PURIFICATION OF A ROOM AFTER PLAGUE CASES

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All woodwork should be thoroughly cleansed with soft soap and water, to which a little carbolic acid has been added. The walls should be scraped and then washed with hot lime to which carbolic acid should be added in the proportion of one pint to four gallons of water. Then the room should be fumigated for 3 hours, with all doors and windows and the chimney being closed, sulphur about 1 seer for every 100 cubic feet of space should be put in a metallic dish, a little alcohol is poured on it, and it is lighted. After 3 hours the doors and windows should be opened and kept open for 24 or 36 hours. Rooms may be disinfected by chlorine. Carbolic acid in 5 per cent. solution is useful for all ordinary purposes, such as washing hands, utensils, &c.

Quicklime is the cheapest and the most easily procurable disinfectant for drains and for disinfection of discharges. Carbolic powder made by adding carbolic acid to lime is very useful for the disinfection of public latrines, drains and sewers. Corrosive sublimate, in the proportion of 1 part in 4,000, is the most efficient germicide known and should be used diluted with water for sprinkling on public roads and for flushing drains and washing latrines, &c. It is, however, poisonous and corrodes metal drain pipes. In quarantine or isolation camp the latrines should be of the dry earth system. Carbolic acid powder should be largely used in them. The question of suitable disposal of sewage depends on the circumstances of each town or village, but incineration is the most sanitary method during an epidemic. Other disinfectants too, such as Jey’s Fluid, Creoline, Phenyle, Izal, Sanitas, may also be used.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           

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