The Weekly Kansas chief. [volume] (Troy, Kan.) 1872-1918, 1882-01-26
Msrful aud Curious.
On Prevention of Scarlet Fever, Measles, etc.

On Prevention of Scarlet Fever, Measles, etc.
TTs the Z ilfJr Of tn. New York TimesLl
1T would be comparatively easy to stamp ont
| smallpox and varioloid if the whole world were
| of one accord, and had correct views about vac
| eination. There are $1,000 physicians in the
United States at least few millions of intelli-
| gent people, numerous Health Boards, and many
| City Councils. In New York, at least, the corps
| of paid vaecnators should lie increased to the
largest limit that the fund of the Health Board
| viii admit of. 1t would not be too many, in this
emergency, TO put 80 of them in the field at
once, and, presumably, they can be engaged at
the same rate the summer physicians were en-
ployed at, say 500 or $50 month. If necessa-
this purpose. If the typhus fever fund is ex-
hausted, our philanthropic citizens should sub
scribe at once for it. The best vaccine matter
| is perfectly safe and reliable.
Ii is, unfortunately, true that many of the
worst tenement houses are held on long leases
from some Of the wealthiest church corporations,
the largest real estate owners and the richest
people, including some city officials, psendo-
phiianthropists and very pious persons. The
p0isonings of the BOrgias sink into insignifieance
when compared with the ravages which prevent
able contagiOn and impure air are making in
| our midst. These lost lives will be demanded of
some one, be they santarians, OF church people.
Now is the time when the tenement-house reform
| should be urged to its utmost limits, and every
one should do his duty, commencing with prop
erty-owners and ending with physicians and
officials.
1t should be well known to all that in conta-
gious diseases every breath, drop of perspiration
| or of pus mucus; every crust, seab, scurf of
| skin and dandruff of the hair, besides all the
discharges from the kidneys and bowels, are load
ed with infection. Disinfectants should not only
be kept in the sick room, but the person and bed
and body clothes of the patient should be satu-
rated with them. In scralet fever and measles,
simple Injunction with lard, or vaseline, or some
other greasy substance will do much to keep
down the contagioD, but weakly carbOlizcd fat
will do more, and this should be applied all over
the body, and head. In this way the scales of
scarlet fever, the crusts of smallpox, and scurf
of measles are rendered innoxious, while the bed
and body clothes of the patient are kept con-
stantly dsinfected. Disinfsctants should be
kept in spit cups, utensils used in the sick
room. But it is during eonvalescenee that the
greatest precautions are required. Thorough
| washing of the whole persons of the sick and
their nurses with carbOlic soap, including espec-
tally the hair, should be thoroughly carried out
| several times before the patient or nurse is al
lowed to other people visit any other house,
or place of public resort. Every crust or scab of
| smallpox, varioloid, chicken-pox should be
| gathered and burned, with the addition of sui
| phur. There other good and more pleasant
| dsinfectants which every good physician will
| know how to advise, and which every intelli-
gent person should be anxious to carry ont.
| The expectOraton of dphtheria, scarlet fever,
and measles should be received in vessels, be
| they cups, bowls, slopjars or other receptacles
| in which disinfcctants are kept. With these
| and a-few other simple precautions almost every
| case of contagious disease can be limited to the
person first attacked; the will be rendered
mder, the enforced cleanliness will benefit every
| body; the means are generally very cheap, and
| the details are not very troublesome.
HYGIENE.