Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 20, Number 38, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 13 January 1899 — Soap as a Disinfectant. [ARTICLE]

Soap as a Disinfectant.

The use of soaps containing a disinfectant of some kind has become so general that observations on the practical value of such combinations cannot fall to be of Interest Dr. Reithoffer has recently published the results of some experiments carried out by him with various kinds of soap, having for object to determine their value as microbicides. He used the ordinary mottled soap, white almond soap perfumed with nitrobenzine, and hard potash soap. He found that the soaps were very inimical to the cholera microbe, a one per cent. solution killing them in a short space of time, while a five per cent, solution of potash soap killed them in five minutes. We are therefore at liberty to infer that, as in washing the hands the strength of the soap solution is never less than five and may go as high as forty-five per cent, this method of disinfecting the hands, as well as the clothes, etc., Is fairly trustworthy. Much stronger solutions are required, however, to destroy the bacili of typhoid, the colibacillus, etc., not less than ten per cent being sufficient None of the soaps experimented with appeared to have any effect on the pyogenic microbe. The practical result of these investigations is that it is always preferable to use soap and water first of all, rinsing the bands in the disinfectant solution afterward. This is an important point which merits to be generally made known.