29 
very air of the room in which he lies may be laden with poison. 
The garments of those that attend on him become saturated 
with infection, and their association in these clothes with others 
is apt to disseminate it. 
Naturally you will say there are a great number of materials, 
solid, liquid, and gaseous, which we have been taught to believe 
were invaluable for the prevention of such diseases. And no 
doubt there are, but then everything depends on the way they 
are used. Asa matter of fact disinfectants, as commonly used, 
serve two purposes, the first, as a rule, ineffectual, the destruc- 
tion of infectious matter, and the second, as a rule, very effectual, 
the satisfaction of many minds in imagining that the infection is 
being thoroughly destroyed. For in the vast majority of cases 
it is but the allaying of fears and the neglect of danger. It is 
beautiful to see the trust most people repose in the distribution 
of saucers full of Condy’s fluid. Thereby, as they fondly 
imagine, the foul enemy of infection is exorcised. Truly the 
few germs that may tumble into the saucer may possibly not 
survive. Or again, if the disinfecting agent be possessed of more 
aggressive qualities and manifest its presence by disagreeable 
smells, thereby upsetting the digestion of all and sundry, 
surely it is reasoned such powerful odours that affect us so much 
must to a certainty destroy those excessively minute beings 
whose corporeal structure is invisible to us. Then there are the 
class of minds who believe in potency of sweet smelling sub- 
stances, and think that in the fumes of perfumed pastilles there 
lurks the deadly poison for invisible germs. But, alas, all is 
vanity. 
I wish to enforce upon you the tact that all disinfectants must 
be of a considerable strength before they become operative. 
Because a room may smell strongly of many of the volatile dis- 
infectants, be it chloride of lime, carbolic acid or sulphurous acid, 
it is insufficient for the destruction of these infecting germs. 
The odour from any volatile substance rapidly diffuses through 
the air, although the amount actually used is infinitesimal. It 
follows therefore that the patient and the room in spite of all 
precautions must always be in a highly infectious condition. 
The methods commonly employed in houses to meet the 
difficulties in such cases are as follows: A room is selected at 
the top of the house—an attic preferably. A curtain is hung 
outside the door kept saturated with some disinfecting material, 
in order that the air, which may at times escape from the room, 
may be roughly filtered. The room is stripped of all objects save 
those of actual necessity, and those that are left must be capable 
of sustaining great heat either in a hot chamber or by boiling. 
The patient must be attended on by one who does not mix with 
other members of the family, aud who when she goes out should 
