The hygiene of the infectious fevers / by J.W. Miller.

  • Miller, J. W.
Date:
1880
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The hygiene of the infectious fevers / by J.W. Miller. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.

    19/22 (page 17)
    that it is frequently at an end a considerable time before the cough, disappears. West, however, says ^ that he would hesitate to restore a child to the society of children unprotected by a previous attack, until the cough had ceased. I have stated Professor Stephenson's opinion, that two months is the shortest period which can be allowed before a patient can be considered safe from conveying the disease. Of course by fomites, if he continue to wear infected clothes, he may spread the disease for some time after this. It is with regard to hooping-cough that the widest dif- ference of opinion prevails, but, as I have already stated, I cannot believe that rigorous quarantine precautions in the early cases of an epidemic would prove wholly ineffectual in at least limiting its spread. Indeed, it is only at the beginning of an epidemic of any of these diseases that decided success of sanitary measures can be looked for, just as it is only by arresting the first leak in the dyke of a reservoir that the inundation can be averted; and however great the hardship of quarantine to the first affected individual households, it would be as a drop to the ocean when compared with the aggregate of suffering after the epidemic had attained its full development. In conclusion, my object has been to lay before you as con- cisely as possible the opinions of some leading authorities, as an aid towards the formulation of definite rules having special reference to the duration of quarantine precautions which safety demands; and if the i^LSSociation see fit to act on my proposal, I would further suggest for its consideration, whether it might be expedient to have such rules printed and circulated amongst the lay public, perhaps adding some plain instructions as to the details involved in isolation, for example, as regards attendants, clothes, books, toys, etc., and also as to the best methods of disinfection. It is scarcely necessary to say, that I do not con- template that it should be attempted to coerce individual practi- tioners into any particular line of practice, even if power to do so existed, which it does not; but it appears to me that such an endeavour as I have indicated, to terminate if possible the conflict- ing practice which at present prevails, is quite within the legitimate sphere of action of the Association. In the course of some -remarks which followed the reading of the fore- going paper it was very properly observed by one or two of the speakers that the suggestion put forward involved considerable difficulty, and this especially on account of the widely varying conditions as to persistence of infection presented in different households, because, on the one hand, a house- hold intelligently conducted with every care as to isolation, disinfection, and general cleanliness may be restored to a perfect sanitary condition in a com- paratively short time; whereas, on the other hand, a household in which the ' Diseases of Infancy and Childhood, 4th ed., p. 429.