Home doctoring : a guide to domestic medicine and surgery / by W.B. Kesteven.

  • William Bedford Kesteven
Date:
1889
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Home doctoring : a guide to domestic medicine and surgery / by W.B. Kesteven. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    154/168 page 146
    “All handkerchiefs, towels, sheets, articles of clothing, &c., should be steeped in boiling water containing carbolic acid or Condy’s fluid, or chloride of soda (a teaspoonful to the gallon), before they are taken out of the sick-room. “ Whenever slops from the sick-room are thrown down closets, sinks, or drains, a teaspoonful of carbolic acid in a basinful of water should be thrown down after them.” During Recovery and Convalescence“ Warm baths with soap should be used repeatedly until all roughness of the skin has disappeared: a little carbolic acid added renders the washing more effective for disinfection. “ Until all roughness of the skin has disappeared, the person should not be allowed to mix with the rest of the family, and then only in new clothes, or in clothes which have been thoroughly disinfected.” In the Event of a Fatal Termination.— l The body should not be removed into another room to spread infection over the house. It is still infectious. “No articles of bedding or clothing should be removed from the room until disinfected as formerly stated. “ In washing the body, carbolic acid (a dessert-spoonful to the gallon of water) should be used. “ The body should be put into the coffin as soon as possible, vjith a disin- fectant. Macdougal’s powder may be used, sprinkled freely underneath and over the corpse, or rags soaked in strong carbolic acid may be laid beneath it and over it (beneath the clothing). The coffin should be screwed down and the body buried as soon as possible.” Subsequent Disinfection of the House, Sfc.—“ The infection hangs about a room or house for a very long time, and is difficult to dislodge. Fumiga- tion by sulphur, however, may be employed by any one, the paper being previously wetted with carbolic acid, stripped off, and burned. A quarter of a pound of brimstone, broken into small pieces, should be put into an iron dish (or a lid of an iron saucepan turned upside down) supported by a pair of tongs over a bucket of water. The fireplace and outer openings, such as the crevices of the windows, are then to be closed by pasting paper over them, and a shovelful of live coals is to be put upon the brim- stone. The door is then to be quickly shut, the crevices pasted up with paper, and the room kept closed for five or six hours. Articles of clothing hung up loosely, or left uncovered in the room, are fumigated at the same time. “ After this, a thorough cleaning should be made; everything that can be, washed with a little carbolic acid in the water, and boiled. The room should then be lime-washed, and afterwards left unoccupied with the windows open for a week or a fortnight.” VENEBEAL AND SYPHILITIC DISEASES. The treatment of these may be conducted on the general principles laid down in the previous pages, and which may specially be found under the headings of Inflammation, Abscess, Ulceration, Whites, &c., noting, at the same time, that where the disease is undoubtedly syphilitic, mercury is an indispensable remedy. The full effect of this medicine upon the system is indicated by a peculiar fetor in the breath (see p. 77).
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