Contagion is communicated sometimes with the utmost ease, if the new victim be in a receptive condition, and in the presence of any disease, even the most simple, it is well to take every precaution. The mucous surfaces are peculiarly ready to absorb infection of many kinds. Measles is easily absorbed from pocket handkerchiefs, as are also scarlet fever, whooping-cough and other diseases. By inhalation through the nostrils or mouth, scarlet fever, measles, whooping-cough, mumps, diphtheria, dysentery, cholera and even pneumonia and meningitis may be communicated. By eating or drinking something which contains the germs of cholera, typhoid, malaria, tuberculosis or consumption, diphtheria and scarlet fever, these diseases are communicated.
HOW TO PREVENT CONTAGION
It is an undoubted fact that not enough attention is paid to isolation in times of sickness. There is too much visiting in the sick room, too many people share the care of the patient, the nurse mingles too freely with other members of the family, and there is not enough care to keep the soiled bedding, garments and refuse of the sick room absolutely separated from that of the rest of the house. Scarlet fever is a noteworthy instance of a disease which constantly spreads by carelessness. Just as long as the scaling or shedding of the outer skin continues contagion may be carried, for it is these scales which bear it. It is nothing less than criminal, therefore, to permit the patient who is recovering to mix with other persons, except those who have been caring for him already. In the early stages of the disease the infection is chiefly in the breath, and in the secretion of the nostrils. During the disease pocket handkerchiefs should never be used, soft linen or cotton rags being substituted and immediately burned.
Most of the same things are true as to measles, whooping-cough, mumps and German measles, which are constantly spread by sheer carelessness because people do not realize the obligation resting upon them to guard others from contact with disease. These ailments are highly infectious before they are certainly recognized, and for that reason it is not possible always to isolate cases in time, but at least after the fact is clearly understood there should be no further carelessness.
Another prevalent disease in which carelessness is responsible for much of its spreading is tuberculosis, phthisis, or consumption, as it is more familiarly known. It is not possible yet to isolate every person suffering with this insidious disease, nor is that suggested. But at least it may be urged that every such sufferer shall thoughtfully guard in every way in his power against communicating it to his own neighbors and family. The bacilli, or bacteria, of consumption swarm in the spittle of the patient, and are diffused by the wind as dust as soon as they are dried. To guard against infection from this cause, spittoons should be used, which can be absolutely disinfected, or cloths which can be promptly burned.
Smallpox is perhaps the most infectious of diseases. Yet in vaccination we have a means of protection which we have not in any other. As long as a large unvaccinated population exists, however, we shall have epidemics from time to time. Before the introduction of vaccination nearly everyone had smallpox, just as now almost all persons have measles at some time or other. The heaviest mortality occurred within the first five or ten years of life, the deaths in later periods being very few, since the population had mostly been rendered immune by having had it already.
Measles is a well-defined disease, intensely infectious, occurring but once in a lifetime. It is very rarely fatal, nearly all the deaths credited to it being really due to bronchitis and inflammation of the lungs, the results of neglect and exposure to cold. No age is exempt. The only reason why it is looked on as a disease of childhood is that being in the highest degree infectious from the beginning, when its nature is not suspected, few children in the schools can hope to escape it, but if by chance they do, they are just as susceptible to it in afterlife.
Whooping-cough is a highly infectious disease, occurring but once in a lifetime, but at any age, though most frequently in childhood. The frequent belief that children suffering from whooping-cough should be as much as possible in the open air is an entirely mistaken one, as it leads not only to continuing the disease longer, but to danger of bronchitis and pneumonia. As in diphtheria and scarlet fever the mucus is the chief vehicle of contagion, and pocket handkerchiefs should be forbidden, pieces of soft rag being substituted and burned as soon as used.
Typhoid or enteric fever is slow and uncertain in its onset, a full month in duration, and the return of health is usually tedious. It is like diphtheria, directly a result of unsanitary conditions. Danger of direct infection from the patient is slight, but the poison remains in the evacuations from the bowels and is propagated by them. By this means a reservoir or river has been known to infect a whole town. Broken or defective drains, the entrance of sewer gas into houses, wells polluted by cesspool drainage, and milk diluted with infected water, are among the principal means of spreading the disease. It is an absolute rule that all bedding which becomes soiled should be destroyed, and the refuse of the sick room should be instantly disinfected and removed from the dwelling.