Page:The physical training of children (IA 39002011126464.med.yale.edu).pdf/220

 the means of saving only one child from death, or from broken health, my labor will not have been in vain.

222. What means do you advise to purify a house from the contagion of Scarlet Fever?

Let every room be lime-washed and then be white-*washed; if the contagion has been virulent, let every bed-*room be freshly papered (the walls having been previously stripped of the old paper and then lime-washed); let the bed, the bolsters, the pillows, and the mattresses be cleansed and purified; let the blankets and coverlids be thoroughly washed, and then let them be exposed to the open air—if taken into a field so much the better; let the rooms be well scoured; let the windows, top and bottom, be thrown wide open; let the drains be carefully examined; let the pump water be scrutinized, to see that it be not contaminated by fecal matter, either from the water-closet or from the privy; let privies be emptied of their contents—remember this is most important advice—then put into the empty places lime and powdered char-*coal, for it is a well-ascertained fact that it is frequently impossible to rid a house of the infection of scarlet fever without adopting such a course. "It would be well if we were to use whitewash in many cases where great cleanliness of surface cannot be obtained. We remove in this way, by an easy method, much of the dullness and still more of the unwholesomeness of dirt."—Dr. Angus Smith. "In St. George's, Southwark, the medical officer reports that scarlatina 'has raged fatally, almost exclusively where privy or drain smells are to be perceived in the houses.'" Let the children who have not had, or who do not appear to be sickening for scarlet fever, be sent away from home—if to a farm-house so much the better. Indeed, leave no stone unturned, no means untried, to exterminate the disease from the house and from the neighborhood.