Now, owing to _chlorine_ gas, the process is completed in a few hours, and a comparatively small building is quite sufficient for the purpose; the fibre is beautifully and permanently whitened, and the manufacturer experiences the pleasing satisfaction of a more rapid remuneration. Where would be our delicately white textile fibres were it not for the abundant and inexhaustible supply of salt? How should we be enabled to cause vegetable colours to vanish as if touched by the hand of a magician were it not for the bleaching properties of _chlorine_? And how should we be able to procure this green-coloured gas which produces these changes were it not for the _chloride of sodium_? As a therapeutical agent _chlorine_ possesses some characteristics peculiar to itself: it is used as a lotion for cancerous growths and foul ulcers, also for some cutaneous eruptions. It is likewise used as a vapour-bath; it has also been used in the treatment of chronic bronchitis and phthisis, and as a gargle in certain morbid conditions of the mouth. When _chlorine_ is absorbed by the system it is supposed to possess some antiseptic and alterative action, acting specifically on the liver. There is one more fact of a chemical nature in reference to chlorine which it would be unwise to throw aside, as it possesses some degree of interest. When the chemist wishes to decompose water, or in other words to liberate hydrogen from oxygen, he has no better agent to effect the purpose than this greenish-coloured gas, because it has such a strong affinity for _hydrogen_, which is one of the most characteristic properties of _chlorine_. Mix them together, and they combine with explosive violence if they are exposed to the beams of the sun. By this process we obtain _hydrochloric acid_ gas, while the _oxygen_ is liberated. _Chlorine_ only becomes active when it is associated with moisture; when dry it is quite inert as regards its bleaching powers, for “when moist it gradually decomposes the water, combining with its _hydrogen_, and disengaging its _oxygen_; and it is this _oxygen_, at the moment of its liberation, which is the really active agent in bleaching.”[28] Salt, like other inorganic compounds, has been known to act as a poison when taken in a large quantity, and Dr. Alfred Taylor, the eminent toxicologist, mentions a case in which a table-spoonful was taken by mistake for sugar; there was no vomiting or purging, but great pain in the region of the stomach, with dryness of the fauces, which lasted several days. Did not the above emanate from so great an authority, one would feel inclined to question it. Could anyone take such a large amount and swallow the same without being immediately aware of his mistake? Surely he would have immediately and spasmodically ejected it by reason of its extremely pungent character, before it had even reached the fauces.