Further experiments on the disinfecting powers of increased temperatures / by William Henry.

  • Henry, William, 1774-1836.
Date:
1832
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Further experiments on the disinfecting powers of increased temperatures / by William Henry. 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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    temperatures varying from ‘200° to 206°, and applied to a girl aged thirteen years. On the 30th of November, no effect having been produced, another waistcoat was substituted, which had been worn eleven hours by Johnston on the third day of the efflorescence, and then disinfected by a tempera- ture of 204?° applied during two hours. No symptoms of scarlatina have shown themselves in this case. In all the foregoing instances, it was ascertained by the most careful inquiries that the children, to whom the disin- fected waistcoats were applied, had never been affected with scarlatina, and were therefore liable to that disease. The children were attentively examined every day, in order that' no slight symptom might pass unobserved*. The experiments, which have been related, appear to me sufficiently numerous to prove, that hy exposure to a tempera- ture not below 200° Fahr. during at least one hour, the con- tagious matte,r of scarlatina is either dissipated or destroyed. To me it seems more probable that it is decomposed, than that it is merely volatilized ; because cow-pock matter, though com- pletely deprived of its volatile portion at 120°, is not rendered inert by temperatures much below 140°. I did not, however, consider it as either necessary to the proof, or justifiable, to determine, with respect to the contagion of scarlatina, either the lowest temperature, or the shortest time, adequate to the disinfecting agency; for these points, which are of no practi- cal importance, could not have been decided without the ac- tual communication of the malady. Still less necessary, and less justifiable, should I have thought it, to have proved, by exciting the disease, that, the waistcoats, as taken from the patients, were impregnated with the contagion of scarlatina. It may, I am aware, be urged that the induction would have been more satisfactory, if founded on a greater number of instances. But experiments, of the kind which have been related, are attended with so many difficulties, as to forbid their multiplication beyond what is absolutely necessary. Not to mention other obstacles, it is far from easy to find young persons in every respect unexceptionable for the purpose;— to insulate them, as was done in these instances, from all casual sources of infection; — and to keep them under the watchful care of observers, qualified to mark even indistinct symptoms that might arise, and to apply the proper remedies. It must be acknowledged also, that the inference from the * It is due to Mr. Edward Johnson, resident clerk of the Manchester House of Recovery, that I should acknowledge his valuable assistance, especially in the care with which he superintended the disinfecting pro- cesses. destructible