THE TREATMENT OF DIPHTHERIA. 575 



report of the City Health Officers of St, Louis, who have just completed investi- 

 gation in the neighborhood. The report of the Philadelphia Board of Health is 

 as follows : 



Recent investigations having proved that the poison of diphtheria is portable, 

 communicable by infection, and capable of reproducing itself outside of the 

 human body, diphtheria must now be ranked as both a contagious and infectious 

 disease. The following rules are, therefore, more imperative than ever before : 



1. When a child or young person has a sore throat, a bad odor to its breath, 

 and especially if it has a fever, it should immediately be separated and kept 

 secluded from all other persons except necessary attendants, until it be ascertained 

 whether or not it has diphtheria or some other communicable disease. 



2. Every person to be sick with diphtheria should be promptly and effectually 

 isolated from the public. Only those persons who are actually necessary should 

 have charge of or visit the patient, and these visitors should be restricted in their 

 intercourse with other individuals. Children residing in a house where there is a 

 case of d^phth^ria should not be permitted to attend school. 



3. When a case of diphtheria is fully developed, the same precautions in re- 

 gard to free ventilation, disposal and disinfection of discharges, bed or body hnen, 

 etc , isolated during convalescence (or management of the corpse, should death 

 unfortunately occur), etc., etc., ought to be enforced which have already been 

 recommended in regard to small-pox. 



4. It is particularly important that persons whose throats are tender or sore 

 from any cause should avoid possible exposure from the contagion of diphtheria. 

 Children under ten years of age are in much greater danger of taking the disease, 

 and after they do take it of dying from it, than are grown persons. But adults 

 are not exempt, and mild cases in them may cause whole series of fatal attacks 

 among children. 



5. Numerous instances are recorded where the contagion has retained its 

 virulence for weeks or months, in cesspools, heaps of decaying vegetable matter, 

 damp walls, etc., and been carried for long distances in clothing, in sewers, in 

 waste pipes from stationary wash stands, and in other conduits. Hence all sewer 

 connections and other carriers of filth should be well ventilated and disinfected, 

 and children particularly should not be allowed to breathe the air of any water 

 closet, cesspool or sewer into which discharges from patients sick with diphthe- 

 ria have entered, nor to drink water or milk which has been exposed to such 

 air. 



6. Beware of any person who has a sore throat ; do not kiss such a person 

 or take his or her breath ; do not drink from the same cup, blow the same whistle, 

 nor put his pencil or pen into your mouth. 



7. Do not wear nor handle clothing which has been worn by a person dur- 

 ing sickness or convalescence from diphtheria. 



