Read Ebook: Hand-book of Sanitary Information for Householders Containing facts and suggestions about ventilation drainage care of contageous diseases disinfection food and water. With appendices on disinfectants and plumbers' materials. by Tracy Roger Sherman

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The cold-air boxes of furnaces should draw their supply from the external air. It is advisable to have a thin layer of cotton held in place by wire gauze to filter the air as it enters them.

DISINFECTION.

It is not possible with our present knowledge to prevent the multiplication of morbid germs in the human body, when they are once implanted there, nor to prevent their discharge; but we can destroy them after their exit from the body, and so protect other persons who are not yet affected.

The following instructions for the management of contagious diseases were prepared for the National Board of Health by Professors Chandler, Henry Draper, Barker, Vander Poel, E. G. Janeway, and Ira Remsen.

Disinfection is the destruction of the poisons of infectious and contagious diseases.

Deodorizers, or substances which destroy smells, are not necessarily disinfectants, and disinfectants do not necessarily have an odor.

Disinfection can not compensate for want of cleanliness nor of ventilation.

All discharges should either be received in vessels containing copperas solution, or, when this is impracticable, should be immediately covered with copperas solution. All vessels used about the patient should be cleansed with the same solution.

Unnecessary furniture, especially that which is stuffed, carpets and hangings, should, when possible, be removed from the room at the outset; otherwise they should remain for subsequent fumigation and treatment.

Cotton, linen, flannels, blankets, etc., should be treated with the boiling-hot zinc solution; introduce piece by piece, secure thorough wetting, and boil for at least half an hour.

Heavy woolen clothing, silks, furs, stuffed bed-covers, beds, and other articles which can not be treated with the zinc solution, should be hung in the room during fumigation, their surfaces thoroughly exposed and pockets turned inside out. Afterward they should be hung in the open air, beaten and shaken. Pillows, beds, stuffed mattresses, upholstered furniture, etc., should be cut open, the contents spread out and thoroughly fumigated. Carpets are best fumigated on the floor, but should afterward be removed to the open air and thoroughly beaten.

Metallic, metal-lined, or air-tight coffins should be used when possible; certainly when the body is to be transported for any considerable distance.

The room should be on the top floor, and all cracks and openings communicating with other rooms should be closed tightly. The door which has to be used should have a wet sheet hanging entirely over it, the windows and fireplace being alone relied on for ventilation.

The cutting open of stuffed articles may seem unnecessary, but it is not. The poison of contagious diseases clings to such stuffs with great tenacity for years, and must be destroyed before they are fit to be used again.

Contagious diseases are often caught at the funerals of those who have died of them, and the sanitary code of New York city forbids a public funeral of any person who has died of small-pox, diphtheria, scarlet fever, yellow fever, typhus fever, or Asiatic cholera. It is better to limit the attendance at such funerals to as few as possible.

When there is small-pox, diphtheria, scarlet fever, measles, or typhus fever in a house, immediate attendants on the sick should not leave the house without a change of outside clothing.

Never enter a sick-room with an empty stomach, or when very tired.

Never eat or drink anything that has been long exposed to the air of the sick-room.

Breathe through your nose, and keep your mouth shut except when you are talking.

FOOD.

How to distinguish a good article of food from a bad one, when both are in their natural state, is within the province of the cook-book. In this place will be pointed out only the adulterations of food, and those methods of detecting them which can be used by householders who have no special knowledge of the instrumental and chemical means which are generally necessary.

Adulterations are of two kinds: those which injure the consumer, and those which simply cheat him. The following details are chiefly taken from the New York State Board of Health report for 1881-'82, the name of the analyst being in each case appended.

There does not seem sufficient evidence as to the injurious effects of alum upon the human system to warrant legislation against it.

Skimmed milk, especially if a little salt has been added, may register high above 100, but its thinness and blueness will show that it has been doctored.

Condensed milk was carefully analyzed, and found to be unobjectionable.

There have been many exaggerated statements put forth regarding the adulteration of sugar. In 1870 Dr. Chandler reported to the New York City Board of Health that sixty samples of sugar bought at small groceries were found pure and unadulterated without exception. In 1872, Elwyn Waller, for the same board, examined one hundred and nine samples of powdered sugar, but found no adulteration.

