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Infection and Disinfection: Open

Now spread out on chairs, or clothes-racks, all articles that cannot be boiled. Clothing, bed covers and the like should be hung on a line stretched across the room. Open the mattresses and set them on edge.

Stretch the window shades and curtains to their full length. Open the doors of closets or clothes-presses.

Lift the lids of trunks or chests and remove and spread out their contents.

Open one of the long seams of pillows so that the fumes can reach the feathers. Do not pile articles together. Open books and spread out the leaves. In short, arrange the room and its contents so as to secure free access of gas to all parts and to every object. If the room has been properly cleansed and ventilated during the course of the disease and especially if it was stripped of carpets and unnecessary furniture when first set apart as a sick room, the difficulties of disinfection will be greatly reduced. Humidity. When all is in readiness make the air of the room damp. This is absolutely necessary for dis- INFECTION AND DISINFECTION infection either by sulphur or formaldehyde. Dampness may be produced by boiling a quantity of water in a wash boiler on a gas or gasoline stove, by pouring boiling water from a tea kettle into a tub, or by pouring cold water onto hot bricks or stones, or dropping hot bricks or stones into vessels containing cold, or preferably hot water. Under no circumstances is efficient disinfection possible without in some way making the air of the room quite damp. The temperature should be from 60 to 70 degrees F. or over, the higher the better, but there must not be any fire or exposed flame in the room.

Formaldehyde Generators. - Formaldehyde is a gas which may be generated in large quantities by the addition of formaldehyde solution (formalin) to crystals of potassium permanganate in the right proportions. A number of patented generators and processes for disinfection with formaldehyde have been placed upon the market. Many of these are inefficient and the use of any of them is an unnecessary expense. A homemade device equal to the best patent generator ever devised may be arranged by means of a common wood or fiber wash tub, two or more ordinary red bricks and a tin or galvanized iron pail, such as a common milk or water pail, having the seams rolled, not soldered. Place the tub in the middle of the room with the pail inside resting upon two or more bricks standing edgewise. Now fill the tub with water nearly but not quite up to the level of the top of the bricks and the generator is ready for use. If the bricks can be previously heated in a very hot oven and the water poured in at, or near the boiling point, so as to give off a quantity of steam, so much the better.

Before the pail is put in place spread the potassium permanganate crystals evenly over the bottom.