Air and water : their impurities and purification / by Henry Bollman Condy.

  • Condy, Henry Bollman.
Date:
1862
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Air and water : their impurities and purification / by Henry Bollman Condy. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service. The original may be consulted at London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service.

    18/92 (page 14)
    which constitute the scent of the hunting field, afford a familiar example of the latter substances. In the par- liamentary report which he drew up, in 1847, on the subject of disinfectants, Dr. Leeson succeeded in showing very clearly, that there is no necessary relation between the odorous and deleterious properties of atmospheric impurities, and that merely to deodorise is not necessarily to disinfect. With reference to this point he classifies the elements of morbid animal exhalations and malarious and putrefactive vapours, as follows:— Dangerous, but Odorous, but Most offensive, but not inodorous. slightly offensive. infectious. Remittent miasms Ammonia Sulphuretted hydrogen Typhoid miasms Carb. ammon. Phosph. hydrogen Carbonic oxide Cyanogen Carburetted hydrogen Carbonic acid Stdpho-cyanogen Sulph. ammon. That the atmosphere contains a considerable amount of tangible matter is clearly seen, when a ray of sunlight happens to penetrate by a small opening into an obscure place. It then becomes evident, that the air holds in suspension an infinite quantity of solid particles. From this source comes the dust which settles on our furniture, and in rooms which have remained long shut up or unin- habited. This dust is of a very complex character, being composed not only of inorganic matter, but of extremely minute shreds of organised substances derived from the wear and tear of the materials of our clothinp- and habi- tations, the articles we eat, the exuviae of ourselves and domestic animals, and the detritus of plants.* In some of the wards of the Hospital of St. Louis, at Paris, no less than 30% of organic putrescible matter, which on being moistened rapidly exhaled a strong odour of putrefaction, and when calcined smelt distinctly of burnt horn, was recently detected by M. Chalvet in the dust found at- * Pouchet of Rouen; Comptes Rendws de VAcademie dcs Sciences, t. 1, p. 1122.