Method of using the chloride of soda, either for dressing ill-conditioned sores, or as a means of purifying unhealthy places, and of disinfecting animal substances / by A.G. Labarraque ... Translated by Jacob Porter.

  • Labarraque, A. G. (Antoine Germain), 1777-1850.
Date:
1830
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Method of using the chloride of soda, either for dressing ill-conditioned sores, or as a means of purifying unhealthy places, and of disinfecting animal substances / by A.G. Labarraque ... Translated by Jacob Porter. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    In all places where there is a crowd of men or animals, whether sick or healthy, the air becomes corrupted, and acquires deleterious properties, owing principally to the animal exhalations. These ex¬ halations may be destroyed by sprinklings of the chloride diluted in from twenty-five to thirty parts of water; or by setting in these places, (and they may be out of sight,) some vessels containing the chlorated water, which can never be in the least injurious, whatever may be the quantity. This method of purifying the air is indispensably ne¬ cessary in lazarettoes, hospitals, prisons, poor houses, manufactories, churches, seminaries, convents, halls of study, and dormitories in col¬ leges and boarding houses, cabins of ships, court rooms, crowded theaters, saloons when filled to excess on great occasions, and the like Sprinklings of the chlorated water will be more especially neces¬ sary whenever an epidemic or contagious disease prevails; they should be made in order to guard against the deleterious influence arising from the neighborhood of marshes, the rotting of flax, hemp and the like. They will likewise be serviceable in the diseases of domestic animals, (and for directions in this case, see the instructions in my larger pamphlet,) in places where silk-worms are raised; finally, in all places where the air becomes charged with exhala¬ tions, which, on being accumulated, produce fatal effects. In cases of asphyxia, produced by the exhalations of vaults, sew¬ ers or any considerable masses of putrefying animal substances, it will be necessary for the patient to breathe the concentrated chlo¬ ride ; and his chamber should be sprinkled with the chlorated water, so as to subject him to the influence of the disinfecting agent. It is often necessary, sometimes from a tender and pious feeling of regret, to preserve for a long time the bodies of deceased persons. A fetid odor appears more or less readily, according to the tempera¬ ture of the air, the state of the patient’s body at the time of his de¬ cease, or the disease, that terminated his life. This decomposition may be suddenly arrested; indeed, it may be prevented by sprink¬ ling the body with some chloride of soda diluted in water. For this purpose, a bottle of chloride should be mixed with twelve liters or bottles of water; in this mixture a linen cloth should be wet, laid on the body, and sprinkled occasionally with the liquid. In this way, a corpse may be preserved indefinitely by a process, which I shall make known elsewhere.