It is, however, difficult to make sure that personal precautions are fully carried out, and rooms should therefore be subsequently cleaned at least once in six months, the floors being scrubbed with soft soap, the furniture washed, the walls cleaned down with dough, and the ceiling whitewashed.
Confined workshops in which a consumptive has worked for some time should be cleansed, and a notice in reference to spitting should be suspended in all workshops. The latter precaution should also be observed in all public-houses and common lodging houses, both of which require special attention to cleansing.
Disinfection of rooms which have been occupied by consumptive patients may be secured in various ways, but the following are the practical rules which must underlie any methods adopted:—
1. Gaseous Disinfection of Rooms, or “Fumigation,” as it is termed, by whatever method it is practised, is inefficient in such cases.
2. In order to remove and destroy the dried infective discharges, the Disinfectant must be applied directly to the infected surfaces of the room.
3. The Disinfectant may be applied by washing, brushing, or spraying.
4. Amongst other chemical solutions used for this purpose a solution of Chloride of Lime (1 to 2 per cent.) has proved satisfactory and efficient.
5. In view of the well-established fact that it is the dust from dried discharges which is chiefly infective, emphasis must be laid upon the importance of thorough and wet cleansing of infected rooms.
6. Bedding, carpets, curtains, wearing apparel, and all similar articles belonging to or used by the patient, which cannot be thoroughly washed, should be disinfected in an efficient steam disinfector.
7. After all necessary measures of Disinfection have been carried out, the essential principle governing the subsequent control of a case of consumption is that all discharges, of whatever kind (especially expectoration from the lungs), should under no circumstances be allowed to become dry.