Mr. Dujardin Beaumetz some time ago asked Messrs. Pasteur and Roux’s aid in making some new experiments on the question, and has made known the result of these to the Academy of Medicine.  At the Cochin Hospital he selected two rooms of 3,530 cubic feet capacity located in wooden sheds.  The walls of these rooms, which were formed of boards, allowed the air to enter through numerous chinks, although care had been taken to close the largest of these with paper.  In each of the rooms were placed a bed, different pieces of furniture, and fabrics of various colors.  Bromine, chlorine and sulphate of nitrosyle were successively rejected.  Three sources of sulphurous acid were then experimented with, viz., the burning of sulphur, liquefied sulphurous acid, and the burning of sulphide of carbon.  The rooms were closed for twenty-four hours, and tubes containing different proto-organisms, and particularly the comma bacillus made known by Koch, were placed therein, along with other tubes containing vaccine lymph.  After each experiment these tubes were carried to Mr. Pasteur’s laboratory and compared with others.

[Illustration:  Fig. 1.—­Burner for sulphur.]

The process by combustion of sulphur is the simplest and cheapest.  To effect such combustion, it suffices to place a piece of iron plate upon the floor of the room, and on this to place bricks connected with sand, or, what is better, to use a small refractory clay furnace (as advised by Mr. Pasteur), of oblong form, 8 inches in width by 10 in length, and having small apertures in the sides in order to quicken combustion.

In order to obtain a complete combustion of the flowers of sulphur, it is necessary to see to it that the burning is effected equally over its entire surface, this being easily brought about by moistening the sulphur with alcohol and then setting fire to the latter.  Through the use of this process a complete and absolute combustion has been obtained of much as from 18 to 20 grains of sulphur per cubic foot.

In the proportion of 8 grains to the cubic foot, all the different culture broths under experiment were sterilized save the one containing the bacteria of charbon.  As for the vaccine virus, its properties were destroyed.  This economical process presents but two inconveniences, viz., the possibility of fire when the furnace is badly constructed, and the alteration of such metallic objects as may be in the room.  In fact, the combustion of sulphur is attended with the projection of a few particles of the substance, which form a layer of metallic sulphide upon copper or iron objects.

[Illustration:  Fig. 2.—­Ckiandi BEY’S apparatus for burning carbon sulphide.]