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
Catalogue details

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.

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    With reference to the patients welfare, cleanliness and fresh air are the first essentials ; common soap and m ater, careful attention, and good ventilation, are needed in the room to keep the nir from taint. Terebene or Sanitas have an advautaj^e over Condy and Carbolic Acid, that both the latter interfere with the efficacy of chlorine and sulphur in further disinfection, moreover they counteract each other and should never be used together. The liquid Sulphurous Acid or diluted Hydrochloric Acid are the best of the stronger disinfectants to add to the water used for covering the excretions, or for removing linen from the room, and even for these purposes either of the first mentioned preparations will mostly suffice. But little variation is required in the management of the different diseases that have been enumerated. In all of them, isolation of the sick is the first object, and if this is not done by removal to hospital the same end is to be attained as completely as possible at home. In Small-pox the attendant should be known to be protected from liability to this infection ; no one who has not previously been re-vaccinated should- como into the sick room until four days after this operation has been performed, and it is seen to be successful; any matter from the spots has to be steeped in the strongest disinfectant, or at once burned; the crusts separating during convalescence should be burned. Scarlet fever patients must be nursed by those who are protected through a previous attack; both surface and air disinfectants are required; chlorine is advantageous. Convalescents must observe sis weeks quarantine whether desquamating or not. Diphtheria requires most of the precautions given for scarlet fever; the attendants should not be selected from the young, nor should they remain continuously in the sick room ; all secretions from the throat should be destroyed, and some surface antiseptics either as spray, liquid, linctus, or powder, used to the throat; in the last form, Magnesian Sulphite is useful. Measles and Whooping Cough are aggravated by insanitary surroundings; the air, the surface of the body, and the clothes require disinfectants; chlorine is objectionable. Convalescents after measles should be kept four weeks, and after whooping cough six or eight weeks from mixing with the young and susceptible. Mumps and Chicken-pox require a disinfectant mouth wash, weak Condy is best, as well as other precautions. Enteric fever needs moderate air disinfection and most cai-eful and efficient water disinfection for the excreta up to complete con- valescence, fn Typhus fever a free air supply, absolute cleanliness, some aerial freshening, and complete disinfection of the clothes, if they were not at once destroyed, are required. '.I'he attendants should be selected from the younger nurses, as the persons jirotectedby a previous attack are few, and older persons are most liable to severe attacks.
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