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1774. Charcoal as a Disinfectant. The great efficacy of wood and animal charcoal in absorbing effluvia, and the greater number of gases and vapours, has long been known. Charcoal powder has also, during many centuries, been advantageously employed as a filter for putrid water, the object in view being to deprive the water of numerous organic impurities diffused through it, which exert injurious effects on the animal economy. Charcoal not only absorbs effluvia and gaseous bodies, but especially, when in contact with atmospheric air, oxidize, and destroys many of the easily alterable ones, by resolving them into the simplest combinations they are capable of forming, which are chiefly water and carbonic acid. It is on this oxidizing property of charcoal, as well as on its absorbent power, that its efficacy as a deodorizing and disinfecting agent chiefly depends. 1775. Charcoal as an Antiseptic. Charcoal is an antiseptic, that is to say, a substance which arrests the decay and decomposition of animal substances. Meat, poultry, game or fish, &c., may be preserved for a longer period in hot weather by sprinkling it with powdered charcoal, which should be washed off in clean cold water before the article is cooked. 1776. Charcoal Respirators. It has been proposed to employ charcoal ventilators, consisting of a thin layer of charcoal enclosed between two thin sheets of wire gauze, to purify the foul air which is apt to accumulate in water-closets, in the close wards of hospitals, and in the impure atmospheres of many of the back courts and mews-lanes of large cities, all the impurities being absorbed and retained by the charcoal, while a current of pure air alone is admitted into the neighbouring apartments. In this way pure air may be obtained from exceedingly impure sources. The proper amount of air required by houses in such situations might be admitted through sheets of wire gauze or coarse canvas, containing a thin layer of coarse charcoal powder.