DISINFECTANTS, substances employed to neutralize the action of pathogenic organisms, and prevent the spread of contagious or infectious disease. The efficiency of any disinfectant is due to its power of destroying, or of rendering inert, specific poisons or disease germs. Therefore antiseptic substances generally are to this extent disinfectants. So also the deodorizers, which act by oxidizing or otherwise changing the chemical constitution of volatile substances disseminated in the air, or which prevent noxious exhalations from organic substances, are in virtue of these properties effective disinfectants in certain diseases. A knowledge of the value of disinfectants, and the use of some of the most valuable agents, can be traced to very remote times; and much of the Levitical law of cleansing, as well as the origin of numerous heathen ceremonial practices, are clearly based on a perception of the value of disinfection. The means of disinfection, and the substances employed, are very numerous, as are the classes and conditions of disease and contagion they are designed to meet. Nature, in the oxidizing influence of freely circulating atmospheric air, in the purifying effect of water, and in the powerful deodorizing properties of common earth, has provided the most potent ever-present and acting disinfecting media. Of the artificial disinfectants employed or available three classes may be recognized:—1st, volatile or vaporizable substances, which attack impurities in the air; 2nd, chemical agents, for acting on the diseased body or on the infectious discharges therefrom; and 3rd, the physical agencies of heat and cold. In some of these cases the destruction of the contagium is effected by the formation of new chemical compounds, by oxidation, deoxidation or other reaction, and in others the conditions favourable to life are removed or life is destroyed by high temperature. Among the first class, aerial or gaseous disinfectants, formic aldehyde has of late years taken foremost place. The vapour is a powerful disinfectant and deodorant, and for the surface disinfection of rooms, fulfils all requirements when used in sufficient amount. It acts more rapidly than equal quantities of sulphurous acid, and it does not affect colours. It is non-poisonous, though irritating to the eyes and throat. With the exception of iron and steel it does not attack metals. It can be obtained in paraform tabloids, and with a specially constructed spirit lamp disinfection can be carried out by any one. Twenty tabloids must be employed for every 1000 cubic ft. of space. Disinfection by sulphurous acid fumes is of great antiquity, and is still in very general use; for the purpose of destroying vermin it is more powerful than formic aldehyde. Camphor and some volatile oils have also been employed as air disinfectants, but their virtues lie chiefly in masking, not destroying, noxious effluvia. In the 2nd class—non-gaseous disinfecting compounds—all the numerous antiseptic substances may be reckoned; but the substances principally employed in practice are oxidizing agents, as potassium manganates and permanganates, “Condy’s fluid,” and solutions of the so-called “chlorides of lime,” soda and potash, with the chlorides of aluminium and zinc, soluble sulphates and sulphites, solutions of sulphurous acid, and the tar products—carbolic, cresylic and salicylic acids. Of the physical agents heat and cold, the latter, though a powerful natural disinfectant, is not practically available by artificial means; heat is a power chiefly relied on for purifying and disinfecting clothes, bedding and textile substances generally. Different degrees of temperature are required for the destruction of the virus of various diseases; but as clothing, &c., can be exposed to a heat of about 250° Fahr. without injury, provision is made for submitting articles to nearly that temperature. For the thorough disinfection of a sick-room the employment of all three classes of disinfectants, for purifying the air, for destroying the virus at its point of origin, and for cleansing clothing, &c., may be required.
DISMAL, an adjective meaning dreary, gloomy, and so a name given to stretches of swampy land on the east coast of the United States, as the Dismal Swamp in Virginia and North Carolina. The derivation has been much discussed. In the early examples of the use the word is a substantive, especially in the expression “in the dismal,” i.e. in the dismal time or days. Later it became adjectival, especially in combination with “days.” It has been connected with “decimal,” med. Latin decimalis, belonging to a tithe or tenth, and thus the “dismal days” are the unpleasant days connected with the extortion and oppression of exacting payment of tithes. According to the New English Dictionary, quoting Professor W. W. Skeat, “dismal” is derived, through an Anglo-Fr. dis mal, from the Lat. dies mali, evil or unpropitious days. This Anglo-French expression, explained as les mal jours, is found in a MS. of Rauf de Linham’s Art de Kalender, 1256. These days of evil omen were known as Dies Aegyptiaci (Du Cange, Glossarium, s.v.) or Egyptian days, either as having been instituted by Egyptian astrologers or with reference to the “ten plagues”; so Chaucer, “I trowe hit was in the dismal, That were the ten woundes of Egipte” (Book of the Duchesse, 1206). There were two such days in each month.
See Skeat, Trans. Philol. Soc. (1888), p. 2, and note on the line in the “Book of the Duchesse,” The Complete Works of Geoffrey Chaucer, vol. i. (1894).
DISORDERLY HOUSE, in law, a house in which the conduct of its inmates is such as to become a public nuisance, or a house where persons congregate to the probable disturbance of the public peace or other commission of crime. In England, by the Disorderly Houses Act 1751, the term includes common bawdy houses or brothels,[1] common gaming houses, common betting houses and disorderly places of entertainment. The keeping of such is a misdemeanour punishable by fine or imprisonment, and in the case of a brothel also punishable on summary conviction by the Criminal Law Amendment Act 1885; the letting out for gain for indiscriminate prostitution of a room or rooms in a house will make it as much a brothel in law as if the whole house were let out for the purpose. Where, however, a woman occupies a house or room which is frequented by men for the purpose of committing fornication with her, she cannot be convicted of keeping a disorderly house. See also [Prostitution].
[1] The etymology of this word has been confused by the early adoption into English usage of the O. Fr. bordel. The two words are in origin quite distinct. Brothel is an O. Eng. word for a person, not a place. It meant an abandoned vagabond, one who had gone to ruin (abréothan). Bordel, on the contrary, is a place, literally a small hut or shelter, especially for fornication, Med. Lat. bordellum, diminutive of the Late Lat. borda, board. The words were early confused, and brothel-house, bordel-house, bordel or brothel, are all used for a disorderly house, while bordel was similarly misused, and, like brothel in its proper meaning, was applied to a disorderly person.
DISPATCH, or Despatch, to send off immediately, or by express; particularly in the case of the sending of official messages, or of the immediate sending of troops to their destination, or the like. The word is thus used as a substantive of written official reports of events, battles and the like, sent by ambassadors, generals, &c., by means of a special messenger, or of express correspondence generally. From the primary meaning of the prompt sending of a message, &c., the word is used of the quick disposal of business, or of the disposal of a person by violence; hence the word means to execute or murder. The etymology of the word has been obscured by the connexion with the Fr. dépêcher, and dépêche, which are in meaning the equivalents of the Eng. verb and substantive. The Fr. word is made up of the prefix de-, Lat. dis-, and the root which appears in empêcher, to embarrass, and means literally to disentangle. The Lat. origin of dépêcher and empêcher is a Low Lat. pedicare, pedica, a fetter. The Fr. word came into Eng. as depeach, which was in use from the 15th century until “despatch” was introduced. This word is certainly direct from the Ital. dispacciare, or Span, despachar, which must be derived from the Lat. root appearing in pactus, fixed, fastened, from pangere. The New English Dictionary finds the earliest instance of “dispatch” in a letter to Henry VIII. from Bishop Tunstall, commissioner to Spain in 1516-1517.