Progress and Achievements of the Colored People / Containing the Story of the Wonderful Advancement of the Colored Americans—the Most Marvelous in the History of Nations—Their Past Accomplishments, Together With Their Present-day Opportunities and a Glimpse Into the Future for Further Developments—the Dawn of a Triumphant Era. A Handbook for Self-improvement Which Leads to Greater Success

by Kelly Miller; Joseph R. Gay

CARE OF THE SICK ROOM

Although it is quite possible that few may be able to follow every instruction or precaution advised to guard against the spread of diseases, we may at least outline the conditions to be aimed at and secured as nearly as possible. In spite of the additional labor that it makes, the ideal place for a sick room in a private house is as far from the ground as possible. To be of any service at all isolation must be real and complete. A room should be selected in the topmost story, the door kept closed, a fire, large or small, according to the weather, kept burning, and the windows open as much as possible. Even in the winter this can be done without danger under most circumstances by lowering the upper sash and breaking the draught by a blind or a screen. The staircase and hall windows should be kept open day and night. The other inmates of the house should keep their own rooms thoroughly ventilated. The persons nursing the patient should on no account mix with other members of the family, or if that cannot be helped they should take off their dresses in the sick room, and after washing their hands and faces, put on other dresses kept hanging outside the room, or in an adjoining apartment.

All dishes used in the room should be washed separately, and not with others in the kitchen. The room itself, except in case of measles and whooping-cough, the poison of which does not retain its vitality for any length of time, should be as scantily furnished as possible, containing nothing which can retain infection. All woolen carpets, curtains and bed hangings should be removed, and only wooden or cane-bottomed chairs kept. There should be no sofa, and iron bedsteads are better than wood. A straw mattress of little value, which may be destroyed afterwards, is better than a hair one, which can be disinfected, but feather beds and such coverings should be absolutely forbidden.

In scarlet fever, diphtheria, smallpox and typhoid, all soiled clothing and bedding should be immediately put into an earthenware vessel, containing a solution of corrosive sublimate (one drachm to a gallon of water) and left to soak for some hours before being washed. On being taken from this disinfecting solution they must, even at risk of spoiling flannels, be thrown into boiling water and boiled for some minutes before soaping and washing. No infected clothes should, under any circumstances, be sent out of the house, unless all of these precautions are absolutely guarded.

In cases of typhoid and scarlet fever the vessel which receives the passages from the bowels should have in it a solution of corrosive sublimate or of carbolic acid. The contents then should be stirred with a poker before being poured into the water closet, and the same disinfectant should be sprinkled liberally into the closet.

After the peeling in scarlet fever or the shedding of scabs in smallpox has set in, the patient should take, at intervals of three or four days, hot baths with soft soap, the hair, previously cut short, being well scrubbed with the same. In scarlet fever and diphtheria the mouth and throat should be frequently sprayed, washed out or gargled with a pretty strong solution of permanganate of potash or a weak one of chlorinated soda.