Put the chlorinated lime in a 12 litre flask with 5 litres of ordinary water and let stand over night. Dissolve the sodium carbonate and bicarbonate in 5 litres of cold water; then pour this into the flask and shake it vigorously for a minute and let it stand to permit the calcium carbonate to settle. After half an hour, siphon off the clear liquid and filter it to obtain a perfectly limpid product. The antiseptic solution is then ready for surgical use: it contains about 0.5 gm. per cent. of sodium hypochlorite with small amounts of neutral salts. It is practically isotonic with blood serum. Never heat the solution, and always keep it from the light. If in an emergency it is necessary to triturate the chlorinated lime in a mortar, do so only with water, never with the solution of the soda salts.
This solution has been used extensively abroad in the treatment of infections and wounds and has given splendid results.
(A proper quantity of Dakin’s solution for office purposes would be about one-tenth of the prescription above given.)
DUSTING POWDERS
These are employed either as antiseptics or as astringents or for both purposes. Their use is limited, and they are employed only where the secretion is scanty.
Among the various powders used are: aristol, dermatol, boric acid, orthoform, calomel, protonuclein, zinc oxide, alum, scarlet red, etc.
Thymoliodide, or aristol, is a splendid antiseptic powder and enjoys the advantage over iodoform of being inodorous.
Iodoform should only be used in tubercular conditions.
Dermatol, or bismuth subgallate, combines the astringent and mildly antiseptic qualities of bismuth and gallic acid.