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31
One of the appended leaflets is left at the house in any case
not removed to the Isolation Hospital.
INFORMATION FOR CONSUMPTIVE PEOPLE AND FOR
THOSE LIVING WITH THEM.
1.—Consumption is a preventible disease which is caused by
minute living germs, called "tubercle bacilli," which usually enter
the body with the air breathed.
2.—The matter which consumptive people cough or spit-up
contains the germs of the disease in great numbers. If this matter
is spat upon the floors, or the walls of any public or private place,
or elsewhere, as soon as it becomes dry the germs of the disease
which it contains are blown about and float in the air, like any
other minute particles of dust, and are inhaled by anybody breathing
that air : or they may fall upon milk or other food, and gain access
to the body with that food. These are the commonest ways in
which the seeds of the disease enter the body of a healthy person.
3.—It is dangerous to sleep with or to live in close relationship
with a consumptive, unless the patient is careful that what he
coughs up is destroyed. A pocket bottle or a cup containing a
little water and disinfectant should be used to spit in, so that the
matter may not dry, and it should be emptied in the closet (not
into the ashpit, or upon the footwalk or the roadway), and carefully
washed afterwards with boiling water. If the consumptive prefers
to use soft paper, linen or calico cloths or handkerchiefs to spit in,
they should be thrown upon the fire and burnt forthwith. He
should take care that his hands, face, and clothing do not become
soiled with the matter coughed up. He should never swallow the
expectoration : it is dangerous. When coughing he should
always cover the mouth with the hand and turn the head aside.
4.—A consumptive should sleep alone ; the windows should
always be wide open, except when dressing and undressing. The
bedclothing and personal clothing should be boiled and washed
separately from the clothing of other people.
5.—Tubercle bacilli are not only the cause of ordinary consumption
of the lungs, but they may also give rise to consumption
of the bowels and other parts of the body, and therefore milk and
other uncooked food should be carefully protected from the
tubercle bacilli. If such food be kept in a place to which a
consumptive patient of careless habits has access and who may
spit upon the floor, the dry particles of the matter spat up may
blow about with dust and find access to milk and other food, and
in this way contaminate it. Mothers who are consumptive should
not suckle their children.