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112
Your Medical Officer now recommends that all books
which are much worn and soiled should be destroyed. All
books taken from houses in which smallpox has occurred
should be destroyed. All books which have been used in the
sick room, if there is a possibility, however remote, of their
conveying infection, should be dealt with in the same way.
With regard to volumes which, although taken from
infected houses, have but a very remote likelihood of having
retained infection, the following system of disinfection may be
carried out. The book is placed on end and opened as far as
can be, and is subjected to the vapour of formalin for three
hours. This process, if necessary, can be repeated, and the
books can be returned to the library none the worse for the
operation with the exception of a smell of formalin, which
passes off after a few days.
The chamber we use for this kind of disinfection, and also
for other small articles which would be injured by steam, as
leather goods, furs, boots, etc., is a specially constructed, zinc
lined chamber 6-ft. 11-in. by 4-ft. 4½-in. by 1-ft. 6-in., having a
capacity of 45 cubic feet. An alformant lamp is used.
The Medical Officer is unable to recall a single instance
in which infection has been conveyed by books, notwithstanding
that he has instituted inquiries in other districts of books
taken from infected houses.
The degree of exposure of books whilst in infected houses
varies very widely, and it is not desirable to make any hard
and fast rule as to how books from infected houses should be
dealt with. There can be no question that the method which
has stood the test of so many years in a number of great cities,
such as Manchester, Bradford, Leeds, Glasgow and Edinburgh,