Chlorine gas has a greenish colour, and a most disagreeable and suffocating odour. Water impregnated with it, has the property of destroying colours, and chlorine is, on that account, much employed in bleaching, in the forms of “Bleaching Powder” and “Tennant’s Powder.”
When chlorine gas is disseminated through an apartment, any stench, however strong and intolerable, which may have been present there, is no longer perceptible, the odour of the chlorine taking its place, or so completely covering it, as to render it no longer cognisable to the senses.
Chlorine gas is employed both alone, and in combination with other bodies, as lime and soda.
In combination with these alkalis, chlorine forms the chlorides of lime and soda. The former is well known in this country, and the latter, when dissolved in water, forms the “Liqueur disinfectante” of Monsieur Labarraque, which is much celebrated on the Continent.
The solutions of these salts in water, are sprinkled occasionally through the apartments which are to be purified.
When these solutions are sprinkled about, and exposed to the action of the air, the chlorine escapes in its gaseous form and mingles with the atmosphere, while the lime and soda, which are now uncombined, attract and unite with any carbonic acid which may have arisen from the patient, his clothes, or excretions.
The solution of chloride or chloruret of lime, answers sufficiently well, but as it is to be obtained in all drug shops, it is unnecessary to add here a formula for its preparation.
FORMULA FOR THE PREPARATION OF CHLORINE GAS.
Take three parts of common salt, one of black oxide of manganese, and three of strong oil of vitriol. Mix the salt and the oxide together in a stoppered retort, pour in the oil of vitriol and apply a gentle heat. The gas is immediately evolved, and rapidly diffuses itself throughout the atmosphere. Muriatic acid gas, a combination of chlorine and hydrogen gases, though considered as inferior to chlorine as a fumigation, is frequently employed for the purpose of decomposing effluvia, as the materials for its preparation are almost ever at hand.