The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1856-1888, 1879-12-20
Precautions against the Spread of Typhoid
Fever.

The following precautions against the spread of
typhoid fever have been drawn up by William
Ogle, NJ. A, NJ. D., OxOn., f. R @. P, LOnd.,
Medical Officer of the Board of Health for the
combined districts of East Herts, and circulated
by the sanitary authorities. Typhoid, enteric,
and gastric fever are names given to one and the
same infectious disease, this being a fever pro-
duced by excremental poisoning, and almost in
Tariably accompanied by dIarrhea. OF all excre-
mental matter the most poisonous is that which
comes from persons themselves i'll with the fever
and it is principally by means of their stools that
the disease spreads from one person to another.
The poison may be taken in by breathing the
effiuyia from these discharges, or from the privy,
cesspools, or drains into which they have been
emptied, or by drinking water from wells into
which they have soaked, or by swallowing parti-
cles that have adhered to clothes. bedding, or
other objects, and thence been accidentally trans
ferred to articles of food or cooking utensils.
Destruction of the fever poison in the stools,
the moment these leave the body, by means of
disinlectants, and ~Cnasmuch as the action of dis
infectants is not thoroughly ~certain) the safe dis
pOsal of the stools themselves, are the means by
which we should try to prevent the disease from
spreading.
Let all persons, therefore,, who would keep
themselves and their neighbors free from infec-
tion, observe strictly the following rules, should
the disease occur in their houses IL. Remove
at once from the sickroom all carpets, curtains,
and other objects likely to get fouled. 2. Keep
every one whose presence is not absolutely neces-
sary, out of the sick-room, and by means of open
windows and open doors give the patient as much
fresh air as possible. 3. Put a piece of water
provisioning under the bed-clothes, in the mid
die of the bed, so as to prevent the bed from get
ting soiled. 4. Put a tea-cupful Of the following
disinfecting fluid into a bed pan or other vessel
each time before the patient uses it, and add
some more Immediately after Soda water, a
gallon sulphate of iron "a. e., copperas), a
pound carbolic acid (the common impure kind)
half a pint. In preparing this fluid the iron
should first be dissolved by stirring in boiling
water, and the carbolic acid added when the iron
is dissolved and the fluid cool. Remember that
carbolic acid is a poison; keep the mixture there
fore in u safe place. The same fluid may be used
with great advantage to disinfect any accumula-
ton Of filth, such as a dung-pit or cesspool. As
a general rule two quarts will suffice to disinfect
one cubit foot of foul matter. 5. Take care that
the discharges are thoroughly mixed with the dis
injecting fluid, and then carry them Immediately
into the garden or field, and bury them in a deep
trench, previously dug for the purpose, as far as
possible from any well or other water supply.
On no account let them be thrown on to a refuse
heap. If the house be in a town, and without a
garden, so that the stools must OF necessity be
thrown down the closet, add u double allowance
Of the disinlectant, and take care that the empty
ing be done without s%plashing the seat, and that
the closet be flushed until basin and pan are tho
roughly clean. 6. Let bed and body linen, imme-
4NLNlAl Il 10 Ah6 ~ OC IA INV q WI vi noNOAs
to which carbolic acid has been added, in the pro-
portion of half a pint of acid to a bucket OF water.
Have the tub and fluid ready prepared and at
hand before the linen is taken off. Let the linen
soak in this for two hours, and then let it be ac-
tually boiled in washing. On no account must
the linen be sent to a laundress without thorough
previous disinfectiOn, nor without informing her
Of its character, 50 that she may not wash 1t with
the linen of other persons. Z. Let the nurse OBJ
serve the most scrupulous care TO keep everything
clean. Let her wear a dress of washing material,
as this is more easily disinfected than wool. As
her hands must almost unavoidably get soiled in
helping the patient, let her wash them frequently
in water to which some disinfecting fluid has
been added, and let her take care that the water
thus used, as well as all other slops, be emptied
carefully into the garden trench. 8. When the
illness Is over, the bed, if soiled, should be burnt,
or the tick or sacking cover may be disinfected
by thorough boiling, and the flock or straw stuff
ing burnt. Should there be a disinfecting oven
available, the stufhng or hair mattresses may be
teased out and then disinfected by taking at a
temperature Of 250o f. Otherwise this also
should be destroyed. The floor of the sick room
and the bedstead and other furniture should be
thoroughly scrubbed with soft soap and carbolic
acid. All the implements and utensils that have
been in uss IN the sick room should be well scald-
ed. The dress worn by the nurse should be dis
infected with carbolIc acid and boiled, as directed
in the sixth paragraph. 9. If fever be in your
neIghborhood, but not as yet in your house, take
the following precautions to keep it out Drink
no water that is open to the least suspicion, or, if
you can get no other, boil it before drinking.
Use no closet or privy that is used by houses in
which there is already fever. Give immediate
notice te the Sanitary Inspector of any nuisance
in your neighborhood. such as a sinking drain or
gully. heaps of offensive refuse and the like. Use
all your influence to insist upon the preceding
precautions being strictly carried out by your
whose houses are already infected.