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Fumigation and Ventilation

To Purify the Air in Halls, Hospitals, etc.

Dr. Van Marum has discovered a very simple method, proved by repeated experiments, of preserving the air pure in large halls, theatres, hospitals, etc. The apparatus for this purpose is nothing forge-bellows will thus empty a space containing thirty hogsheads of foul air, and supply its place with good fresh air in a very few minutes.

Air-Pipes for Ventilating Ships, etc.

Air-pipes are used for drawing foul air out of ships, or other close places, by means of fire. One extremity is placed in a hole in the side of a furnace (closed in every part excepting the outlet for the smoke); the other in the place which it is designed to purify. The rarefaction produced by the fire, causes a current of air to be determined to it, and the only means by which the air can arrive at the fire being through the pipe, a quick circulation in the place where the extremity of the pipe may be situated, is consequently produced.

The Air Trunk.

This apparatus was contrived by Dr. Hales, to prevent the stagnation of putrid effluvia in jails and other places, where a great number of people are crowded together. It consists merely of an oblong trunk open at both ends, one of which is inserted into the ceiling of the room, the air of which is to be kept pure: and the other extends a good way beyond the roof. Through this trunk a continued circulation is carried on; and the reason why vapors of this kind ascend more swiftly through a long trunk than a short one is, that the pressure of fluids is always according to their different depths, without regard to the diameter of their basis, or of the vessel that contains them. When the column of putrid effluvia is long and narrow, the difference between the column of atmosphere pressing on the upper end of the trunk, and that which presses on the lower end, is much greater than if the column of putrid effluvia was short and wide; and consequently the ascent is much swifter. One pan of a single pair of scales, which was two inches in diameter, being held within one of these trunks over the House of Commons, the force of the ascending air made it rise so as to require four grains to restore the equilibrium, and this when there was no person in the house; but when it was full, no less than twelve grains were requisite to restore the equilibrium; which clearly shows that these trunks must be of real and very great efficacy.

German Method of Cooling and Purifying the Air in Summer.

In the hot days of summer, especially in houses * "The discharges of cholera patients contain the generative principle of cholera." - European Cholera Conference, Constantinople. May 21. 1866 Hence utensils and water-closets used by cholera patients should be carefully scalded, or disinfected with chloride of lime or coppeгa See index for Disinfectants exposed to the meridian sun, a capacious vessel filled with cold water is placed in the middle of a room. and a few green branches (or as many as it will hold) oflime, birch, or willow-tree, are plunged with the lower ends into the fluid. By this easy expedient the apartment is, in a short time, rendered much cooler; the evaporation of the water producing this desirable effect in sultry weather without any detriment to health. Besides, the exhalation of green plants, under the influence of the solar rays, greatly tends to purify the air; but care must be taken that they do not remain in the apartment after night-fall, or in the shade.

Ta Fumigate Foul Rooms.

To one tablespoonful of common salt, and a little peroxide of manganese, in a glass cup, add four or five different times, a quarter of a wine-glass of strong sulphuric acid. Place the cup on the floor and go out, taking care to shut the door. The vapor will come in contact with the malignant miasma and destroy it. Prepared chloride of lime will do as well.

Caution in Visiting Sick Rooms.

Never venture into a sick room in a violent perspiration (if circumstances require a continuance there for any time), for the moment the body be comes cold it is in a state likely to absorb the infection and receive the disease. Nor visit a sick person (especially if the complaint be of a contagious nature) with an empty stomach, as this disposes the system more readily to receive the infection. In attending a sick person, stand where the air passes from the door or window to the bed of the diseased, not betwixt the diseased person and any fire that is in the room, as the heat of the fire will draw the infectious vapor in that direction, and danger would occasionally arise from breathing in it. ounces.

Fumigating Powder.

Take of cascarilla reduced to a coarse powder, chamomile flowers, aniseed, each equal parts, two Put some hot cinders in a shovel, sprinkle this gradually on it, and fumigate the chambers bers of the sick. It takes away all smell, and keeps off infection.

