Evening Republican, Volume 22, Number 110, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 10 May 1919 — Simplest Remedies Found To Be Best Disinfectants During Severe Epidemics [ARTICLE]

Simplest Remedies Found To Be Best Disinfectants During Severe Epidemics

“Years ago Marseilles was visited by a great plague. Rich and poor died tn their hundreds, and to rob the former four men invented aromatic vinegar, which, used as a disinfectant, enabled them to rifle the dead without fear of infection. During the great plague of 1665 those who were deputed to bury the dead always carried a phial of aromatic vinegar, and history tells us that whenever Cardinal Wolsey had cause to go among the poorer members of his flock he invariably held to his nose a golden orange fi’led . with the same preventative. Canary wine, too, was used in 1665 as a disinfectant. Doctors carried little cassolettes on the top of their canes, which they sniffed when visiting the stricken, and in the affected houses the smoke of juniper was used.