TYPHOID FEVER.

Cromwell Argus, Volume VII, Issue 325, 1 February 1876, Page 7

TYPHOID FEVER.

The Government has wisely caused to be circulated a paper containing precautions against the spread of typhoid fever, which have been drawn up by an eminent authority on such diseases and their cause—William Ogle, Esq., M.A., M.D., Medical Officer of Health for one of the most extensive districts in England. We strongly advise every householder to read the paper attentively ; —cut it out, and keep it handy for reference :

Typhoid, enteric, or gastric fever are names given to one and the same infectious disease, this being a fever produced by excremental poisoning, and almost invariably accompanied by diarrhoea. Of all excremental matter, the mpst poisonous is that which comes from persons themselves ill with the fever ; and it is principally by means of their stools that the disease spreads from one person to another. The poison may be taken in by breathing the effluvia from these discharges, or from the privy, cesspool, or drains into which they have been emptied ; or by drinking water from wells into which they have soaked ; or by swallowing particles that have adhered to clothes, bedding, or other objects, and thence been accidentally transferred to articles of food or cooking utensils. Destruction of the fever poison in the stools, the moment these leave the body, by means of disinfectants, and (inasmuch as the action of disinfectants is not thoroughly certain) the safe disposal of the stools themselves, are the means by which we should try to prevent the disease from spreading. Let all persons, therefore, who would keep themselves aud their neighbours free from infection, observe strictly the following rules should the disease occur in their houses : 1. Remove at once from the" sick-room all carpets, curtains, and other objects likely to get fouled.

2. Keep every one whose presence is not absolutely necessary out of the sick room, and by means of open windows and open doors give the patient as much fresh air as possible. 3. Put a £>iece of waterproof sheeting under the bed clothes, in the middle of the bed, so as to prevent the bed from getting soiled. 4. Put a teacupful of the following disinfecting fluid into a bed-pan or other vessel each time before the patient uses it, and add some more immediately after :—Soda water, a gallon ; sulphate of iron (i.e., copperas), a pound; carbolic acid (the common impure kind), half a pint. In preparing this fluid the iron should first be dissolved by stirring in boiling water, and the carbolic acid added when the iron is dissolved and the fluid cool. Remember that carbolic acid is a poison ;. keep the mixture therefore in a safe place. The same fluid may be used with great advantage to disinfect any accumulation of tilth, such as a dung-pit or cesspool. As a general rule two quarts will suffice to disinfect one cubic foot of foul matter.

5. Take oare that the discharges are thoroughly mixed with the disinfecting fluid, and then carry them immediately into the garden or field, and bury them in a deep trench, previously dug for the purpose, as far as possible from any well or other water supply. On no account let them be thrown on to a refuse heap. If the house be in a town, and without a garden, so that the stools must of necessity be thrown down the closet, add a double allowance of the disinfectant, and take care that the emptying be done without splashing the seat, and that the closet be flushed until basin and pan are thoroughly clean. _ 6 Let bed and body linen, immediately it is taken off, be put into a tub of water, to which carbolic acid has been added, in the proportion of half a pint of acid to a bucket of water. Have the tub and fluid ready prepared and at hand before the linen is taken off. Let the linen soak in this for two hours, and then let it be actually boiled in washing. On no account must the linen be sent to a laundress without thorough previous disinfection, nor without informing her of its character, so that she may not wash it with the linen of other persons. 7. Let the nurse observe the most scrupulous care to keep everything clean. Let her. wear a dress of washing material, as this is more easily disinfected than wool. As her hands must almost unavoidably get soiled in helping the patient, let her wash them frequently in water to which some disinfecting fluid has been added, and let her take care that the water thus used, as well as all other slops, be emptied carefully into the garden trench. 8. "When the illness is over, the bed, if soiled, should be burnt ; or the tick or sacking cover may be disinfected by thorough boiling, and the flock or straw stuffing burnt. Should there by a disinfecting oven available, the stuffing of hair mattresses may be teased out and then disinfected by baking at a temperature of 2500 F. Otherwise this also should be destroved. The floor of the sick room and the bedstead and other furniture should be thoroughly scrubbed with soft soap and carbolic acid. Ml the implements and utensils that have been in use in the sick room should be well scalded. The dress worn by the nurse should be disinfected with carbolic acid and boiled as directed in the sixth paragraph. 9. If fever be in your neighbourhood, but not as yet in your house, take the following precaiitions to keep it out :—Drink no water that is open to the least suspicion, or, if you can get no other, boil it before drinking. Use no closet or privy that is used by houses in which there is already fever. Give immediate notice to the Sanitary Inspector of any nuisance in your neighbourhood, such as a stinking drain or gully,

heaps of offensive refuse, and the like. Use all your influence to insist upon the preceding p:ecautions being strictly earned out by your neighbours whose houses are already infected.