608 



ANNUAL REGISTER, 1818. 



tions of danger, infection may be 

 frequentlj' prevented by a tempo- 

 rary suspension of respiration. 



" 6. Visitors should not go 

 into an infectious chamber with 

 an empty stomach ; and, in doubt- 

 ful circumstances, on coming 

 out, they should blow from the 

 nose, and spit from the mouth, 

 any infectious poison, which may 

 have been drawn in by the breath, 

 and may adhere to those passages. 

 Jan. 23rd. 1804." 



Heads of a Plan for the Exfermi- 

 7iation of Infectious Fevers. 

 Infectiousfevers occasion much 

 misery and mortality among man- 

 kind: they produce the greatest 

 wretchedness in poor families ; 

 but persons in all ranks of life are 

 in some degree exposed to the 

 danger. This fatal pestilence is 

 most destructive in large towns, 

 but it often spreads in country 

 villages for months and even 3fears 

 together. The intelligent and 

 benevolent inhabitants of any 

 place may, however, with ease 

 and certainty, preserve their poor 

 neighbours and themselves from 

 infectious fevers and all their 

 calamitous consequences, by 

 forming themselves into a Socie- 

 ty, and by providing a commodi- 

 ous house, or wards for the recep- 

 tion of such patients, and by 

 carrying into effect the following 

 regulations: 



" I. Let a reward of one shil- 

 ling be given to the person who 

 brings the first information to the 

 society, that an infectious fever 

 has attacked anyfamilj'^: let this 

 reward be increased to two shil- 

 lings, if the intelligence be given 

 within three days after the fever 

 first began in the family. 



" II. Let the patient, who is 

 ill of the fever, be removed to 

 the hospital on the day when 

 such information is given. He 

 must be carried in a sedan chair 

 of a peculiar colour, to be em- 

 ployed solely for this purpose, 

 with a moveable linen lining, 

 which is always to be taken out 

 and shaken in the fresh air after 

 it has been used, and to be fre- 

 quently washed : let the sedan be 

 constructed in such a manner, as 

 to lean backward in various de- 

 grees, so that the patients may lie 

 in a recumbent, or half recum- 

 bent posture, as may best suit 

 their strength. A main purpose 

 of the society will be to remove 

 from the infectious house the first 

 patient who is attacked ; and as 

 soon as possible. 



" III. The house, whence the 

 patient is removed to the fever- 

 ward, must be immediately 

 cleansed; and all the dirty clothes, 

 utensils, &c. be immersed in cold 

 water. When the clothes are 

 wrung out of it, they must be ex- 

 changed for a time with clean 

 second-hand clothes, as a shirt 

 for a shirt, a sheet for a sheet, 

 &c. to be supplied by the charit- 

 able society. Every box, drawer, 

 &c. in the infectious house must 

 be emptied and cleansed : — the 

 floor must be swept clean, and 

 then rubbed with a wet cloth or 

 mop; fresh air must be admitted 

 so as to pass through the chamber 

 between a door and a window, 

 the walls must be washed clean 

 where bedaubed with contagious 

 dirt. 



" IV. The clothes received 

 from these poor people, wrun^ 

 out of the cold water, must be 

 again washed in c.old water ; 



that, 



