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33
gas streamed in for another hour; twenty minutes is said
iu ordinary cases to be enough. The other room was
fumigated with sulphur in the usual way, two cylinders
being used. The following morning, nineteen hours after
the disinfection, the rooms were opened, and the little
infected pieces of linen sent to Professor Macfadyen, of the
British Institute of Preventive Medicine, Great Russell
Street, to be cultivated. The formic aldehyde room smelled
strongly of the gas and made the eyes smart, but the air
was not irrespirable, and it was possible to go in and open
the windows; not so the sulphur room. The air there
could not be breathed for twenty seconds. Three times
within as many quarters of an hour did Mr. Kilgallin and
the writer attempt to rush in and open the windows, and
each time had to retire gasping and choking. Not until
more than an hour had elapsed could the windows be
opened.
So far as the strictly comparative experiment goes,
there was no difference of eftect on the pieces of silk, or on
the aniline dyed papers.
In both cases the silks showed a trivial bleaching not
readily appreciated, save a large piece of the silk is examined
side by side with the control at a particular angle to the
light, while there was no appreciable difference between the
control and the dyed papers.
Professor Macfadyen reports as follows as to the
results of the respective gases on the disease-producing
colonies :—