Nashville union and American. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1868-1875, 1874-03-04
CARBOLIC ACID IN CHOLERA AND
YELI0W FEVER

As faithful chronicler of passing
events, we regret to state that informa-
ton comes to us from various quarters,
both in Europe and America, that car
bolic acid is powerless to destroy the
germs of cholera. The 81. Louis Globe
translates from the FRANKFORT Gazette a
paragraph which says carbolic acid in
that city has proved perfectly useless
as well as in other places. When we
saw tar apparently wasted in the city
of Nashville, and tar barrels burning
during the prevalence of the plague in
this city, our conviction was clear that
it did no good, yet as we did not know
that the hoped for prevention was alb
solutely valueless we said nothing. The
Frankfort Gazette says;
"a large portion of our population.
accepting the ipse dixit of the medical
ministry as an article of faith, In de-
spair is heard to cry out, why not more
and stronger of these disinfectants are
employeds They seem to lay the fault
Of the non-expulsion of this pestilence
at the door of those who will not use
this carbolic acid In larger quantities.
According totheir opinion, nothing else
is needed to render this disease harmless.
Yet thousands have beenuselessly spent
for this disinfectant, still credulity is
not satisfied with the results, but de-
mands its increased application; while
even at this time, here in Munich, rs
formerly in Spires, this acid, by reason
of its strong and disagreeahle odQr, in
stead of promoting health, has, On the
contrary, produced nausea and indis-
position. True, the mistake has been
made in good faith, and many such
occur touching this hateful disease.
Let us not be ashamed frankly to &C
knowledge them"
Prof. Cochran, of the Alabama Med
ical College, after watching the effects
of carboic acid on yellow fever in Mo-
bile and New Orleans, makes this state
ment:
''Not only do the facts and examples
adduced In proof fail to establish the
efficacy of carbolic acid as prophylac-
tic against yellow fever, but without
any violence, and without any sophis-
teal Interpretation, they go very far
toward the establishment of the suspi-
cion that its influence has been the very
reverse of prophylactic; that if it has
not contributed to increase the extern
sion of the disease, it has at least
added to its mahgnity and increased
the mortality to a fearful ratio. The
experiment has been made, and it has
failed; and it is due to the cause of
truth and sanitary science and the IN
terest of the public health hereafter,
that no false and misleading estimate
of what it has accomplished should be
allowed to fasten itself on the public
mind"
Carbolic acid is a diluted vegetable
oil formed from the distillation of BIT
luminous matters as tar, and differs en-
tirely from sulphuric acid, and from
the disinfecting fumes obtained from
common salt, when the last named
mineral acid is poured upon it. Vine
gar, well-known vegetable acid, has
precisely the same chemical elements
that carboic acid has, yet it supports
the vinegar plant of the same organic
type and structure of the low organisms
that produce cholera and yellow fever.
Pour diluted salt or little sulphuric
acid into the best vinegar and you
kill the mother" of this organic acid.
Writing in the interest of sanitary
science and the public health, we re-
mark first, that carboic acid closely
resembles vinegar IN being highly an
tiseptic; pickles and picked tripe and
pigs feet are preserved in vinegar and
carboic acid alike. Secondly, earbolic
acid consists of L atoms carbon 3
hydrogen, and oxygen, having be-
sides molecule of water. In pure
acetic acid or vinegar, these ingredients
are differently combined, as follows:
| Vic IlOltCulc u Nsttis SdIDOA r. II
drogen 3, and oxygen 8. As oxygen
and hydrogen form water, it viii be seen
that both acids are different conditions
of carbon (charcoaD and water.
Whenanyplant consistingmain yofcar-
bon, oxygen and hydrogen, decomposes
by any means, its constituents are far
more likely to be salutary food for 9th
er plants than poisOns, no matter how
Extensively they smell. Fighting chol-
era and yellow fever with tar and car
bOlic acid is like shooting wild geese on
the wing with geese feathers. There
is great mistake in physical science
and in legic. Neither vinegar in water
nor carbolic acid in water would be
likely to kill smut on seed wheat, but
bluestone Ia poisonous mineraD does
tho vvOrl- affao4uollv