SULPHUROUS ACID AND SULPHIDE OF CARBON.


Much attention has been paid in recent times to disinfecting agents, and
among these sulphurous acid and sulphide of carbon must be placed in the
list of the most efficient. Mr. Alf. Riche has recently summed up in the
_Journal de Pharmacie et de Chimie_ the state of the question as regards
these two agents, and we in turn shall furnish a few data on the subject
in taking the above named scientist as a guide.

Mr. Dujardin Beaumetz some time ago asked Messrs. Pasteur and Roux's aid
in making some new experiments on the question, and has made known the
result of these to the Academy of Medicine. At the Cochin Hospital he
selected two rooms of 3,530 cubic feet capacity located in wooden sheds.
The walls of these rooms, which were formed of boards, allowed the air to
enter through numerous chinks, although care had been taken to close the
largest of these with paper. In each of the rooms were placed a bed,
different pieces of furniture, and fabrics of various colors. Bromine,
chlorine and sulphate of nitrosyle were successively rejected. Three
sources of sulphurous acid were then experimented with, viz., the burning
of sulphur, liquefied sulphurous acid, and the burning of sulphide of
carbon. The rooms were closed for twenty-four hours, and tubes containing
different proto-organisms, and particularly the comma bacillus made known
by Koch, were placed therein, along with other tubes containing vaccine
lymph. After each experiment these tubes were carried to Mr. Pasteur's
laboratory and compared with others.

[Illustration: FIG. 1.--BURNER FOR SULPHUR.]