This method of systematic disinfection would be useful in every household; but when cholera is present in any city or country, such thorough application of this means of protection cannot be safely neglected in any city to which persons may come from towns where cholera is epidemic. Sanitary chemists advise that the estimated quantity of these water-closet and sewer disinfectants required for each person daily, in the presence of cholera, should be one half an ounce of sulphate of iron and one half a drachm or one half a teaspoonful of carbolic acid.

Things to be Disinfected.

1. Beds, bedling, and upholstered stuffs. - Expose to sunlight and ventilation freely and frequently. If actually infected, thoroughly moisten every part with a strong solution of carbolic acid or permanganate of potassium.

2. Soiled clothing, etc., from the sick with Cholera or any Contagious Disease.-Use a solution of permanganate of potassium or carbolic acid, precisely as previously directed, and as soon as the soiled articles are removed from the patient; or place them in a tub containing eight ounces sulphate of zinc, three ounces carbolic acid, and three gallons of water, for one hour, and then put them in boiling water; or the clothing may be thoroughly steeped, before boiling, in a solution of two ounces of chloride of lime in a gallon of water. Or immerse them at once in boiling water. In any case of infectious disease, the clothing must be boiled previous to washing or drying. Infected clothing must be thrown into the water at boiling heat. The boiling should be kept up for an hour.

Wollen goods must be treated differently. They must be exposed for some time to the fumes of sulphur, and

afterwards freely exposed to the action of the sun and wind.

3. Carpets, sofas, lounges, mattresses, floors, etc., infected by Cholera-excrement, or by Smallpox, Scarlatina, and other Contagions, should be treated as follows:

First. Thoroughly moisten every infected hing with one of the carbolic or permanganate solutions.

Second. Rules for Fumigation.-To give still greater completeness to the disinfection required for an infected apartment and thick woollen stuffs, carpets, etc., to which boiling heat cannot be applied, fumigate with sulphurous acid, thus: Arrange to vacate room for twelve hours; close every window and aperture, and, upon an iron pipkin, or kettle with legs, burn a few ounces of sulphur; the quantity required for effectual work will depend upon cubical space of the apartment, and there should be enough to burn rapidly until want of oxygen in the air shall extinguish the flame. Instantly after kindling it every person must withdraw from the place, and the room must remain closed for the succeeding eight hours. After this time the windows should be thrown open, and when the fumes have disappeared, all the woodwork and walls should be thoroughly washed with soft soap and water, to which carbolic acid has been added (one pint of the common liquid to three or four gallons of water), and the paper from the walls stripped off. In whitewashed rooms the walls should be scraped, and then washed with hot lime, to which carbolic acid has been added. The windows should then be kept open for thirty-six or fortyeight hours. If any other kind of fumigation is resorted to (as that by chlorine, bromine, or nitrous acids), a sanitary officer or a chemist should superintend the process. Fumigation should be resorted to in dwelling-houses only by official orders or permission, or under the personal

superintendence of a competent medical man, as the disinfecting gases are very poisonous.

4. Finally, let fresh air and sunlight purify every place they can reach. Open and dry all cellars and vaults, and keep the grounds and surfaces about dwellings as dry and clean as possible. Use fresh lime or the "calxpowder" freely upon wet or offensive surfaces. Flush the water closets and drains daily before throwing in the disinfectants as directed. Domestic and personal cleanliness should be everywhere observed. There are no substitutes for pure air and water.

(Rules for Disinfecting Impure Drinking-water will be detailed on another page.)

DIRECTIONS FOR PREVENTING THE SPREAD OF INFECTIOUS DISEASES.'

I. When a case of infectious disease occurs in a house, immediate notice thereof should be given to the proper officer of health, and medical advice at once procured.

The following precautions should be taken :

1. Isolate the person affected as much as possible from the other inmates of the house. This is most readily effected by at once removing him to an upper room, if circum

1 These rules are an embodiment of the excellent paper published in the Sanitarian, Jan. 1877, from the pen of J. M. Maclagan, M.D., Medical Officer of Health for Hexham and Haltwhistle Unions Rural Sanitary Districts, England, and are applicable to smallpox, scarlet fever, measles, typhus fever, enteric fever, whooping cough, diphtheria, etc. Additions have been made to these directions to still further increase their efficiency.

stances permit. The room should be large and airy, and means of ventilating it at once adopted. If the sick cannot thus be separated from all other persons, the Board of Health will send the patient to hospital. Persons with smallpox must not be moved from one house to another, or to hospital, except by permission of the Board of Health.

2. Before removing the patient the following preparations ought to be made in the room: All superfluous curtains, carpets, woollen articles, unnecessary clothing, bedding, etc.—in short, everything likely to retain infection—should be at once removed.

3. The patient's bed ought to be so placed as to allow of a free current of air around it, but not so as to place it in a draught.

4. The room must be kept well ventilated, under the physician's direction, by means either of a fire (when required) or of an open fireplace and chimney, and of windows. opening to the external air. By means of the latter ventilation is effectually procured, so as to avoid draughts, in the following manner: Raise the lower sash of the window three or four inches, then procure a piece of wood made to fit accurately into the lower opening, and place it there. By these means free outward and inward currents of air -without causing any draughts-are obtained through the vacant space between the two sashes. When a window is merely opened from the upper or lower sash, draughts are invariably caused.

5. Placing a small sheet of oil-cloth, mackintosh, or other waterproof material, beneath the upper blanket on which the patient is to rest, effectually prevents the bed from being soiled by any discharges, etc.

II. 1. After removal of the patient to the room in which he is to remain, the outside of the door and door-posts

should be completely covered by a sheet kept constantly wetted with some disinfecting solution. A piece of muslin, one foot square, should be dipped in the same solution and suspended constantly in the sick-room.

2. The room must be kept scrupulously clean. Before being swept, which should be done daily, if possible, the floor should be sprinkled with some disinfecting powder, or with a weak solution of a disinfecting fluid.

3. Vessels containing disinfecting fluids should be placed in the room for the reception of all bed and body linen, towels, handkerchiefs, etc., immediately on being removed from the patient, and on no account should they be washed along with other household articles.

4. Disinfectants, as already mentioned, should also be placed in all the chamber utensils used by the patient, and, after use, more disinfecting fluid should be added, and the whole contents, if possible, should be immediately buried deeply in the ground, at a distance from any drain, well, or watercourse. On no account should they be thrown on any ash-pit, dunghill, or into any cesspool. The vessel, after being thoroughly emptied, must be cleansed with boiling water. No chamber vessel should be allowed to remain in the room after having been used.

5. All plates, cups, glasses, etc., which have been used by the patient, should be rinsed with some disinfectant before being washed; and on no account should any vessels used in the sick-room be washed along with other things, unless previously thoroughly disinfected.

6. Attendants on the sick should be chosen, if possible, from those who have already had the discase. They should not wear woollen dresses, but only those made of washing materials. It is advisable not to use handkerchiefs about the patient, but soft rags for cleansing the nostrils and mouth, to be immediately thereafter burned.