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reception of dead bodies during tbe time required for making post mortem
examinations. 5th. To provide a House of Refuge for the reception of persons
living in a room where infectious or contagious disease exists, and: 6th. To
provide a house which might be used as a Hospital for the reception and
treatment of persons suffering from fever or other infectious disease.
Disinfection.
I have thought it advisible to append to my report the subjoined extract
from a Memorandum on Disinfection, prepared by Mr. Simon, the Medical
Officer to the Privy Council, and published in 1866.
"1, During the emptying of privies and cesspools, and whenever else temporary
disinfection is required for them, carbolic acid,* or sulphate of ironf, or
perchloride of iron, or chloride of manganese‡, or chloride of zinc§, will bo
found available. A dilute solution of one of those agents should be poured
into the privy or cesspool, from a quart to a pailful at a time, till the desired
effect is obtained. Especially where cholera or typhoid fever is present, privies
and cesspools ought to be very frequently flooded in this manner. The best
test of their being adequately disinfected, is the entire absence of faecal or
ammoniacal odour.
"2. Heaps of manure or other filth, if it be for the time impracticable or
inexpedient to remove them, should be covered, to the depth of two or three
inches, with a layer of freshly burnt vegetable charcoal in powder. Freshly
burnt lime may be used in the same way, but is less effective than charcoal. If
neither charcoal nor lime be at hand, the filth should be covered with a layer,
soma inches thick, of clean dry earth. For a privy which has only solid
contents, the same sort of treatment is applicable. Earth near dwellings, if it
has become offensive or foul by the soakage of decaying animal or vegetable
matter, should be treated on the same plan.
"3. If running sewage, about to be used in agriculture, require to be
disinfected, the chloride of manganese or perchloride of iron may be best used ;
but if the sewage is to pass into a river, or into any pond or canal, where it
might again become offensive, chloride of lime is to be preferred; and in this
case a pound of good chloride of lime will generally suffice to disinfect 1,000
gallons of the sewage. For foul ditches and other stagnant drainage, chloride of
lime is also the proper disinfectant.
"4. Where it is desirable to disinfect, before throwing away, the evacuations
from the bowels of persons suffering from cholera or typhoid fever, some
of the disinfectant (which here may best be chloride of lime) should be put
*Carbolic Acid (in the fluid form in which it is commonly sold) should bo diluted with
about eighty times its volume of water.
+Sulphate of Iron should be dissolved in ten times its weight of water.
tPerchloride of Iron, or Chloride of Manganese (the common concentrated solutions
may be used), diluted with twelve times their bulk of water.
§Chloride of Zinc, the common concentrated solution may be diluted with eight or
ten times its bulk of water.
||Chloride of Lime may be mixed in the proportion of about ono pound to a gallon of
water.
Sulphate of Zinc may l e dissolved in about ten times its weight of warm water.