564 Combating Lousiness 
been returned to the clean side of the office through the return chute. 
The men, when assembled, now leave the building by the exit door on 
the clean side. 
Where a station has to deal with men straggling in at irregular 
intervals, provision must be made for their accommodation pending the 
time when it will be convenient to treat them and their effects. This 
eventuality is considered in the diagram (Fig. 26) wherein is shown a 
passage leading from the waiting room on the unclean side to a room 
marked dormitory. Such a room is also necessary in conjunction with any 
hospital or other institution (poor house infirmary, etc.) that is liable 
to receive verminous inmates at odd times or persons that have to be 
provisionally isolated. 
Where a station has to deal with wounded, sick, or indigent poor, 
the diagram shows the procedure that should be followed before they are 
admitted to the wards. In small institutions, the various apartments 
(assuming that the diagram were the plan of a building) must be taken 
as merely representing stages in the process of ridding the newcomers of 
vermin. Wounded soldiers would be received in the waiting room or 
rooms provided with stretchers or seats, and, after being classified, would 
be passed on to the undressing room and thence to the bathroom, both 
being provided with suitable requisites. The patient passes thence to 
the operating room or ward. In many cases, naturally, the complete 
lousing of the wounded and sick cannot be carried out, and makeshift 
methods are all that can be applied, due precautions being taken that 
the patients shall not spread lice by accommodating them, when 
practicable, in special quarters. 
General matters relating to the plan of lousing stations. It is desirable, 
when possible, (a) that the floors should be impervious 1 and the corners 
of the rooms rounded to facilitate their being kept clean by the frequent 
washing down that is necessary; ( h ) that a good light should reach all 
parts of the buildings and especially the inspection room; (c) that the 
heating be adequate, particularly in the apartments where the men are 
stripped and perhaps obliged to remain waiting; (d) that the doors should 
open only in one direction so that those who enter are obliged to proceed 
only one way, i.e. from the unclean toward the clean side, by successive 
stages (as indicated in Fig. 26), this being secured by placing the handles 
of doors on one side only (Uhlenhnth and Olbrich’s suggestion). 
In Fig. 26 the disinfesting department is figured as a simple chamber 
opening into two apartments on the unclean and clean sides respectively 
1 Wooden floors should be treated as described on p. 570. 
