Muriatic Fumigation

Hydrochloric Fumigation. This is how almost disused, being less efficacious than the preceding. It is obtained by putting a few drachms of common salt into a cup, and pouring on it an equal quantity of oil of vitriol. The vapours are very injurious to the lungs.

Acetic Fumigation

The vapour of vinegar, and especially of strong acetic acid, is employed as a disinfectant, but its efficacy is now considered to be very limited. It may be used by keeping the vinegar boiling over a lamp. A coarser method sometimes used is to plunge a red-hot poker into a cup of vinegar. Aromatic vinegar, merely held to the nose, may afford some slight protection to those who attend upon the sick.

Sulphur Fumigation

The fumes of burning sulphur may possibly have some effect in decomposing miasmata and noxious effluvia; but as they have no advantage over chlorine and are very disagreeable, and otherwise objectionable, they are not likely to be employed. Formerly the following powder was burnt to destroy contagious miasmata. Flowers of sulphur, nitre, and powdered myrrh, of each 1 oz.

Tar Fumigation

The vapour of boiling tar has been used as a disinfectant, as well as a pallative in some affections of the respiratory organs. The usual plan is to keep the tar boiling over a lamp. See Fumigatio Picea, Pocket Formulary. Benzoin, styrax, and other odoriferous gums, cascarilla bark, coffee berries, and the compounds termed aromatic pastiles, are burnt as purifiers and disinfectants. But little confidence is now placed in them as prophylactics against infection. The same may be said of camphor and tobacco. They should not be depended on to the exclusion of more efficient means, nor be made a substitute for free ventilation and the removal of all sources of noxious effluvia, when practicable.

Fumigating Pastiles

See Perfumery, further back.

Furniture Cream

1. Soft water a gallon, soap 4 oz., bees'-wax in shavings 1 lb.; boil together, and add 2 oz. of pearlash. To be diluted with water, laid on with a paintbrush, and polished off with a hard brush or cloth.

2. Wax 3 oz., pearlash 2 oz., water 6 oz.; heat them together, and add 4 oz. of boiled oil, and 5 oz. spirit of turpentine.

3. The name is sometimes given to a mixture of 1 oz. of white or yellow wax, with 4 of oil of turpentine.

Furniture Paste

1. Melt 1 lb. of bees'-wax with 1/4 pint of linseed oil, and add 1/2 oz. of alkanet root; keep it at a moderate heat till sufficiently coloured; then remove from the fire, add 1/4 pint of oil of turpentine, strain through muslin, and put it into small gallipots to cool.

2. Scrape 4 oz. of wax, and put it into a pipkin with as much oil of turpentine as will cover it, and 1/4 oz. of powdered resin; melt with a gentle heat, and stir in sufficient Indian red to colour it.

3. Equal weights of bees'-wax, spirit of turpentine, and linseed oil.

Fusible Metal

See Alloys, further back.

Clarified Gall

Ox-gall is prepared for the use of artists in the following manner: To a pint of fresh ox-gall, boiled and skimmed, add 1 oz. finely powdered alum; leave it on the fire till the alum is dissolved, then let it cool, put it into a bottle, and cork it loosely. Treat another pint in the same way with 1 oz. of salt instead of alum. After standing more than 3 months, carefully decant from each bottle the clear portion, and mix them together. The colouring matter is precipitated, and a clear, colourless liquid is obtained by filtration. It is used for mixing artists' colours, and to prepare ivory, oiled paper, etc, to revive the colours. Also for taking out grease spots.