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It is becoming more and more patent that the common
ward isolation for communicable disease has in recent times *
become partly discredited by the discovery of different types
of the same disease and that nothing short of individual
isolation will ensure the complete avoidance of cross-type
infection.
A problem which is of interest in infective processes is
that of dust. Dust naturally collects in wards and has to be
disposed of. In considering the dust of infectious disease
wards the question naturally arose as to whether this material
was charged with infective organisms. Accordingly, some of
the dust from the floor of a scarlet fever block was cultured
and was found to be highly charged with streptococci of the
types prevailing in the ward. As a control, dust from the
diphtheria block was subjected to the same test and was also
found to contain streptococci of a type that had no representation
in the scarlet fever wards. This suggests that the
streptococcal secondary infections so frequently associated
with diphtheria were contributing a quota to the dust of the
diphtheria block.
More interesting still was the fact that diphtheria
organisms were grown from this dust. This possibility of
growing pathogenic organisms from the dust of wards raises
the question of the possibility of dust from the wards of fever
hospitals being a vehicle for the dissemination of disease, it
would appear that as a necessary contribution to safety all
wards should be treated with vacuum cleaners and the dust
destroyed in the ward furnaces.
PREVENTION OF DIPHTHERIA.
There are certain warnings of the possibility of an outbreak
of infective processes which may not be neglected.
Two such warnings occur to one's mind, i.e., those in
epidemics of meningococcal meningitis and diphtheria. It is
generally found that for some time prior to the outbreak of an
epidemic of either of these maladies, the carrier rate, that is,