ria.

_Deodorizers._

There are substances used, perhaps not so much around country houses as
around city houses and in water-closets, which are neither disinfectants
nor antiseptic, but act as deodorizers only. Such a substance, for
example, may be thrown into the kitchen sink, not at all for the purpose
of killing bacteria, but for disguising the smell from the cesspool into
which the sink-wastes discharge. It has no disinfecting properties and
is good for nothing unless the material is so scented as to be agreeable
on that score. One of the frauds perpetrated on the public is the
preparation and sale of the various appliances designed and regulated to
produce a perpetual smell and claimed on that account to be either
disinfecting or antiseptic agents. The smell is worth nothing.

_Patented disinfectants._

The poison of the disinfectant or antiseptic, whether it be in liquid or
in gas form, is the essence of the material, and since the value of
disinfectants is based on the crude raw materials which any one can buy,
it is clearly unnecessary to buy expensive patented solutions for
disinfectants when ordinary lime or carbolic acid are equally as good
and can be had at much lower prices.

A disinfecting solution, to be successful in its action, must be
reasonably proportioned in volume to the amount of material to be
disinfected, whether this be a liquid or clothing or the air of a room.
It is the height of absurdity, for instance, to pretend to disinfect the
air of a large room by burning a tablespoonful of sulfur on a shovel in
the center of a room without even taking the trouble to close the door.
It is absurd to attempt to disinfect the bed linen in a single pailful
of hot water, since even if the water was hot at the beginning, it would
be so reduced in temperature by the first piece that went in that its
efficacy would be lost for everything else. It is equally absurd that a
liquid from a bottle, no matter how much advertised, can effectually
disinfect a room, either by a gentle sprinkling of the liquid on the
walls and floor or by a more thorough spraying of the air with an
atomizer containing the liquid.

_Disinfecting gases._

Two gases are available for use in disinfection, and these are valuable
particularly in killing germs left in a room after a patient suffering
from an infectious disease has been removed. The diseases referred to in
the following chapters are all of this nature, and one of these