176 



SCIENTIFIC NE\A/S. 



[Oct. 1st, If 



CARRIERS OF INFECTION. 



SAID an acquaintance to us the other day, in a very doleful 

 tone ; — " How comes it, that in spite of all precautions, 

 I have twice had infectious diseases occurring in my family 

 within the last twelve months ? I have done everything 

 which you sanitary reformers recommend. I live, as you 

 know, in an open, airy locahty at some distance from any 

 crowded slums or sources of nuisance. The drainage of my , 

 house has been examined by an expert and pronounced to 

 be above suspicion. The water cistern is clean, and is not in 

 any connection with the gases from the soil-pipe. All the 

 plumbers' work about the premises is in good condition. 

 The dust-bin is regularly emptied, and no substances capable 

 of putrefaction are ever thrown into it. We dose the sinks 

 with the most approved disinfectants, whilst as to ventilation 

 and cleanliness my wife is almost too diligent. Yet in spite 

 of thus fulfilling all known duties I have had the measles 

 among my children eight months ago, and the house-maid 

 was even attacked with diphtheria." 



These words reminded us that there are channels of 

 infection less easily cut off than neglected sewers and foul 

 dust-bins, and against which the individual citizen and the 

 public authorities are almost equally powerless. 



To take a case which has been known to happen, and 

 which may recur at any time or in any place. Suppose the 

 courteous reader orders a suit of clothes at his tailor's — 

 whether it may be at the West-end or at the East end it 

 matters little. These garments are, save in exceptional 

 cases, not made up in clean, well-aired work-rooms. The 

 cloth cut out is sent to be sown in the dens of " sweaters " 

 and their victims. There the work is done in close, over- 

 crowded apartments, where the working-tailor and his 

 family sleep, live — and die. 



Your superfine frock-coat may serve to cover the bed of 

 a child sick of small-pox, of scarlet fever, or of any infectious 

 malady. For a full and truthful account of the perils to 

 which public health is exposed through this system, our 

 readers are referred to the late Canon Kingsley's eloquent 

 description in " Alton Locke." But if you smell carefully 

 at a new coat when it has been sent home you cannot doubt 

 but it has been in an exceedingly foul atmosphere. 



One of not the least urgent duties of society is to declare 

 and maintain a war of extermination against the " sweating- 

 system " in the tailors' business. Meantime it is a good pre- 

 caution never to put on a new article of dress as soon as it 

 comes home. Let it hang for a few days exposed to the 

 air. 



Turn we to another of these unsuspected " carriers " of 

 disease and death. Suppose any person above the age of 

 childhood is recovering from some infectious sickness, but 

 is not yet able to go to business. As a pastime the almost 

 universal resource is reading. Books are accordingly pro- 

 cured from the nearest library and are duly devoured. But 

 unfortunately the stage of convalescence is in some diseases, 

 such as small-pox and scarlet fever, precisely the time when 

 the risk of infection is greatest. The books when read are 

 duly returned to the library, to all appearance perfectly 

 clean. They are then lent to other persons, and these latter, 

 if susceptible to that particular infection, find themselves un- 

 accountably taken ill. The doctor asks whether the patient 

 has been at any house where the sickness has occurred, and 

 finds that such is not the case. 



A culpable recklessness is often shown by persons who 

 are in immediate contact with the sick, or even in actual at- 

 tendance upon them. Such persons will often go to shops 

 to purchase articles not immediately necessary ; they will 

 travel in public conveyances, go to church, and in numbers 

 of ways endanger the health of their neighbours. We have 



more than once heard a child whooping violently during 

 morning service at our parish church, to the no small peril 

 of any other children who may be seated near. 



As regards railway-carriages, cabs, tram-cars, etc., the 

 law does interfere if the case is known. But very often 

 the offender is never suspected, and neither precaution nor 

 punishment can be brought to bear. Here the only safe- 

 guard lies in the conscientiousness of the public, which can 

 operate only when the said public becomes more enlightened 

 than at present. Did space allow, we could give the par- 

 ticulars of an instance of this kind which led to at least one 

 death. 



Another mysterious cause of infection is connected with 

 the laundry. In multitudes of families dirty linen is sent 

 out to be washed. The persons who carry on this business 

 are not, as a rule, either aware of, or heedful of, sanitary 

 considerations. The under-garments, bed-linen, etc., of a 

 healthy family may be mixed up with those from a house- 

 hold where some communicable disease prevails. Disinfec- 

 tants are rarely used, and it is by no means certain that 

 disease-germs, if present, will be inevitably destroyed by the 

 hot water and the soap used in washing, or the heat applied 

 in drying. 



But how stand matters if the " week's wash " is not sent 

 out to some public laundry, but attacked at home. This 

 system, in London at least, involves the services of one of 

 those good ladies who go out washing, since the average 

 servant-maid has a soul above soap-suds. 



Now, the professional washerwoman often lives in some 

 unhealthy and overcrowded dwelling. She often carries 

 about her person that peculiar and unpleasant odour of 

 "stuffiness" which tells at once its tale of her habits and 

 surroundings. More than this, she may, for anything you 

 know, have been engaged yesterday in washing the bed- 

 linen of some person who has just died of fever. Hence her 

 visits, like those of the charwoman, are never certainly and 

 absolutely safe. Ninety-nine times she may come and go 

 leaving you unscathed. The hundredth time she may leave 

 you something to be sadly remembered a dozen years to 

 come. 



There is another insidious danger. You find it desirable 

 to remove, and you select one of those newly-built resi- 

 dences, " replete with every modern convenience,'' which 

 are advertised in all the morning papers. Here, surely, you 

 feel safe that you can have had no dirty, careless predeces- 

 sors, and that no morbid matter is at hand ! Or you may 

 find it necessary to repair, alter, or enlarge your house. 

 What danger can be here met with ? So thought lately a 

 nobleman, who caused a new v^ing to be added to his man- 

 sion in the country, chiefly to provide better accommodation 

 for his servants. To the surprise of his lordship, no less 

 than that of his architect and his medical adviser, the new 

 wing proved to be a hospital ! Servant after servant sick- 

 ened of small-pox. This was the more remarkable as no 

 cases of small-pox had occurred in the cottages oh the 

 estate. All the villages for some miles round showed a 

 clean bill of health. Whence, then, the infection ? The 

 villainous contractor who had built the wing, instead of 

 using sound, honest timber, had bought up the woodwork 

 of a number of houses condemned as unsafe, and, after 

 having it planed over, had used it in constructing the wing 

 above-mentioned . 



This, we understand, is no uncommon piece of iniquity, 

 and may serve as a key to not a little unaccountable sickness 

 and death in newly-built houses, where no other channel for 

 the access of infection can be traced. Condemned houses, 

 especially in the older and more disreputable parts of Lon- 

 don, and of other great cities, are likely to have become 

 saturated with infectious matter, and the destruction of all 



