Mother, Nurse and Infant / A Manual Especially Adapted for the Guidance of Mothers and Monthly Nurses, Comprising Full Instruction in Regard To Pregnancy, Preparation for Child-birth, and the Care of Mother and Child, and Designed to Impart so Much Knowledge of Anatomy, Physiology, Midwifery, and the Proper Use of Medicines as Will Serve Intelligently to Direct the Wife, Mother and Nurse in All Emergencies.

by S. P. Sackett

When a disease is known to be very contagious and dangerous, especial care is necessary to avoid contact on the part of patients and nurses with outsiders. All superfluous things must be taken out of the room before the patient is put into it, and care will be necessary continually to make the quarantine effectual. Every article carried out of the sick room must be disinfected; a set of dishes should be kept for the patient’s exclusive use, washed only by the nurse; the bedding, clothing, &c., must be washed by the nurses themselves, after being soaked in a disinfecting solution; dressings and other cloths, such as old cloths used for handkerchiefs, may be burned; all excrementitious and vomited matter must be disinfected; the broom that is used to sweep the room must not be used elsewhere; no current of air must be permitted to pass from the sick room to the rest of the house; and it is well also to hang about the room cloths wet with some disinfectant solution; hang over the doorway a sheet similarly disinfected; and the nurse should cover her head with a close cap.

Lest the confinement and isolation make the nurse sick she must take care of her own health. Two nurses should be employed for every such case, so that neither may be obliged to sleep in the same room with the patient, and each should change her clothes and go out of doors for a time every day and take a brisk walk in the open air.

The ventilation is of especial importance in contagious diseases, as no disinfection can render the air entirely pure. To prevent the infectious particles that are thrown off the skin in cases like small pox and scarlet fever, from polluting the air of the room, the clothes should be frequently changed, and the patient’s body be washed and anointed with some ointment.

Charcoal placed about the room in shallow vessels does some good by means of its property of absorbing gas; and solutions of carbolic acid, chloride of lime, soda, and zinc are germicides, but the chief use of the carbolic acid family is where suppuration is going on, to prevent the spread of septic infection. It is also a means of disinfection perhaps, if the spray is used in malarial disease. Condy’s fluid and sulphate of iron are used as antiseptics, but these stain clothing.

Chlorine should not be used with sulphuric acid, or carbolic acid.

Either copperas or chloride of lime may be thrown dry into water closets. A little disinfectant should be kept standing in all sputa cups, urinals, and bedpans, and in cases of typhoid, and cholera, the stools must be carefully disinfected. These diseases are not only directly infectious, but the germs in the discharges may multiply and spread the disease. Cover the bottom of receiving vessels for stools with copperas or chloride of lime, and after use add crude hydrochloric or sulphuric acids in quantity equal to half the bulk of the discharge. Cover closely and carry from the room, and empty into a trench prepared to receive them, at a distance from the water supply, and all clothing and bedding soiled by the discharges must be disinfected and boiled.

After a case is ended the room must be subjected to a cleaning and fumigation. Everything that can be so treated should be either boiled or subjected to a heat of 220° in a disinfecting oven. Rubber sheets and aprons may be cleaned with bichloride solution, and the floors, woodwork, and perhaps the walls should also be washed with a solution of bichloride of Mercury. While the room is being fumigated, drawers and closets should be open and things not thoroughly disinfected should be hung up in it. A good way to fumigate the room is to burn sulphur in it, but you may evolve chlorine from common salt in the following way: Mix an equal bulk of common salt and black oxide of manganese in a shallow earthen dish, add two pints of sulphuric acid previously diluted with two pints of water, and stir with a stick. It is best in using this to have also steam in the room.

To fumigate a room have the doors, windows, and fireplace closed, and paste paper carefully over the cracks. If sulphur is used put it in iron pans, allowing two pounds to every thousand cubic feet of space; set the pans on brick, so that they will not burn the floor; pour a little alcohol on the sulphur and ignite, then leave the room quickly so that you do not breathe the gas; paste up the door when you go out; keep it closed for twenty-four hours, then open all the windows and let the room air.

Those directing the disinfection should always remember the bleaching and corroding power of chlorine and sulphurous acid gas.

When a patient has died from any infectious disease the body should be washed in some disinfectant solution, or soap should be used containing bichloride of mercury, and a sheet should be wrapped around the body wet with the same. Saturate also a large wad of cotton with it and leave it under the hips. The burial should be soon and private in these cases.