There can be no doubt that where a machine is not required to be constantly at work gas is the cheapest and most convenient heat-producer that we have.
It is of course necessary that the infected bedding and clothing should be fetched from the owners’ houses in such a manner as will lessen the risk of spreading infection as much as possible, and for this purpose it is necessary for the local authority to keep a covered hand-cart which should be lined with tin and closed hermetically. It should be sufficiently large to take a mattrass, and be of light construction, so that one man can draw it when full.
Before concluding my remarks on disinfection, it is well to state that plenty of carbolic acid should be kept in a mortuary. Sheets saturated with carbolic acid are used to wrap around the dead bodies of infected persons, and sawdust saturated with carbolic acid is also freely used, besides large quantities of that excellent disinfectant, “Sanitas.”
[245] Vide ‘A Supplementary Report on the Results of a Special Enquiry into the Practice of Interments in Towns,’ by Edwin Chadwick, 1843.
[246] There is no law that can compel any one to receive a dead body into his house.
[247] It is important to remove the idea of a “parish dead-house,” otherwise its object will be defeated, as persons will object to allow the bodies of their deceased friends to be taken to it.