The treatment & disinfection of scarlet fever by antiseptic inunction / by J. Brendon Curgenven.

  • J. Brendon Curgenven
Date:
1893
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The treatment & disinfection of scarlet fever by antiseptic inunction / by J. Brendon Curgenven. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    inhaled during the patient's stay in a highly infectious atmosphere. There is no doubt in my mind that this is the true explanation. The patients themselves do not generate the spores of Scarlet Fever after about the sixth day of their illness, but they continue to inhale air full of these spores, which, on being discharged from hospital, they carry away with them, and some time elapses before their air passages are free from them. These spores cannot be destroyed except by the inhalation of a disinfectant ; neither carbolic acid nor sulphurous acid can be inhaled strong enough for the purpose, but the vapour of the Oleusaban Eucalyptus can be inhaled of sufficient strength to effect the des- truction of all infection in the air passages without injury to the patient. For three very strong reasons the patients are treated more successfully at home than in the hospital. First, they come under treatment earlier, when the treatment is more successful. Secondly, the patient can be isolated in his own bed, surrounded by sheets if the room be large, and there so saturated by the disinfectant, by inunction, inhalation, and internal administration that all infection is speedily destroyed. In the third place there is no risk of his symptoms being aggravated by the inhalation of fresh doses of the poison with every breath, no risk of his being infected by the streptococcus nor by the poison of any other infectious disease. We have seen that during the epidemic of Scarlet Fever now prevailing in London, the removal of cases to the infectious hospitals has not in any material degree arrested the spread of the disease. As in all former epidemics it has gradually subsided as January approached, and will diminish more rapidly during that month and February. According to the investigations of Dr. Boobbyer, addi- tional cases occurred within three weeks in 23 per cent.
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