The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1881-06-04
Hints for Preventing Diphtheria.

Hints for Preventing Diphtheria.
The following brief memorandum of
sanitary duties will be of use in families
and communities exposed to diphtheria,
and is published by the New York State
Board OF Health to aid in the repression
and prevention of this terrible disease.
Diphtheria is an infectious and dam
gerous disease, readily communicated
by the sick and by clothing from the
sick-room. The room itself is apt to re-
tain and communicate the infection. Its
spread is prevented by great care to
have the sick, their clothing, and the
persons who nurse them, kept entirely
away from others, especially from chill
dren; and to such care should be added
cleansing.
The sick must be nursed in a clean
and airy room, on floor where there
are no other children.
Every cloth and cup, and all clothing
and bedding used in the sick-room, must
be cleansed and disinfected before being
handled or used by other persons. The
house itself must be disinfected as soon
as the sick recover or die. Cleanliness
and ventilation should be enforced night
and day.
Open windows and open fre-places-
with fire in them day and night-pro-
tect the sick and all who attend them.
The cloths and dishes used by the sick
should be put into boiling hot water as
soon as removed, without being taken
to another room. The soiled clothing
from the sick and the bed that can be
boiled should be thrown into disinfect-
ing fluid, made by dissolving four table,
spoonfuls of sulphate of zinc ("white
vitriol'') and two tablespoonfuls of
common salt in a gallon of boiling water
(one-fourth pound of sulphate of zinc to
two ounces of table-salt to the gallon).
When the time for washing comes, thor
oughlY boil the clothing, etc., before
washing.
The woodwork, chairs and stools of
the sick-room should be washed with the
disinfecting fluid. The chamber vessels
and spit-cups used by the sick should
be drenched with this fluid before they
are removed from the room.
The grounds surrounding the house,
the bitches and drains and the privy and
chip yard, must be drenched with the
cheap solution of green copperas (sul-
phate of iron), made by dissolving five
pounds of the dry copperas in large
pailful of water.
As soon as the sick-room is vacated
let it be fumigated with sulphur, and let
all rugs, beds, blankets and other furni-
ture remain in the room and near where
the kettles or pans of sulphur are placed.
From two to five pounds of sulphur, or
broken birthstone, laid upon ashes and
Goals in iron vessels (set into large tubs
that contain a few inches depth of
water) will be necessary for fumigat-
ing an ordinary chamber The physician
will direct how to do this; but it will be
well done if the rooms to be fumigated
are SO closed that the suffocating fumes
do not escape from fues and crevices,
and the burning of the sulphur at last
ceases for want of fresh air before all
the sulphur is consumed. Let the fumes
be kept shut in all day. Finally, let all
plastered portions of the room be well
whitewashed with fresh Stacked lime.
Let the bottom and sides of cellars be
sprinkled thickly and repeatedly with
quick-lime. All house-drains, bitches,
filthy grounds, garbage-tubs and decay
ing materials should be cleared out and
disinfected, and waste-pipes, drains and
sewer connections so improved that no
gases from them shall enter the house.
The sick should be nursed by adults
who have no children about them.
Avoid the patients breath and matters
elected in coughing.
Children and visitors should keep
away from the house where there is
diphtheria. The burial of those that
die should be strictly private. The
corpse should be wrapped in sheet
saturated with the zinc disinfectant.
Children who recover from diphtheria
should not visit or be visited, attend
school or meetings, nor mingle with 9TH
ers of the family from which separated,
until the physician permits.
The mother, father or other member
of a family who needs to become the at
tendant upon the sick when quarantined
for diphtheria, should practice all pos
sible precautions to prevent spreading
the infection in the family. Nurses OF
such patients should keep away from
other families and from children of the
same family.
1t must be remembered that not only
the mild cases, but the convalescent,
may and frequently do infect others ia
tally, and that by this means diphtheria
is thoughtlessly spread from place to
place.
1t is public as well as domestic duty
to apply the sanitary rules wherever
case OF diphtheria occurs. This disease
should be treated as an enemy to be
conquered in every house it enters.
Perfect drainage and cleanliness, thor
ough ventilation and dryness, and re-
peated disinfection of all the house
drains, and foul places are necessary to
the safety of the family and the neigh.
borhood.