an experimental study of certain disinfectants.

  • Baxter, Evan Buchanan, 1844-1885.
Date:
[1875]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Dr. Baxter's report on an experimental study of certain disinfectants. 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.

    33/42 (page 247)
    2. The form* occur ^ preface in acid, .he » in nenfa. or needed to excite the former are abundantly present ** »“» ' •; thole required for the latter are sparingly distributed through in air “ribUT\*oCes wrought by the former are much more rapid “7 nfcal^conneS' with fermentation are more easily de- stroyed, or ribbed of their reproductive power, than those associate! W1]q must^of course, be understood that this attempt to separate between the two groups of phenomena is entirely relative to the matter now m hand • it would be highly presumptuous to offer it as the solution of a many-sided problem which must one day be settled upon wider grounds. The action of disinfectants on the organisms connected with fermenta- tion need not detain us long. There is much evidence to show that fermentation is far more easily arrested than putrefaction ; and that torulaceous germs are more susceptible to the action of heat (Roberts, Studies on Biogenesis, Phil. Trans., 1874), and to that of chlorine and of potassic permanganate, than the germs of the Schizomycetes. Jtided* has shown that the exposure of yeast to an atmosphere con- taining • 25 per cent, (by volume) of SO2 for a variable number oi hours destroys its zymotic properties. Manassein found P- per cent, of carbolic acid sufficient to deprive the spores of Penicillium of their terminating power. Experiments made by myself point in the same direction. °It may fairly be concluded that the influence of disinfectants on such fungoid spores affords no measure of their action on contagia, since the former are very much more susceptible to adverse influences than the latter. The strictly antiseptic energy of disinfectants is undoubtedly that “s0re^°“^° which has been most thoroughly investigated, and most frequently taken checking or as a measure of their power to destroy contagion. A vast mass of a^mgpyirc- experimental material on this subject has been accumulated by Angus Smith, Calvert, Crookes, Parkes, O’Nial, Dougall, and many others in this country, not to speak of countless researches made in France and Germany. The popularity of this method has been shown to depend, partly on a vague sense of resemblance between the spread of putrefac- tion and that of contagion; partly on a belief that specific contagia may be created de novo in putrefying matter; partly on coincidences em- pirically observed between the operation of disinfectants in the two sets of cases; partly on the difficulty of obtaining direct evidence of their value. Without committing ourselves to any opinion on the vexed . question of the parasitic theory of contagion, it seems desirable to find out whether any quantitative relation between the antiseptic and the disinfectant power of our four agents can be shown to exist. It is needful to premise that the word “ antiseptic ” is here taken to mean “ fatal to the growth and multiplication of septic microzymes.” The nature of the connexion between microzymes and the chemical pheno- mena which coincide with their evolution is provisionally set aside. Whether putrefactive decomposition may occur as a result of purely chemical agencies, and without the intervention of bacteroid organisms, is a question foreign to the matter in hand. Hoppe-Seylerf has proved to his own satisfaction that it may. But the analogies of the contagia are with septic microzymes, not with processes of oxidation or deoxida- tion. Septic microzymes, like the contagia, multiply indefinitely when * Hoppe-Seyler’x Unlersucliungen, 1808. t Med. Client. Untersucliungen, 1871. Uber Fiiuluissprozesse uml Desinfektion.