View report page

25
sputum. In a district, therefore, where the sanatorium
treatment is about to be established, it is of the greatest
importance that facilities for having bacterial examinations
of this kind made, should be given to the
medical practitioners. The steps that are now being
taken to deal with consumption in this District are
confined to visiting the houses where deaths from
phthisis have taken place, and offering the necessarydisinfection,
and where, in the course of the ordinary
visits for other purposes, a phthisical case is encounted
a card is left on which the following instructions are
printed:—
EDMONTON URBAN DISTRICT COUNCIL.
Precautions for Consumptive Persons.
Consumption is, to a limited extent, an infectious
disease. It is spread chiefly by inhaling the expectoration
(spit) of patients which has been allowed to
become dry and float about the room as dust, or by
directly inhaling the spray which may be produced
when a patient coughs.
Do not spit except into receptacles, the contents
of which are to be destroyed before they become dry.
If this simple precaution is taken, there is practically
no danger of infection. The breath of consumptive
persons is free from infection, except when coughing.
The following detailed rules will be found useful,
both to the consumptive and to his friends:—
I.—Expectoration indoors should be received into
small paper bags and burnt immediately; or into a