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change her clothes. The food should be brought to the door 
and left outside, and practically all communication with other 
members of the household stopped. During convalescence the 
whole body should be anointed with an oil twice daily in order 
that the peeling skin may adhere to the clothes and not float 
about in the air. When the peeling is completed the patient 
should be bathed and put into clean clothes outside the room. 
All clothing that can be boiled is steeped in water containing 
some disinfectant. Mattresses and such like removed and sub- 
jected to a temperature of at least 240°. The room closed and 
sulphur burnt, whereupon the air becomes laden with the 
poisonous fumes of sulphurous acid. The paper on the wall 
should be scraped, and the whole woodwork washed. Such is 
shortly the means which must be employed if a patient is to be 
treated successfully in his own home. These and many other 
minor directions must be carried out with the utmost strictness, 
as the neglect of a single simple precaution may result in failure 
and the spread of the disease. 
The vast majority of the cases of Scarlet Fever occur in houses 
where such rigid precautions are out of the question. Consider the 
case of a working man’s cottage; his large family and few 
rooms; the danger to all the children; the saturation with 
the poison of the clothing of all the other inhabitants ; in many 
cases the children that are well attending school, or attending 
while yet they or their clothes are in a highly infectious condi- 
tion. What avails though the schoolroom be smoked, scrubbed 
and whitewashed. A sense of security may be imparted to 
minds easily satisfied with some such endeavour. But the 
danger is unseen, and all the more to be dreaded because unseen. 
Then the parents attend their work clad in the garments which 
they wear while nursing their infectious children. Brought as they 
are into contact in the shop, in the street, in the mill with others, 
can you wonder at the spread of infection ? Supposing strict means 
are adopted by these people to prevent the spread of infection— 
and I must say many are anxious and willing so to do, what 
is the result 2? A wage earner has to stop work to nurse. The 
child is placed in the smallest and most unhealthy room, and 
kept there for six or seven weeks. How can such a child with 
success pull through a dangerous illness and a wearing con- 
valescence under such adverse circumstances? Then after 
taking these precautions, which are often in vain—one or more 
of the children take ill and are nursed in the already over- 
stocked chamber and their chances of recovery are distinctly 
lessened. How difficult it is for the mother and father to sub- 
mit to this seclusion and the incurring of this extra danger in 
order to safeguard the public, I leave it to you to imagine. 
Many do it, and ill-health to their children is the result. I ask 