Disinfecting Liquid.

Make a strong solution either of nitrate or acetate of lead; and sprinkle with it the floor and walls of a foul apartment. The first of the above is Ledoyen's liquid.

Preparation of Acetic Acid.

Put 4 ounces of acetate of lead, in powder, into a tubulated glass retort, and pour over it 4 ounces of sulphuric acid. Place the retort in a sand-bath, the heat of which should be kept as uniform as possible. Adapt a common receiver, over which there must be constantly kept a piece of wet flannel or cotton for the condensation of the gas as it comes over. Sometimes sulphurous acid gas will be found to adulterate the acetic acid; this is easily known by the suffocating odor which it emits.

The best way to prevent this is by a slow distillation; or the whole may be distilled a second time. The acetic acid possesses a very pungent odor, owing to its volatility; consequently it should be kept in a well stopped phial. It is used as the basis of all the aromatic vinegars.

Aromatic Vinegar.

Acetic acid may be mixed with camphor and aromatics, as in Henry's Aromatic Vinegar, in a quantity sufficient for a small smelling bottle, at no great expense. But it is the acetic acid which is useful in preventing infection, and not the aromatics, which are added for the pleasure of the perfume.

Cheap Aromatic Vinegar for Puri sing large Buildings, Manufactories, sie.

Take of common vinegar any quantity; mix powdered chalk or common whiting with it, as long as bubbles of carbonic acid gas arise. Let the white matter subside, and pour off the insipid supernatant liquor; afterwards let the white powder be dried either in the open air or by a fire. When dry pour upon it, in a glass or stone vessel, sulphuric acid as long as white acid fumes continue to ascend. This product is similar to the acetic acid known in the shops by the name of Aromatic Vinegar. The simplicity of this process points it out as a very useful and convenient one for purifying prisons, hospital ships, and houses where contagion is presumed or suspected, the white acid fumes diffusing themselves quickly around.

To prevent and Destroy the Mephitism of Plastered Walls.

Wherever a number of people are assembled, either in health or sickness, the walls become insensibly impregnated with infectious exhalations. Currents of air, when admitted, sweep and cleanse the atmosphere, but do not carry away the miasmata concealed in the porosity of the walls, which retain the infectious humidity of the perspiration of bodies, gradually condensing on their surface.

Quick-lime may be substituted to destroy such mephitism of walls, and also to prevent the evil.

The most infected tans and sieves lose their smell when mixed with the whiting or size of lime.

Lime enters whitewashing, and may become the principal substance of it, by substituting it for Spanish white. When made the principal ingredient of whitewashing, it will prevent walls from being impregnated with infectious miasmata. The addition of milk and oil are requisite, for lime has no adhesion on walls, nor can a body or substance be given to the layer. The slightest rubbing with a pencil brush will rub it off, and leave the wall naked. The cheesy part of the milk, with the addition of oil, which makes a soapy body with lime, form, after the evaporation of the humidity, a dense coherent layer, or sort of varnished plaster, which overcomes the porosity of stone, plaster, brick, and wood. This wash has another advantage, that of checking the nitrification of walls, which the painting of them in water colors has a tendency to accelerate.

To deodorize Privies.

Chloride of lime (bleaching powder) will effect this. So will chloride of zinc, or sulphate of iron. The first is the most convenient, although the last is also used, with fifteen times its weight of water Ridgewood's Disinfectant.

In 100 parts, use of carbolic acid 5 to 8 per cent.; lime from magnesia limestone, 5 per cent.; fuller's earth, 70 to 80 per cent.; with a little sulphate of potash and sulphate of soda. To disinfect Letters.

A common method of disinfecting letters, and other articles coming from places that are supposed to be visited by the plague, is to expose them to the fumes of baing sulphur, mixed with saltpetre. A high temperature, short of combustion, will answer the same purpose.