Others, again, are prone to extol the merits of some preparation, the component parts of which they do not know, but it may have done them good service in several instances; and when, contrary to their expectations, it fails to answer the purpose, they lose faith in it, discard it altogether as worthless, and never entertain the idea that an alteration in the quantity used, or in the combination and strength of the constituents, is the real source of mischief. Hence, it is a fact not to be denied that a diagnosis (if it may be called so) is necessary before the work of embalming be entered into. And he who would endeavor to preserve the body of a stout, fleshy person by the same means employed in the preserving of a body emaciated by long sufferings, and under different conditions of temperature, might not meet with a success equal to his expectations. CHLORINE: ITS PROPERTIES AND USES. _Chlorinated Lime._—In consequence of its powers as a disinfectant, chlorinated lime is a very important compound in its application to medical police; it possesses the property of arresting or preventing animal or vegetable putrefaction, and perhaps of destroying pestilential and infectious miasma. It is used with advantage in preventing bodies from exhaling an unpleasant odor before interment in the summer season. In juridical exhumations its use is indispensable, as it effectually removes the disgusting and insupportable fetor of the corpse. The mode in which it is applied in these cases is, to envelope the body in a sheet completely wet with a solution made by adding about one pound of the chloride to a bucketful of water. It is employed also for disinfecting dissecting rooms, vaults, cemeteries and other places, which exhale offensive effluvia. In destroying contagion and infection it appears to be highly useful. In short, all places deemed infectious from having been the receptacle of virulent disease may be more or less disinfected by its use, after having undergone the ordinary process of cleansing. Chlorinated lime acts exclusively by its chlorine, which, being loosely combined, is disengaged by the slightest affinities. All acids, even the carbonic, disengage it; and as this acid is a product of animal and vegetable decomposition, noxious effluvia furnish the means, to a certain extent, of their own disinfection. But the stronger acids disengage it more freely, and amongst these sulphuric acid is the most convenient. Accordingly, the powder may be dissolved in a very dilute solution of this acid; or a small quantity of the acid may be added to an aqueous solution already formed, if a more copious evolution of chlorine be desired than that which takes place from the mere action of the carbonic acid of the atmosphere.