Rensselaer Union, Volume 11, Number 16, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 2 January 1879 — Diphtheria. [ARTICLE]

Diphtheria.

In respect to diphtheria, there are a few cautions that can bo urged with propriety: Ist. Impurity is the natural ally of all such infections. Cleanliness is .their foo. It may not always prevent or conquer; liut the prospect of success is best where it is. A child with clean breath, clean skin, in a hotife vvhcro there is only pure air, stands a better clmnee to escape tbe disease, or to recover if et.nfrncting-if, than do those under jaftpusiteci ton instances. 'Thcexceplions do not disturb the rule. ' lid. Next in Importance is isolation. Diphtheria is n disease not easily carried from house to house by visitors; but winch no doubt can be transmitted by folding it up in gWmenls impregnated with the breath or containing "the infective particles of the diseased,„.pcrson.[|HJbildren should never be expossd to those having it. ’ The writer Ims had to deal with it three times in his own home; but by caro has confined it lo the one uttackod. 3d. The very first symptom must be attended to. It is odisease whicli is virulent in tbe outset and often causes blood changes very early, soch_as preveut treatment. The physician fails not because his artfls imperfect, but because' the human system has loet tfio power to assimilate the medicine and the foods which ho prescribes. Where the disease is very prevalent, no child’s throat should puss without daily examination, for the disease is often under full headway and patches formed before there is tnuch complaint. 4th. We think the doctrine announced some two years since is porrect—viz., that by proper regulation of the child and by the use of quinine, iron, and clorate of potassium as preventives, in smull doses, sufficient to insure their'special presence at all times in the blood, during an epidemic, that children can be protected from this poison as really as they can be protected from small, pox by vaccination. It must be an exact, methodical administration, such as shad not be excessive, and yet shall show that tbe blood-paths are thus preoccupied New York Independent.