PAINT AS AN ANTISEPTIC

Evening Star, Issue 20982, 22 December 1931, Page 2

PAINT AS AN ANTISEPTIC

A groat deal is rightly ftadc of the hygienic properties which paint possesses, hut it is not generally recognised that oil paint is genuinely germ destroying. This fact was demonstrated several years ago by a series of tests carried out and described by Mr H. A. Gardner, the well-known technologist. Glass plates containing agar jelly, on which typhoid germs had been deposited, were placed in two rooms, one of which had been freshly painted. In the unpainted rooms there was a marked growth of the bacilli, while in that which had been painted no growth was to bo observed, subsequent tests showing that the yapours from

the drying paint contained formaldehyde, which is strongly antiseptic. The fact that bacteria in the rooms previously occupied by persons suffering from an infectious disease can be destroyed by the action of paint would, were it more widely known, bo a strong inducement to householders to have such rooms re-decorated. The fumigation of an interior by means of a sulphur candle, or disinfection by other methods, is a tiresome process, which involves nearly as much disorganisation in a house as a visit from the painter, and, while being probably no more effective, certainly does not add so much to its appearance. While painting is going on the room in question should be well ventilated, but immediately afterwards it should be shut up for a short time in order to give the vapours arising from the paint an opportunity to do their work. On suck an occasion the flat wall type of paint, so popular to-day, seems an obvious choice.