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(B.) Dealing with Small.-pox Patients.
3.—The prompt notification by medical certificate.
4.—The rapid removal of the patient to hospital.
5.—The immediate and thorough disinfection and cleansing of the infected
parts of houses and their contents.
(C.) Dealing with Small-pox Contacts.
6.—Inquiry as to the names, ages, addresses, occupations, and places of
occupation of all contacts.
7.—Observation of contacts as to the continuation of good health until the
expiry of the incubation period, and this implies the preventing of contacts
without fixed abode from changing their dwelling places until the expiry of
the incubation period of at least a fortnight, but does not necessitate interfering
with their fixed occupations.
8.—Personal cleansing and disinfection of contacts and their clothing.
9. —Disinfection of Laundry-linen before being handled in laundries both for
the prevention of small-pox and of other diseases readily conveyed by body-linen
and bed-linen.
(D.) The better Isolation of Small-pox Hospitals.
10.—A wider danger radius round small-pox Hospitals than the present
requirement of the Local Government Board of a quarter of a mile, within
which it is dangerous to allow a person to reside or work unless protected by a
previous attack of small-pox or by vaccination within a limited period of years.
These precautionary measures are indicated by the important facts:—
(1) That small-pox is a disease which is many degrees more infectious than
the most infectious of dangerous infectious diseases, and whereas in other
dangerous infectious diseases the number of contacts infected are counted by
units, in small-pox they are counted by tens.
(2) That the infection of small-pox is much more readily carried than that
of other dangerous infectious diseases by the person and clothing, not only of
patients, but also of healthy persons who have been in contact with patients,
and who, although not attacked by the disease, convey the infection to others,
who become victims of the disease.
(3) That unlike any other dangerous infectious disease, small-pox spreads
beyond the hospital in which patients suffering from the disease are isolated,
and that this striking distance is measured by quarters of a mile.
Of these indicated precautionary measures, those (A) for the discovery of
small-pox cases were met by providing for disclosure by the compulsory
notification of chicken-pox, and for recognition by the confirmation of
diagnosis by additional medical examination. Those measures (B) for tho
prompt notification and removal of patients and the thorough subsequent
disinfection, being already in action, were quickened and strengthened. But,
when the measures (C) for dealing with small pox contacts came to be applied,
it was found that inquiry failed from time to time to elicit true information