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Prevention of Communicable Disease: Keep

The sick room should have its windows always open day and night, and there should be an open fire if possible, otherwise recovery will be greatly delayed, for bad air of itself makes well persons sick. Keep the patient out of drafts.

Preparing the Sick Room.-Before installing the patient, take up the carpet and remove all rugs, ornaments, curtains, portières, bureau scarfs and hangings of every description. Empty bureau drawers, remove the contents of closets and clothespresses, in short, take everything out of the room that is not necessary, and especially all sorts of fabrics which may serve as catch-alls for the germs of the disease. The room should contain no more furniture than is necessary. Metal bedsteads, plain wooden chairs and tables, are best. Remove all scarfs from tables and cushions, doilies and the like from chairs. Seal up door cracks and keyholes communicating with other rooms by pasting over them strips of wrapping paper. Suspend over the doorway a sheet reaching from the top to the floor, moistened with full strength carbolic or bichloride solutions No. 3 and No. 4. Tack this across the top and one side, leaving the other side free to be pushed aside to gain entrance. Only such toys, books and the like should be given the patient as can be destroyed after recovery or death. The floor, woodwork and furniture should be frequently wiped with cloths moistened with half strength Standard Disinfectant Solution No. 3, 4 or 5. Throw away the broom and duster. Use only damp cloths moistened with half strength Solution No. 3, 4 or 5, for cleaning floor and furniture. These should be at once thrown into the disinfectant solution or burned. It is well to wash the floor each day with one of the same solutions.

Cleanliness. Keep the premises All decaying animal and clean. vegetable matter and every kind of filth in and around the house should be removed, and disinfectants freely used.

Surface drains and gutters, areas, outhouses, privies, shelters for domestic animals, fowls, etc., should receive close and constant attention.

Use Standard Disinfectant No. 1 or No. 2, freely and regularly, in every such place.

Odors. Never allow bad smells to exist. If free ventilation, sunshine and cleanliness do not keep out bad smells, sprinkle diluted formaldehyde, one part formaldehyde to 50 parts of water, upon the floor, or spray it into the air with an atomizer.

Bed and Bedding. -Place the patient's bed in the middle of the room, or at least away from the wall. Do not suffer the bed covers to come in contact with the walls or floor so as to contaminate them. The bed should be narrow. A mattress is much to be preferred to a feather bed. The cover should consist of a sheet long enough to fold back at the head over the other coverings for some distance. Blankets should be used for warmth in preference to quilts.

Keep the bed scrupulously clean, and remove the linen and coverings promptly when soiled. The nurse should see to it that bread crumbs do not remain in the bed.

The best way to make up the bed for the typhoid patient is the following: (1) Over the mattress (no feather bed) spread smoothly and tuck in the sheet. Under the sheet have preferably a once-folded sheet or blanket. (2) Next spread a rubber sheet crosswise the bed, the two ends tucked smoothly under the edges of the mattress. (3) A folded sheet (draw-sheet) also crosswise over the rubber sheet. (4) A second rubber sheet. (5) Over that a second draw-sheet.