Specification of Antoine Joseph Sax : distributing vapours for hygienic purposes.

  • Sax, Adolphe, 1814-1894.
Date:
1865
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Specification of Antoine Joseph Sax : distributing vapours for hygienic purposes. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    Provisional Specification. Sax's Improvements in Distributing Vapours for Hygienic Purposes. The antiseptic or antiputrid powers of tar, creosote, phenic acid, benzol, chloroform, or other analogous substances are long since known ; my Indention consists in disseminating the vapours or emanations arising from such sub¬ stances, or finely pulverized substances, such as flowers of sulphur, for instance, in the air of rooms, hospitals, churches, theatres, or other places, with the 5 object of rendering the said air more salubrious, for curing diseases of the respiratory organs or other hygienic or therapeutic purposes. For the pur¬ pose of impregnating the air of the said places with the vapours or emanations arising from such antiseptic liquid substances I make use of suitable apparatus presenting a series of surfaces to be coated by immersion or other suitable 10 means with tar or other suitable antiseptic or antiputrid liquid substances or suitable mixtures of them, which substances may, if desired, be suitably heated. The apparatus consists by preference of a sort of trough or vessel for con¬ taining the tar or other suitable liquid antiseptic substance with the vapours 15 or emanations of which the air is to be impregnated, and of an impregnating arrangement consisting of a series of partition plates, blades, or shelves, pre¬ senting a large surface, and which by immersion or other means may be coated with the tar or other suitable liquid antiseptic or antiputrid substance, and which impregnating arrangement is afterwards kept in such position as to 20 allow the air in passing between the said partition plates of becoming duly impregnated with the vapours or emanations arising from the antiseptic sub¬ stance made use of. Or the impregnating arrangement of the apparatus may consist of a sort of small paddle wheel, caused to revolve in such manner that its paddles alternately become immersed in the tar or other liquid in the trough, 25 and thus duly stir this liquid, and at every revolution of the wheel present fresh parts of the liquid to the air ; by means of a pair of bellows, a fan blowei’, or other suitable arrangement, the air might be blown between the partition plates, or between the paddles of the wheel, or caused to impinge on the surface of the tar or other antiseptic liquid made use of. 30 For disseminating finely pulverized substances, such as flowers of sulphur for instance, in the air of rooms, hospitals, churches, theatres, or other suitable places, for hygienic or therapeutic purposes, the said substances reduced to an almost impalpable state are projected in the air by means of any suitable blowing apparatus, whilst the impregnating of the air with the above- 35 mentioned vapours or emanations may be combined with that of the dis¬ seminating therein of the said pulverized substances.