Medios de Desinfeccionar el Aire en las Carceles, Casas y Hospitales Donde Hubiere Enfermedades Contagiosas [manuscript title]

Mexico City, 1813. Very good.. [8]pp. Quarto, stitched. Minor wear. Mexican manuscript work on "Methods for Disinfecting the Air in Prisons, Houses, and Hospitals with Contagious Diseases." Written the same year Mexico declared independence from Spain, it was also a year that saw an epidemic of the hemorrhagic fever cocoliztli, perhaps explaining the document's timing and urgency. The work begins: "Diario de Mexico del viernes 2 de julio de 1813. Modo de desinfectar el aire pestilente." It explains four disinfection methods in four distinct sections -- for uninhabited places; for inhabited places; fumigations with muriatic acid; and fumigations with (truncated) oxygenated muriatic acid. Mixtures were prepared using salts, clay, sulfuric acid, muriatic acid, and oxygenated muriatic acid, which were spread through fumigation, vapors, or sprays. A lack of access to the periodical and the seriousness of the situation surely must have contributed to the production and distribution of manuscript copies of the treatments. A very interesting artifact for the study of medicine and epidemiology in early 19th-century Mexico. (Inventory #: 5843)