DISINFECTION AND DISINFECTANTS. 215 



humanity who see in calamities only opportunity for 

 hcense and profit!* But with a courage born of 

 knowledge, and with the consciousness of power which 

 the former inspires, we fight a scourge as we would a 

 ruthless foe. 



The weapons used against infectious diseases are 

 disinfectants and insecticides, weapons which in our 

 own generation have made in civilized communities 

 ''plagues" impossible. Indeed, were it not for the 

 indifference displayed by the public towards sanitary 

 science in not providing its health officers with ample 

 resources and authority, many prevailing infectious 

 diseases, such as tuberculosis, typhoid fever, etc., would 

 be far less common, and would year by year claim fewer 

 victims, until they too would in time come to be spoken 

 of as belonging to the horrors of another age. 



Often, in omitting the enforcement of sanitary 

 measures, physicians and nurses seem callous to the 

 public weal, a negligence due no doubt to lack of 

 encouragement from the patient's family. Yet who 

 are in better positions to dam at their source the springs 

 of disease ? In every infection the patient is an incuba- 

 tor, as it were, for pathogenic microbes, which leave 

 his body by definite channels in the excretions and 

 secretions. If these discharges are not immediately 

 made innocuous, there is the probability that the infec- 

 tion will be spread. The task of disinfecting any 

 ♦See Walter Reed and Yellow Fever, by H. A. Kelly. 