Powdered sugar is quite generally believed to be adulterated with gypsum or flour. As both of these adulterants are insoluble in water, it is easy for any one to convince himself of the purity of sugar by dissolving it in water.

Wines are often fortified by the addition of brandy, cologne spirit, or French spirit, to arrest fermentation. Ports and sherries are almost invariably so.

Red wines are often colored with logwood, Brazil-wood, fuchsine, cochineal, black hollyhock and red poppy flowers, alkana-root, red beets, cherries, whortleberries, elderberries, pokeberries, etc. It is very difficult to detect these, and fuchsin is the only one that is poisonous. Carpen? gives the following very simple method to decide whether a red wine is naturally or artificially colored: Take a piece of good, white burned lime, break it into two pieces, smooth the surfaces by a knife or file, and place a few drops in succession on the same spot of the smooth surface, and observe after a few minutes the color produced. Natural red wines give a yellowish-brown spot; colored with fuchsine, or Brazil-wood, a rose-colored spot; colored with logwood, a dark-violet spot; colored with cochineal, a reddish-violet spot; colored with black hollyhock, a yellowish-brown spot; colored with pokeberries, a yellowish somewhat red spot.

Another test is to concentrate the wine, and dip in a piece of pure white woolen-yarn. The natural red coloring-matter of wine does not dye without a mordant, while fuchsine and cochineal dye it red or pink.

WATER.

Service-pipes are usually made of lead, and, after moderate use, become coated on their internal surface with insoluble compounds , which prevent contamination of the water by them. When the water is not very hard, however, a slight amount of lead may be dissolved by it. It is said that Cochituate water always contains traces of lead, but that no well-authenticated case of poisoning from this source has ever been reported. Croton water , which has stood overnight in the pipes, is said to contain one tenth of a grain of lead per gallon--sufficient to produce poisoning in some instances. One case of this sort has been known. If drinking-water is drawn from tanks, they should never be lined with lead, but should be made of iron, or of wood lined with tinned and planished copper.

Water passing through galvanized-iron pipes always contains zinc salts--not, however, in injurious amount. Such pipes soon rust.

In places where the drinking-water is drawn from wells, it is sometimes polluted by leakage from cesspools, privy-vaults, stables, and refuse matters lying on the surface of the ground in their vicinity. It has been demonstrated beyond a doubt that epidemics of typhoid fever have often originated and spread in this way. Even when no specific disease is caused, water polluted from such sources often causes diarrhoeal disorders and various forms of indigestion in those who drink it.

The determination of such pollution is a matter of great delicacy and difficulty, and can only be trusted to an expert. Waters polluted by organic matters often contain an excess of gaseous constituents, and are clear, sparkling, and palatable, presenting to the uninstructed eye no indication of impurity. There are certain tests, however, which can be used by any person of intelligence, when, if positive results are obtained, an expert should be called in to determine the source and character of the contamination.

The pollution of water by decomposing animal matters is always to be suspected, if there are evidences of the presence of chlorine or nitrogen in the water, as these are invariable constituents of animal excreta. These substances are found in combination--the former in chloride of sodium, and the latter in the so-called nitrites and nitrates. Their presence is determined as follows:

The albuminoid ammonia test is too technical for insertion here.

Do not drink water that has been standing long in lead pipes, or lead cisterns or tanks.

Filter it before drinking.

If the use of a suspected water is unavoidable, boil it first. It can be rendered palatable by an infusion of tea or coffee.

ALPHABETICAL LIST OF THE COMMON DISINFECTANTS, WITH A BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF EACH, AND THE AVERAGE PRICE AT RETAIL.

It is better and cheaper to buy and mix one's own disinfectants. The many proprietary articles are no more efficient, and are very expensive. The composition of some of those most in use is here given.

The first column gives parts in 100, and the second, ounces in a gallon in the case of liquids, and ounces in a pound in case of powders.

Bromo-chloralum , 50 cents a pint.

Burnett's Fluid is a solution of chloride of zinc .

Carbolate of lime, in three-quarter pound boxes, at 25 cents.

Chloralum , 50 cents a pint.

Chloride of lime, 20 cents a pound.

Condy's Fluid is a solution of permanganate of potash .

Darby's Prophylactic Fluid, 50 cents a half-pint.

Egyptian Disinfectant, 25 cents a pound.

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