MAN AND THE MICROBE 19 



shaking, by the use of common drinking cups and the like. The careful 

 consumptive, who guards others from his sputum and mouth spray and 

 infected utensils, is no menace to his family and friends. 



The essential point is that the discharges of the patient and all 

 objects soiled thereby should be freed from living germs before they 

 infected others. This is no easy task, as you will realize if you seriously 

 try to carry it out. The common cold offers an excellent opportunity 

 for a practical study of the problem. The next time some member of 

 your family has a cold in the head, try to prevent its spreading further, 

 and you will be surprised to note in how many ways discharges may be 

 interchanged. If we seriously wish to prevent the further spread of 

 infection from a case of communicable disease, an elaborate series of 

 precautions must be taken. The dishes and spoons and forks used by 

 the patient should be kept separate until they have been boiled. Hand- 

 kerchiefs, towels and bed linen must be treated in the same way. A 

 special wash basin should be set aside for the patient and faucets should 

 be handled by him, not with the hand just to be cleaned, but with the 

 interposition of a bit of paper. The hands of those who touch the 

 patient or touch objects he has recently handled should be at once 

 washed with some simple disinfectant like eighty per cent, alcohol. The 

 mouths of the patient and of those in attendance on him should be kept 

 as free as possible from infection by frequent gargling with a mild anti- 

 septic, such as a mixture of one part of hydrogen peroxide, two of lis- 

 terine and six of water. 



The recognition that objects which have been in immediate contact 

 with sick persons or carriers are the important, and the only important, 

 sources of danger, has quite revolutionized our older ideas of disinfec- 

 tion. As Dr. Chapin, the pioneer in this field has pointed out, the dis- 

 infection of the general air and the surfaces of a room by formaldehyde 

 is a burning of incense to the false gods of pre-scientific sanitation. He 

 describes the doctor who comes into the sick room, sits chatting on the 

 bed, puts a spoon in the patient's mouth, then handles it by the infected 

 end, leaves it on the table, deposits some of the material he has smeared 

 on his hand on the door handle and the rest on the faucet as he turns 

 it to wash his hands; and attempts to atone for his sanitary sins by 

 placing a bowl of so-called chlorides (which have about the disinfectant 

 action of tap water) under the bed, and at the end of the attack by 

 performing the sacrificial rite of the formaldehyde candle. As a matter 

 of fact, the prevention of contact infection during the illness with imme- 

 diate disinfection of excreta, soiled linen and the like, is a thousand 

 times more important than any terminal disinfection after death or 

 recovery. At the end of the illness there will be left on woodwork or 

 furniture only an insignificant number of living virulent germs. If any 

 do persist, they may be removed by a cleaning-up with hot water, soap 



