Common infective fevers and the use of disinfectants with notes on the health of children. / By William Squire.
- Squire, William Stevens 1825-1899.
- Date:
- 1887
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Common infective fevers and the use of disinfectants with notes on the health of children. / By William Squire. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by Royal College of Physicians, London. The original may be consulted at Royal College of Physicians, London.
11/64
![ON INFECTION AND DISINFECTION. SANITATION twenty years ago meant good drainage, a wholesome water supply, and air untainted by any common nuisance that could be abated or removed. The immediate gain from measures then urged forward w as great, and no wonder; cleanliness, with purity of air and water, must always be the basis of hygiene. Many of the well-named filth diseases were prevented, some diminution was noticed in the prevalence of comsumption, improvement was even hoped for in the common infective fevers; for was it not possible that some of them might arise from decomposition or damp, and probable that theii' fatality was increased by insanitary surroundings? The latter of these suppositions is well founded, the former has had to be gradually relinquished. A specific ' germ' is concerned in all infective disease. Such a one is found in Phthisis; another is propagated in outbreaks of Enteric fever; the necessity for such an agency in Malarial fever is generally admitted, even if the bacilkis malarice of Klebs and Tommasi-Crudeli had no better acceptance than the Cholera Jcomma. Proofs of the latter of the above suppositions abound. Very often the greater severity of Measles leads to the discovery of something wrong about the house; or the fatality of scarlet fever is traced to a local sanitary defect; should this not be discovered and remedied, all attempts to remove infection may fail. A house has been unoccupied for a year, and for another six months under repair, but old drains and a cess-pit remaining infection has seized the new comers soon after commencing residence. Tet with full attention to such sanitary matters in Scarlet fever, and also to the one necessary precaution against Small-pox, both those diseases have occured in their greatest severity since the era of sanitation was fully inaugurated; nor has the prevalence of Measles, Eubella, Mumps, Varicella or VVliooping Cough been in any degree lessened. The reason of this is that one factoi-, that of infection, has been disregarded or ke])t in the back ground. Much has been said of ' wash and be clean,' little of' ' do as you^would be done by,' the chief maxim to be acted on in restricting the spread of infectious diseases: if you would not wish infection to be brought into your own liouse or family avoid all risk of being, in any way, the medium of taldng it elsewliere. To make it possible to act up to this rule, the laws of infection for each of tlie infective fevers should be known ; and, one must always bear in mind that it is the .ilightcst forms of tliese diseases tliat mostly carry infection ; the sufferers from the more severe attacks are confined to tlieir rooms, and are seldom tlio cause oF any sjiread of infection while they are under the charge of nurses and doctors. There I'emain the dangers of con- valescence, against which, also, it is the object of tlieso pages to give some words of caution. Scarlet fever differs from small-pox in three miportant particulars :](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b24750803_0011.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
