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49
TERMINAL DISINFECTION.
Prior to January, 1930, this Council, in common with most
Sanitary Authorities throughout the country, carried out the
routine, traditional, elaborate and expensive programme of municipal
disinfection after the removal to hospital or recovery at home of
persons suffering from infectious disease. On the assumption that
the infectious person left behind him germs capable of infecting
others, such routine municipal disinfection included
(a) the removal of infected clothing, bedding, etc., for special
treatment in the Council's steam disinfector ;
(b) the spraying of infected premises with liquid disinfectant.
Since January, 1930, this Authority has discontinued the
routine steam disinfection of bedding and clothing from households
infected by the commoner infectious diseases such as scarlet
fever, diphtheria, etc. Four full years have now elapsed since
routine steam disinfection was discontinued, and it is of interest
to compare the results of the last four years with those of the four
years immediately preceding. In the following table four years
(1926-29), during which steam disinfection had been carried out,
can be compared with four years (1930-1933) during which it had
been abandoned.