_To disinfect walls_, wash with chloride of lime solution (1-100) or carbolic acid (1-40). This latter solution may be used to wipe down furniture. Either or both may be used _after_ sulphur fuming. Formic aldehyde may also be used by lamp or autoclave.
_To disinfect bedding_, _etc._, the steam sterilisation secured in a Thresh, Equifex, or Lyon apparatus is the best. Rags and infected clothing, unless valuable, should be burnt.
_To disinfect garments and wearing apparel_, they should be washed in a disinfectant solution, or fumed with formic aldehyde.
_To disinfect excreta or putrefying solutions_, enough disinfectant should be added to produce _in the solution or matter being disinfected_ the percentage of disinfectant necessary to act as such. Adding a small quantity of antiseptic to a large volume of fluid or solid is as useless as pouring a small quantity of antiseptic down a sewer with the idea that such treatment will disinfect the sewage. The mixture of the disinfectant with the matter to be disinfected must contain the standard percentage for disinfection. Chloride of lime is a common substance for use in this way. Potassium permanganate (1-100) and carbolic (1-100), and many manufactured bodies containing them, are also widely used. Drs. Hill and Abram recommend[108] that the excreta and disinfectant be thoroughly mixed and stand for at least half an hour. For various reasons they particularly advise _chinosol_ as the most convenient disinfectant for this specific purpose.
_Antiseptics for wounds._ Carbolic acid (1-40) or corrosive sublimate (1-1,000) are commonly used in surgical practice. Boracic acid is one of the most unirritating antiseptics which are known. It may be used in saturated watery solution (1-30) or dusted on copiously as fine powder. It is especially applicable in open wounds, and as an eye-wash.
_To disinfect hands and arms._ Operating surgeons are those to whom it is a most urgent necessity to cleanse hands and arms antiseptically. Carbolic acid (1-20, or 1-40) is used for this purpose.
It is hardly necessary to add that in a case of infectious disease occurring in a household many of these modes of application, perhaps all of them, must be adopted. Formalin is probably the best gaseous disinfectant which we have, but its use does not, and should not, preclude the simultaneous adoption of other methods.