Rensselaer Union, Volume 9, Number 36, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 24 May 1877 — How to Prevent or Restrict Scarlet-Fever. [ARTICLE]

How to Prevent or Restrict ScarletFever.

The Michigan State Board of Health have issued a valuable pamphlet, giving, in .brief and comprehensive term, some directions in regard to the prevention and restriction of scarlet-fever, The importance of the subject is so great that we copy below the snore essential portions of the cineular:* *•-*•»»» *** jfcarlet-fever is now believed to be one of the mC6t contagious diseases. -One attack usually prevents subsequent attacks. The greatest number df deaths from this disease are of children under ten years of age. Adult persons do sometimes have the disease. Scarlet-feVerJs believed to arise from a special contagium or ptrison, which may be conveyed to persons previously unaffected by personal contact, by infected clothing or paper rags, or by any of the discharges from the body of a person affiactec with the disease. The discharges from the throat, nose and mouth are considered extremely dangerous, but those from the skin, byes, ears, kidneys and bowels an also dangerous, and remain so for a considerable time. Filth, all forms of uncleanness and neglect of ventilation increase the* danger of spreading the disease. It is believed that the disease may be communicated by a person recovering therefrom so long as the usual; subsequent scaling or peeling of the skin continues, which sometimes te not completed before r«ap»e of seventy or eighty days, although usually completed (boner. The interval oi time which may elapse after

exposure to tl»e contagium of scarlet fever, and during which a susceptible person so exposed may expect to be taken sick with the disease, varies from one to fourteen davs. Whenever a child has sore thioat and fever, and especially when this is ac'companied by a rash on the body, the child should be immediately isolated as completely as possible from other members of the household and from other persons until a physician has seen it and determined whether it has scarlet-fever. All peraone known to be aide with thio diaeate tJondd to promptly and thoroughly isolated from the public. - - The room into which one sick with disease is placed should previously be cleared of all needless clothing, carpets, drapery, and other materials likely to harbor die poison of the disease, except, such articles as are essential to the wellbeing of the patient. The sick room may have no carpet, or only pieces which can afterward be destroyed. Provision should be made, for the introduction of a liberal supply of fresh air and the continual change of the air of the room without sensible currents or drafts. Pockethandkerchiefs, that need to be saved, should not be used by the patient;small pieces of rag should be substituted therefor, and after being once used should be immediately burned. Soiled bed and body linen should be placed in vessels of water contain .ing chlorinated soda, chlorinated lime, or other disinfectant before removal from the sick room. The discharges from the patient should all be received into vessels containing chlorinated lime (commonly called “chloride of lime.”) Sulphate of iron, or some other known disinfectant, and the same buried at once, and not by any means be thrown into a running stream, nor into a cess-pool or water clocet, except after having been thoroughly disinfected. All vessels should be kept scrupulously clean and disinfected. Persons who are attending upon children or other persons suffering from scarletfever, ana also the members of the patient’s family, should not mingle with other people nor permit the entrance of children into their house. Funerals of those dying from ..carlet-fever eheuld be strictly private and the corpse not exposed to view. All persons recovering from scarletfever should be considered dangerous, and therefore should not attend school, church or any public assembly, or use any pulbllc conveyance, so long as any scaling or peeling of the skin, soreness -of the eyes or air-passages, or symptoms of dropsy remain. No person recovering from scar-let-fever should thus endanger the public health, nor appear in public until after having taken four times, at intervals of two days, a thorough bath. This cleansing, however, should bA deferred until the physician in charge considers it .prudent After recovery from scarlet-fever no person should appear in public wearing the same clothing worn while sick with or recovering from this disease, except such clothing has been thoroughly disinfected by some such method as herein specified. Whenever a case of this disease occurs in a locality, prompt and vigorous action should be taken for the restriction of the disease, by early isolation -of those sick with the disease, and by the destruction or disinfection of all articles dikely to be infected. Plain and distinct notices should be placed upon the premises or house in which there is a .person sick with scarlet-fever, and no child that has not had the disease should be allowed to enter, or to associate with persons who do enter such premises or room. All clothing, carpets, curtains, furniture, and other substanoes that are to be destroyed, shall be dealt with in a way to avoid conveying the pedson.to.any person in the process; they shall mot be simply thrown away, or into some.stream or body of water; and, if burned, should be com; pletely burned, and notsiiqply heated or dealt with in a way to diffuse.the poison of the disease. All such infected substances, which are not destroyed, should be, thoroughly boiled, subjected to a drj- Jieat of 250° F. in a closed room or disinfecting oven, or be thoroughly exposed to the fumes of chlorine or of burning sulphur. Books or furs that have been used or Handled by those convalescing from this disease are particularly liable to convey the poison to children who have never had the disease. Great care should be used to thoroughly disinfect any such articles that are net destroyed ; and caution should be exercised before allowing children who have not had scarlet-fever to handle any such articles thft have bebn used by persons liable to communicate the disease. Although not so active for the destruction of the contagium as is chlorine or sulphurous,acid gas, pure air, in liberal amount, is a very useful and important agent for the dilution and (destruction of the poison of the disease; it should be employed freely .; .but with this as with other procedures for the safety of the unaffected, great imrenhould be taken not to increase the danger to those already sick from any cause, who are usually endangered by exposure to drafts of cold air and this is especially true of persons convalescing from scariet-fcver.