Home › Infection and Disinfection › Infection and Disinfection: Sulphur

Infection and Disinfection: Sulphur

Sulphur Fumigation.-Sulphur will be found a thoroughly reliable gaseous disinfectant of considerable penetrating power if it is intelligently employed. To obtain satisfactory results the following essentials of successful disinfection, established by repeated experiments, must be observed: (a) the infected room, or rooms, must be thoroughly closed, every crack and crevice sealed; (b) sufficient sulphur must be used; (c) there must be ample moisture in the room; (d) the time of exposure must be sufficient. Ten hours is the mini. mum.

If sulphur is preferred for disinfection, use four pounds of powdered sulphur to every thousand cubic feet in the room. Seal and otherwise prepare the room in all respects as for disinfection with formaldehyde.

Place a common wood or fiber tub on a table-not on the floor. In this place an iron pot or earthenware crock supported by two or more bricks placed edgewise. Pour in water to the level of the top of the bricks. The disinfecting apparatus will then be in working order. Now fill the room with steam. Fumigation with sulphur is not efficient unless the air is very moist. Pile the sulphur in the form of a low cone with a depression on top about as large as the bowl of a tablespoon.

Fill this with alcohol, turpentine or coal oil, and set it on fire. Immediately leave the room and close and seal the door. The sulphur in burn- INFECTION AND DISINFECTION ing throws off sulphurous acid gas which, in the presence of steam, kills all infection. Keep the room closed for ten hours at least and preferably for twenty-four hours after starting the fumes. Then open the windows from the outside for ventilation and thoroughly air the room before using.

Sulphur candles can be used instead of crude sulphur but take care to use sufficient candles. The average candle on the market contains one pound of sulphur. Four of these will be required in the disinfection of a small room 10x10x10. Do not use a smaller number, no matter what directions may accompany the candle.

The water-jacketed candle is to be preferred. Partly fill the tin around candles with water and place them in a pan on a table, not on the floor.

Let one-half pint of water be vaporized with each candle. Cautions. There is one serious objection to the use of sulphur, which must be fully understood. The fumes have a destructive action on fabrics of wool, silk, cotton and linen as tapestries and draperies and tend to injure brass, copper, steel and gilt work. Colored fabrics are frequently changed in appearance and the strength impaired. Hence such articles should be separately disinfected, as hereafter described, and removed from the room before it is disinfected by sulphur. Sulphur fumigation has the advantage over formaldehyde that it kills insects and thus prevents their conveying the disease. An ideal plan of fumigation is to use first one method and then the other.

Additional Disinfection. - After the sick room has been fumigated with formaldehyde or sulphur, thoroughly wash the floor and woodwork and all out of the way places, window ledges, picture moulding, etc., and thoroughly wet all dust and dirt in cracks with the half-strength Standard Solution No. 3, Bichloride of Mercury (1:1,000). Follow this up with hot soap suds, afterwards rinse with cloths wet in the disinfectant. Do not attempt to mix soap suds with the disinfectant solution. Scrape off and burn the wall paper. Whitewash the ceiling and walls before re-papering and open the room to sunlight and air for several days. Apply a fresh coat of paint to the woodwork.

Cotton Fabrics. - Disinfect all cotton and linen fabrics by immersing them in Solution No. 3 (1:1,000); No. 4 (5 per cent) or No. 5 (10 per cent), for four hours, after which boil them for at least half an hour, then launder as usual. Immerse soiled clothing in a disinfectant solution before it is dried. Before transporting dry clothing or other infected material from the sick room to any other part of the house, wrap the articles in a sheet wet in No. 3 (1:1,000), or No. 4 (5 per cent), or in the absence of these wet in water.

