Suggestions for the Sick-Room in Winter
IN a case of contagious disease it is well to hang a sheet wet with a disinfectant across the outer side of the sick-room doors; this serves to prevent, as far as possible, the spread of the germs into the household. For a similar reason, food brought into the sick-room, and not consumed by the patient, should be burned immediately. Many a new case of the disease has developed through carelessness in this particular; and patients convalescing from diphtheria or typhoid have been reinfected, and suffered dangerous relapse, from the same cause. This could not happen if knowledge were wider spread that food, milk, drinking water, etc., offer ready hospitality to bacteria of every sort, allowing them to breed and multiply upon their surface. Greater care should be exercised not alone in destroying every remnant of food carried from the sick-room, but also in thoroughly scalding every piece of glass, silver, or china used there, before allowing it to come in contact with the rest of the household supply. When rain, snow, or a fierce wind forbids the usual opening of a window to admit fresh air, the following plan will be found feasible: Raise the lower sash to any desired height, and stretch a breadth of flannel, a little longer than the width of the window, across the open space, using thumb-tacks to fasten it to the window-frame and casement. Where a sick-room is warmed by furnace or steam heat, a large sponge should hang directly in front of the register or radiator. Saturated with clean water three or four times every day, the evaporation will supply the moisture required to render healthful air that has been scorched or superheated. In this connection it is well to remember that a few drops of creosote, eucalyptus, or any resinous oil occasionally poured upon the wet sponge will afford great relief for the difficult breathing or the distressing cough accompanying a diseased or inflammatory condition of the respiratory organs. There are various patented appliances for warming the freshly made bed, in order to take away its chill in cold weather. As effective as any of these is the simple plan of folding back the upper coverlets, and ironing the lower sheet back and forth several times with a hot iron. To keep the bed warm, no device is better than hot-water bottles.—Selected.