The Principles and Practice of Disinfection (Paperback)

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: II. MODE OF ACTION OF DISINFECTANTS. ETYMOLOGICALLY, the term disinfection means the destruction of infectious matter. As applied in common usage, it includes deodoriza- tion and the power to antisept. These properties are different in character and mode of action, and are not necessarily possessed by the same agent. A deodorant may not be a disinfectant, but a disinfectant deodorizes as well as destroys morbific matter. Notwithstanding the objections which may be urged against the term disinfection, it is now so firmly established in the popular, and even the scientific, language of the day, that it would not be advisable to substitute another. We should not, however, fail to recognize the essential differences in the powers and modes of action of the various agents which have been proposed as disinfectants. If our knowledge of these agents, and of thesubstances upon which they are intended to act, were complete, we could classify them as deodorants, antiseptics or colytics, and disinfectants. An almost insuperable difficulty in the way of a correct classification is experienced in the different kinds of action of the same agent. Thus charcoal, which physically restrains noxious gases, also acts as a catalytic agent, procuring chemical changes in the compounds absorbed within its pores. Sulphurous acid deoxidizes and also arrests chemical changes, or, in other words, acts as an antiseptic. Further, the particular mode of action of some disinfectants is not explicable in the present state of our knovledge. For these reasons, any classification must be more or less defective. The least objectionable is that of Dr. Herbert Barker, who divides disinfectants into three classes: 1. Agents that chemically destroy the noxious compound. 2. Agents that arrest chemical change. (...