When a child is to be released from the sick-room, bathe it carefully with soaped warm water, washing out the hair and under the finger-nails carefully. Then wet a towel with the disinfectant (the acid bichloride of mercury,--a { 193} teaspoonful to a gallon of water) and go over the body with it; afterward rinse with ordinary water. Do not let the disinfectant enter the child's mouth or eyes. Next, without allowing the child to touch anything in the room, especially avoiding the door-knob, send it to another room and dress it in clothing that has not been near the sick-room. If, after this process, other children are infected, the explanation is that the child had been released too soon--before the bacillus had disappeared.
It commonly happens that a child has been going about the house for some days before a physician has been called in. In that event you have the house to disinfect. You must then wet with bichloride everything the child has touched, and boil all eating utensils.
As to the disinfection of the room and its contents: the irritation of diphtheria causes a large quantity of saliva to flow from the patient's mouth; this infected saliva runs down upon the pillows and soaks into them. It may also soak into the mattress. If a town has a steam disinfecting plant, there is no trouble in dealing with bedding and carpets after diphtheria and other contagious diseases; such a plant, however, costs at the least $6000. It is safer, in the absence of steam disinfection, to destroy pillows by fire; but if these are opened and the filling put into tubs or barrels containing two teaspoonfuls of the acid bichloride of mercury to each gallon of water and soaked for about two days they will be safe. The ticking in this case should be boiled in a wash-boiler, and the filling is to be rinsed before drying. The mattress is less liable to infection but it may be infected. If a piece of oil-cloth or rubber sheeting is spread beneath the bed-clothes under the patient and the mattress is kept well covered during the course of the disease, the filling of the tick will most probably be not infected. The loss of a good feather or hair mattress is considerable in the house of a poor man, and these often may be saved. To disinfect the surface of a mattress place it on chairs in a small room or in a closet and pour upon a cloth under it 500 cc. of formalin for each 1000 cubic feet of air-space in the room or closet--multiply the length by the height by { 194} the width of the room or closet to get the cubic feet of air-space. Leave the room or closet shut tightly for twenty-four hours. The Trenner-Lee formaldehyde disinfector is a good apparatus for disinfecting. The smaller size costs twenty-five dollars.