Persons who are attending upon children or other persons suffering from scarlet fever, and also the members of the patient’s family, should not mingle with other people nor permit the entrance of children into their house.

SANITARY CARE OF INFECTED AND SICK PERSONS AND ROOMS.

All persons known to be sick with this disease (even those but mildly sick) should be promptly and thoroughly isolated from the public and family.  In ordering the isolation of infected persons, the health officer means that their communication with well persons and the movement of any article from the infected room or premises shall be absolutely cut off.

Except it be disinfected, no letter or paper should be sent through the mail from an infected place.  That this is of more importance than in the case of smallpox is indicated by the fact of the much greater number of cases of sickness and of deaths from scarlet fever,—­a disease for which no such preventive as vaccination is yet known.

The room in which one sick with this disease is to be placed should previously be cleared of all needless clothing, drapery and other materials likely to harbor the germs of the disease; and except after thorough disinfection nothing already exposed to the contagion of the disease should be moved from the room.  The sick room should have only such articles as are indispensable to the well-being of the patient, and should have no carpet, or only pieces which can afterwards be destroyed.  Provision should be made for the introduction of a liberal supply of fresh air and the continual change of the air in the room without sensible currents or drafts.

Soiled clothing, towels, bed linen, etc., on removal from the patient should not be carried about while dry; but should be placed in a pail or tub covered with a five per cent solution of carbolic acid, six and three-fourths ounces of carbolic acid to one gallon water.  Soiled clothing should in all cases be disinfected before sending away to the laundry, either by boiling for at least half an hour or by soaking in the five per cent solution of carbolic acid.

[Infectious diseases 173]

The discharges from the throat, nose, mouth, and from the kidneys and bowels of the patient should be received into vessels containing an equal volume of a five per cent solution of carbolic acid, and in cities where sewers are used, thrown into the water closet; elsewhere the same should be buried at least one hundred feet distant from any well, and should not by any means be thrown into a running stream, nor into a cesspool or privy, except after having been thoroughly disinfected.  Discharges from the bladder and bowels may be received on old cloths, which should be immediately burned.  All vessels should be kept scrupulously clean and disinfected.  Discharges from the nose, ears, etc., may be received on soft rags or pieces of cloth and which should be immediately burned.