Undertakers and others using carbolic acid to some extent should
always use extreme caution in the handling of it.
The carelessness with which certain papers take up some popular
recipe is not always without its dangers. For instance, there
appeared lately in some public print an article upon the poison
of vipers, which is very similar to that of the virus from a
putrefying corpse; the article recommended that carbolic acid should
be immediately introduced into the wound, the acid to be mixed
with alcohol in the proportion of two to one. Observe the off-hand
manner with which a toxic agent is spoken of, as if it were the most
inoffensive thing in the world.
In order to try the experiment, a cat was selected, upon whose skin,
denuded of hair alone, a saturated solution of carbolic acid in
alcohol, with an equal quantity of water, was rubbed; this produced
no effect; but when the same solution was rubbed into a scratch upon
the end of the nose two or three times, the animal fell immediately
into convulsions and very shortly succumbed. Prussic acid could not
have acted more promptly. The moral of this experiment is obvious.