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both for patients and for persons who are about them, that the sickroom
and the sick-house be constantly traversed by streams of fresh
air.
9. The cleanliest domestic habits should be enjoined. Refuse
matters should be speedily removed or destroyed; and things which
have to be disinfected or cleansed should always be disinfected or
cleansed without delay. The influence of exposure to sunlight and
fresh air in the destruction of infection should be borne in mind.
10. Special precautions of cleanliness and disinfection are necessary
with regard to infective matters discharged from the bodies of
the sick. Among discharges which it is proper to treat as infective
are those which come in cases of Small-pox and Scarlatina from the
affected skin; in cases of Cholera and Enteric Fever from the intestinal
canal; in Enteric Fever also the urine; in cases of Diphtheria and
Scarlatina from the nose and throat; likewise, in cases of any eruptive
or other epidemic fever, the general exhalations of the sick. The
caution which is necessary with regard to such matters must, of
course, extend to whatever is imbued with them; care must be taken
that bedding, clothing, towels, handkerchiefs, and other articles
which have been in use by the sick may not become sources of
mischief, either in the house to which they belong or in houses to
which they are conveyed. So far as articles of this class can be
replaced by rags or things of small value, it is best to use such things
and burn them when they are soiled. Otherwise clothing and
infected articles should be subjected to the disinfectant of the sick
room before washing, or be removed for disinfection by steam heat,
In Enteric Fever and Cholera the evacuations should be regarded
as capable of communicating an infectious quality to any nightsoil
with which they are mingled in privies drains, or cesspools; and
after such disinfection of them as is practicable, they should be
disposed of without delay, and under the safest conditions that local
circumstances permit. They should not be thrown into any fixed