United States or Iraq ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Poor Mr. Lipscombe! The neglected 'Three Pigeons' was just now the worst place in all Water Lane. The little that had hastily been done since the morning seemed to have had no effect on the foetid atmosphere, even to Herbert's well accustomed nostrils; and what must it have been to a stranger, in spite of the open window and all the disinfectants? And, alas! the man had sunk into a sleep.
He came off at once with the hospital boat, and, having visited the invalid, declared his illness to be a very mild case of small-pox. He had brought off some lymph with him, and recommended us all to be re-vaccinated. He had also brought sundry disinfectants, and gave instructions about fumigating and disinfecting the yacht.
A form of mercury, called corrosive sublimate, is a most efficacious and powerful germicide, but is exceedingly poisonous and can be bought only under restrictions. Carbolic acid, chloride of lime, permanganate of potash, and various other preparations made from zinc, iron, and petroleum, are the chemical disinfectants most commonly and successfully used at the present time.
After the storm the weather turned milder. By Monday the city reeked with the smell of a charnel house and pestilence was in the air. The bodies of dead animals lay in the streets; the waters of the bay and gulf were thick with the dead. All the disinfectants in the city were quickly consumed. An earnest appeal for more was sent to Houston and other places.
Problems of sanitation, the water supply and the reconstruction of the wrecked sewer system were resumed by engineers. Citizens were ordered to dig cesspools in their yards and to get rid of all garbage. Members of the State Board of Health, bringing carloads of lime and other disinfectants, reached here to ward off disease.
Why is it that the vegetation on the banks of a stream, on which a manufacturing town is located, is invariably stunted and withered? Because the water that should nourish it is polluted by the refuse poured into it, and no amount of deodorants or disinfectants will prove of any avail to restore the devitalized vegetation, but will rather aggravate the trouble.
We had the piles of coffins waiting for interment in the churchyard. We had sad stories of men seen wheeling the corpse of wife or child in a barrow to the place of burial. In the evenings workmen carried burning disinfectants through the streets, the blue flames and sickening stench of which heightened the horrors of our situation.
Policemen in uniform and unmistakable detectives stood about the various entries, and little knots of people, evil-looking and unclean for the most part, lurked in the background or sat on benches and diffused through the stale, musty air that distinctive but indescribable odour that clings to police vans and prison reception rooms; an odour that, in the present case, was pleasantly mingled with the suggestive aroma of disinfectants.
She surrendered herself to the light happiness of the moment. It was good to escape for an hour from the rigid lines of beds and the pale suffering faces and the eternal faint odour of disinfectants, into all this greenery and the fellowship of birds and beasts unconscious of war. She remembered that once, in the pocket of her cloak, there had been a biscuit or two.
She must get back to the hotel before Crowheart was astir, for it might be her ill-luck to bump into Van Lennop starting on one of his early morning rides. She had no desire that he should see her in her present plight. The closeness of the illy-ventilated hospital, with its odors of disinfectants and sickness, nauseated her slightly as she opened the door and stepped into the hallway.
Word Of The Day