Democratic Sentinel, Volume 16, Number 11, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 1 April 1892 — TREATING TYPHUS. [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

TREATING TYPHUS.

Bow New York ratio" Are Cared For at the North ifrotlier Island Hospital. When a contagious disease is contracted in New York City, the patient is immediately hustled off to the contagious disease hospital at North Brother Island. North Brother Island is at, the extreme north end of the archipelago in the East River, and is dotted with Institutions for the suffering and the criminal of the city. It is cut off from the Ford ham shore by only 700 yards of water, too short a distance, perhaps, for absolute safety to the inhabitants of the city. Yet tlie girth of water which divides it from the 6hore is an effective guarantee against anything but a general epidemic. The Health Department hospital boat Franklin Edson. which has left the Reception Hospital, at the foot of East Sixteenth street, daily for the past eight weeks, invariably conveyor two or more afflicted passengers for North Brother Island, has had on every trip to pass this string of refuges. North Brother Island is the dumping ground for typhus-stricken patients. It is scarcely twelve acres in extent, and with South Brother Island, a little less in size, almost fills the Sound opposite 138th street. It is not unlike a reclaimed sand bank.

In combating the typhus epidemic the Health Department has erected a number of walled tents on North Brother Island for the treatment both of suffering and convalescent patients. The plan of housing patients in open structures of this kind is comparatively modern, and some eminent authorities claim that patients down with the fever are more likely to be cured in structures of this character than in brick or stone buildings. In tents, the authorities claim, the ventilation is better, as the patients in them enjoy the advantage of a constant circulation of pure air without being exposed to any draughts. Chief

Clerk Craig explained the course of treatment to which a typhus patient was subjected from the time of quarantining until a state of convalescence and cure was reached.

“Now, let us suppose,” said Mr. Craig, “that Dr. Kdson has received notice by postal card addressed to the Health Board from a tenement house in this city that a certain person, say a 7-year-old child, is suffering from contagious disease of some kind. Dr. Edson sends a reexport examiner of the department immediately to determine the disease. The disease is determined as scarlet fever. The physician finds that the child is attending school. He decides that it must be removed from home. The mother protests. He gives her the option of dressing and coming along with her child. Maybe she comes, maybe she doesn't. The child is taken in an arribulanee. the house disinfected and all clothes removed in a wagon. The child is taken to the Willard Parker Hospital, where the mother can remain until the patient is discharged. Just as soon as Dr. Edson has notice of the case he 6cnds to the principal of the school the child attended notice of the outbreak of the <li>e.ise and instruction not to allow any members of the family to attend. “If the case was defined as one of typhus the patient would be taken In an ambulance to the foot of East Sixteenth street 1?j the Reception Hospital. Here the patient would undergo a special system of disinfection established by the board. The hospital itself is protected from the street by a high fence. Once within the building the patient is stripped of all clothing and put into one section, where he is kept for transmission to the island. The rooms are divided by a galvanized partition, and his clothing and effects are left in the other section for ‘baking’ or destruction as the department may see fit.” Mr. Craig thus described the processes of “baking” and destroying. Tbs former is a system of disinfection

with bichloride of mercury, including inclosure of the effects ina retort, which absolutely renders them safe for use on a future-occasion. The latter, of course, means absolute destruction by burning. This is also a recognized system in the transmission of patients to North Brother Island. Half of the Reception Hospital rests on the dock, arid patients have merely to be shifted out of it into the little steamer Franklin Edscn that conveys them up the Sound. The vessel is a miniature hospital and everything is provided in it for the comfort of the patient. On approaching North Brother Island a system of signals is interchanged between the boat and the shore. A long and a short whistle from the steamer announce that typhus is on board the little vessel; three short blasts announce smallpox; two, scarlet fever; and four, measles. Yesterday afternoon fortunately it was a long, shrill whistle, which meant that there was a clean bill of health on board, and none were more thankful than the overworked officials.

ONE OF THE TENTS USED BY PATIENTS.