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46
Spray disinfection in the hands of a careful and conscientious
official is doubtless satisfactory. Given a sufficiently fine spray, it
injures nothing, and there is a saving of several hours (often a most
important matter) in the time during which the room is not available
for occupation; but it is held by many that there is much in
favour of the method which is less dependent upon the care and
conscientiousness of the official for its efficiency; and which, by
requiring the room to be sealed up for several hours, involves a
bombardment of the exposed germs on surfaces by the molecules of
gas generated into the atmosphere. The circumstance, moreover,
that the disinfecting agent is capable of passing through any fissures
or spaces in and behind woodwork, to follow the infectious dust beyond,
is a further advantage that has always appealed strongly to me.
As to the relative efficiency of the two methods in practice, I have,
during the years 1906 and 1907 endeavoured to obtain some information.
During the whole of the year 1906, fumigation by formic
aldehyde (alformant lamp, 25 tablets per 100 sq. feet of floor) was
carried out in Stoke Newington, and during the year 1907 the
infected apartments were sprayed with a 1 per cent, acid solution
of corrosive sublimate. From the information carefully collected
in reference to each home disinfected, I have drawn up the following
Table, regarding which no one appreciates more than I do the
limitations to its value from many standpoints; but nothing more
can be made of the facts as collected in the Register, and the most
I claim for it is that it does not furnish evidence in favour of the
superiority of the spray method of disinfection.
Enteric fever has been omitted from the Table, because in
respect of this disease no subsequent infection occurred, during either
year, of any member of the primarily infected home.
With reference to the scarlet fever cases, it was found that
there was an average of 3.8 living rooms to each infected family,
and there was an average of 5.2 members to each such family. With
reference to diphtheria, these averages were 4.5 and 5.6 respectively.