160 OF DETECTING DISEASE 



present or not in any given specimen, the only safe 

 course is to condemn all water rich in dissolved and 

 suspended 'organic matter, and to subject all doubtful 

 specimens to the action of Condy's fluid, boiling and 

 filtration, before its use is permitted. 



Various kinds of food afford a nidus for disease 

 germs. Articles of diet should never be kept in the 

 sick room longer than necessary, and the healthy 

 should never be permitted to partake of food which 

 had been left for some time exposed to the air of the 

 sick room. ' In milk and weak soup it is probable 

 some disease germs might retain their vitality for a 

 length of time, and perhaps in warm weather grow 

 and multiply to a great extent ; and although a 

 number of persons might perhaps take these fluids 

 with impunity, or be in other ways exposed to the 

 influence of disease germs, the probability that but 

 one here and there would be attacked, renders the 

 slightest carelessness on the part of the attendants 

 highly culpable, and deserving of severe punish- 

 ment. 



As is well known, the poison of scarlet fever, small- 

 pox, and some other contagious diseases, may be 

 retained for a length of time, in a living state, in the 

 clothes of the sick, in the bedding, hangings, furniture, 

 on the paper of the walls, and even in the floor, of the 

 sick room. It is probable that in these cases the 

 living germs are embedded in a portion of the 

 poisonous matter itself or the secretion in which it 



