The successful application of charcoal air-filters to the ventilation and disinfection of sewers : a letter to the Right Honourable the Lord Mayor, William Cubitt, M.P. / by John Stenhouse.

  • Stenhouse, John, 1809-1880.
Date:
1861
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The successful application of charcoal air-filters to the ventilation and disinfection of sewers : a letter to the Right Honourable the Lord Mayor, William Cubitt, M.P. / by John Stenhouse. 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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    ing the action of charcoal were exceedingly erro- neous; for instead of acting as an antiseptic, and thereby retarding the decay of putrefying substances with which it was in contact, as had been previously suj)posed, its action was the very reverse of this. Charcoal, therefore, from the considerable amount of condensed oxygen contained within its pores, amounting to between nine and ten volumes, not only absorbs, but rapidly oxidizes the efEuvia and miasmata emitted by decaying substances, and re- solves them into the simplest combinations they are capable of forming. All porous substances, such as platiQum black, pumice stone, &c., possess the power of condensing gases within their pores. The porosity of charcoal is much greater than many persons are aware of. Liebig states, in his Letters on Chemistry, that the pores in a cubic inch of beech-wood charcoal must, at the lowest computation, be equal to a surface of 100 square feet. When reflecting on the wonderful power of char- coal as a deodorizer and disinfectant, as exhibited in the cases already described, where, as we have seen, a layer of charcoal not more than two inches in thickness is capable of absorbing all the miasmata from such an extensive som'ce of corruption as the putrid body of a large animal, it struck me that a thin layer of charcoal powder interposed between wire gauze would be equally effective in preventing the noxious effects wliich too frequently result from the very minute quantity of putrid infectious matter