COMMON COMMUNICABLE DISEASES. 
example. Insufficient or poor food is given as 
another cause favoring the development of the 
disease. When one of these causes, or several 
of them, weaken the structure, power of re¬ 
sistance is lessened, and when the germs gain 
an entrance we fall an easy prey to the ravages 
of the disease, if they are not sought after and 
driven out at an early stage. 
The duties of the nurse when caring for a 
tubercular patient are to thoroughly disinfect all 
sputa, cleanse and disinfect all sputa cups, and to 
destroy by tire all dressings used on tubercular 
wounds. Many physicians demand that sputa he 
burned also, and special sputa cups are now in 
use with a detachable water-proof lining made of 
a sort of pasteboard. These linings are put up in 
packages which come with each sputa cup. They 
are easily slipped in and out and are changed 
several times a day. They are burned immediate¬ 
ly on removal from the cup. Bed and personal 
clothing (particularly handkerchiefs) must be 
treated to a bath of boiling water or well soaked 
in a good disinfectant solution before placing in 
the general wash. While tubercular patients are 
not isolated in the same sense in which scarlet 
fever or diphtheria patients are, they should oc¬ 
cupy separate bedrooms and the use by others 
of a tubercular patient’s dishes should be discour¬ 
aged. 
Keep your patient out of doors in the fresh air 
and sunshine as much as possible. “Out of doors 
all the time, and sleep and eat in the open air in a 
proper climate” is getting more and more to be 
the prescribed treatment. To which is added as 
indispensable, plenty of nourishing, easily-digest- 
57 
Early 
Precautions. 
Fresh Air 
Treatment. 
