Disinfectants: Use of Different Types of Sanitization Techniques in 18th and 19th Centuries Britain and India

Abstract

The article focuses on the use of different kinds of disinfectants used for sanitization and cleaning of public and private places for curbing the spread of diseases from one place to another. Multiple methods were employed for disinfection; some of which are easily accessible to the common people while others were particularly used in infirmaries and hospitals at the time of treatment. The article also shows that disinfectants were supplement to medicine and they target limiting of the contagion to a space whereas medicines were given for the treatment of patients. Historically, the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries witnessed unprecedented development in the field of chemistry which led to the discoveries of different types of antiseptic solutions and disinfectants apparently endorsed by the germ theory.   Image Credit: Wellcome Library, London. Wellcome Images images@wellcome.ac.uk http://wellcomeimages.org