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57
DISINFECTION OF ROOMS.
of disinfection, or because he questioned the positive results of such
disinfection, but because he had found the spray more simple and
more rapid. He had, by this method, disinfected about 750 houses,
ranging from slums to detached villas. He had disinfected hospital
wards—some after scarlet fever, then occupied by measles; others
after measles, after small-pox, diphtheria, erysipelas, chicken-pox,
typhoid, &c. He had applied the spray after all the ordinary infections,
from confluent small-pox to mild chicken-pox. Never in a single
instance had he found any case traceable to the disinfected room.
He used the spray also to disinfect the fever ambulance and the
infected clothing wagon, and as the spray was easily applied in a
few minutes, the vans could be disinfected after every time of use.
The chief practical objection that at first caused him to delay the
adoption of the spray for general disinfection was its possible effect
on walls and wall papers. But in all the 750 instances, although all
sorts of walls and furniture—gilded, veneered, polished, &c.—had
been saturated, he had never received a single complaint.
The cost of a gallon 2 per cent. strength, sufficient to spray a
room of 1,000 cubic feet capacity, is only twopence, and the operator
is saved the trouble of pasting over all apertures with brown paper.
Formalin has an advantage over other agents, when sprayed
upon walls, &c., in that formic aldehyde gas is given off, and thus
brings its action to bear upon parts to which the spray could not
obtain access,
The result then of my own experiments and of those of
others is:
(1.) That fumigation of rooms after infectious disease, by
burning sulphur is unreliable and should be discontinued
as routine practice.
(2.) That formic aldehyde used either as a gas or in the form of
spray is more efficient in its action, causes no injury to
decorations &c. and the process of applying it (especially
as a spray) occupies much less time than does sulphur
fumigation.