Woolen Fabrics. - Disinfect woolen goods with formaldehyde fumigation in an empty trunk, wooden box or wash boiler, or in tight closets or other air-tight enclosed spaces. All unwashable clothing, bed clothing, mattresses and similar objects may be disinfected in this manner. Place one layer at a time in any air-tight enclosure having a close fitting door, lid or other cover. Sprinkle each successive layer with a 40 per cent solution of formalin, full strength, by means of a sprayer or small sprinkling pot, at the rate of about two tablespoonfuls of the solution to each garment. Protect silks or other delicate fabrics which might be spotted by direct contact with the drops of moisture by means of cotton sheets or towels placed between each layer. Spray the formalin on this protective covering. Now close the receptacle, seal all cracks and crevices by means of wet strips of paper and leave it unopened in a warm room for at least twelve hours. Afterwards expose the articles for a day or more to direct sunshine. If the smell of formaldehyde persists, sprinkle a little aqua ammonia on the articles to remove it.

Or, disinfect by soaking in corrosive sublimate or formaldehyde solutions No. 3 (1:1,000), and No. 5 (623 per cent), in a wooden or fiber wash tub. Afterwards boil for half an hour and launder as usual.

Money, jewelry, letters, valuable papers and similar articles may be disinfected by spraying with a 40 per cent solution of formalin, full strength, by means of a hand atomizer. Place them in a small wooden or pasteboard box with a tight-fitting cover, seal and keep in a warm room for twelve hours. Burn all books, magazines, newspapers and other articles the value of which is not great enough to warrant disinfection.

Bedding.-Throw straw beds out of the window, empty out and burn the straw, and disinfect the tick as for cotton clothing. Disinfect feather beds, pillows, quilts, comforters and blankets in a steam disinfector when practical, or if not soiled, with formaldehyde in large quantities. mattresses have been soiled by the patient's discharges and steaming disinfection is not practical, burn them. If Rugs and Carpets. - These should be removed from he sicl: room before the patient is stalled, but if they remain and become infected, disinfect with steam or by soaking in corrosive sublimate or formaldehyde solutions. If their value is slight burn them.

Lounges, Couches and Other Upholstered Furniture. - Leave in place when the room is fumigated. Strip off and disinfect the covering as for cotton and linen clothing. Burn the filling and replace with new.

The hands of nurses and others who have attended to the wants of the sick should be disinfected with thorough and prolonged washing and scrubbing with hot soap and water, and then immersed for several minutes in a carbolic, bichloride or formaldehyde solution. Sputum.-Receive on pieces of paper or rag or in paper sputum cups and burn. Or receive in cuspidors containing carbolic or formaldehyde solutions.

Disinfection of the Dead. - Bodies of persons dying of smallpox, scarlet fever, diphtheria, membranous croup or measles, should be wrapped in several thicknesses of cloth wrung out of full strength corrosive sublimate, carbolic or formaldehyde solution and should not thereafter be exposed to view. The funeral should be private and no persons except the undertaker and his assistant, the clergyman and the immediate family of the deceased should attend. Carriages used by persons attending the funeral ceremony should be fumigated. No person should enter the sick room until it has been thoroughly disinfected.

Rules for the Sick Room. - Sunlight kills disease germs and should be admitted freely to the sick room unless the patient is suffering from some condition which renders darkness necessary.

Proper ventilation diminishes the number of disease germs in the sick room by carrying some such germs into the open air. The number of germs likely to pass from an ordinarily well-kept sick room into the open air by means of ventilation is so small that such germs cannot be regarded as dangerous to people on the outside. Moreover, such organisms speedily die because they are not adapted to live in the open air. The ventilation of a sick room should not, however, be such as to permit air to pass from the sick room into the rest of the house.

Have all utensils and materials necessary for disinfection placed where they can be used with the least possible trouble. Failure to disinfect is often due to the fact that proper facilities for disinfecting are not conveniently at hand. See that every bottle and box containing a disinfectant is properly labeled and see that all such bottles and boxes are kept apart from bottles and boxes containing medicines for internal use. Accidental poisoning may be thus avoided.