The disinfectant question : review of a book by Dr. R. Angus Smith, entitled Disinfectants and disinfection.

Date:
1869
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The disinfectant question : review of a book by Dr. R. Angus Smith, entitled Disinfectants and disinfection. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    DISINFECTANT QUESTION .* -o- Some twenty years ago there prevailed, among the educated classes, much scepticism as to the spread of disease by contagion, with almost equal incredulity respecting the phenomena of infection. The natural consequence of these opinions was, that the belief in the utility of disinfectants for preventing and con¬ trolling contagious and infectious diseases had all but died out. In the reaction which has since taken place in favour of the older doctrines on those subjects, Dr. Angus Smith, of Manchester, has played a very pro¬ minent part. His labours and writings have contri¬ buted, in no small degree, towards the remarkable re-awakening of the public mind to the reality of Infection, and the practical importance of disinfec¬ tants which the present generation has witnessed, and to which the recent visitations of cattle plague and cholera have powerfully contributed. Unfortunately, however, Dr. Smith, at an early pe¬ riod of his researches, invented a disinfecting com¬ pound, and, in conjunction with a manufacturing chemist of the name of McDougall, took out a patent for it. This product has since become known by the name of McDougall’s Powder. Its activity is des¬ cribed as depending on the presence of sulphurous and carbolic acids in the shape of sulphite and carbolate of lime and magnesia, which, theoretically, are sup¬ posed to exist in a state sufficiently free and in quantity enough to secure very energetic action. But the actual composition of the compound is found by analysis to be a vastly preponderating basis of simple * Disinfectants and Disinfection, by R. Angus Smith, Ph.D., F.R.S. F.C.S.—Ediuonston and Douglas.