Form 6. 
Commontocaltfo of Pennaplbanta. 
DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH. 
RULES TO BE OBSERVED IN THE CARE AND 
MANAGEMENT OF CASES OF 
MEASLES AND GERMAN MEASLES. 
Measles is by no means the harmless disease it has been thought 
to be by many people, since it is shown by the statistics of the De- 
partment of Health that in some epidemics more children die from 
Measles than from Scarlet Fever. 
For this reason it is imperative that a physician be summoned and 
every possible effort- made to check the spread of the disease. 
Although German Measles is comparatively a harmless disease, its 
management for every practical purpose should be essentially the 
same as that of Measles. 
The patient should be confined to one well ventilated room, with 
screened windows, preferably with southerly exposure, and as re- 
mote as possible from other occupied rooms in the house. 
This room should be stripped of fancy curtains, carpets and up- 
holstery and all other furniture not necessary for the comfort of the 
occupants. A sheet should be hung over the doorway, from top to 
bottom and kept moist with a poisonous solution of Bichloride of 
Mercury. To prepare this solution dissolve eight (8) Bichloride of 
Mercury tablets in one (1) gallon of water. 
Soiled bed and body clothing, including handkerchiefs and cloths 
used for collection of discharges from the nose and mouth, or soiled 
by vomited matter, should be thoroughly disinfected. This may be 
done by placing in water and boiling for thiry minutes, or by use of 
some one of the following chemical disinfectants: 
Make up disinfecting solutions by adding one-half ounce of 
Chlorinated Lime (Chloride of Lime or Bleaching Powder) to one 
gallon of water, or three teaspoonfuls of Liquor Cresolis Compos- 
itus or three teaspoonfuls of Creolin or eight teaspoonfuls of a 
solution of Formalydehvde (at least 37| per cent.) to a pint of water. 
The solution of Formaldehyde is preferred. 2 
A tub or other vessel containing a sufficient quantity of one of the 
disinfecting solutions should be kept in a convenient place for soak- 
ing bed and body linen. 
Place all such clothing in this vessel immediately upon its re- 
moval from the bed or from the bodv of the patient and allow it to 
soak for at least three hours, after which it should be boiled for one 
hour. 
Do not carry such infected clothing through the house, or store it 
with other soiled material. 
Cloths used for the collection of the discharges from the nose and 
throat should be burned. 
Receptacles containing the Liquor Cresolis Compositus or the 
Formaldehyde Solution should be kept outside the sick room door 
for the reception of plates and eating utensils of all kinds. 
Remnants of food left by the patient should be burned. 
The nurse, or attendant, should not use eating utensils or drinking 
vessels from the siek room nor should she permit others to do so until 
they have been boiled for at least one-half hour. 
A basin or other vessel containing Bichloride of Mercury Solution 
(one tablet to one quart of water), or other good antiseptic solution 
should be kept constantly made up so that the hands may be im- 
mediatelv washed after handling any secretions or clothing from 
the patient. 
None but those aetuallv in attendanee upon the patient should be 
permitted to enter the siek room or come in contact with the patient. 
The nurse or attendant should wear only washable clothing with a 
protective covering for the hair. When released from the sick 
room, she should take a disinfecting bath of Bichloride of Mercury, 
1 to 4.000. made bv dissolving two (2) Bichloride of Mercury tablets 
in everv gallon of hot water used. Be sure to disinfect the hair and 
scalp with the same solution. This should be followed by a plain 
soar* and water bath. 
The air of the sick room cannot be disinfected during its occupancy 
by the patient. 
The practice of hanging up cloths saturated with carbolic acid or 
placing saucers of Chlorinated Lime or proprietary disinfectants in 
the sick room is not only annoying to the patient, but utterly use- 
less and often injurious. 
An abundance of fresh air should be admitted to the room, but 
the patient should be proteced from direct draughts. 
Individual milk bottles should not be taken into or removed from 
the premises during the existence of the disease. 
The householder should set a vessel out to receive the milk, and the 
person delivering the milk should pour it into such vessel without 3 
touching it with his hand or with the vessel from which the milk is 
poured. 
When premises from which milk is sold are quarantined for 
Measles or German Measles, the sale of milk from such premises can 
be continued only when the patient is carefully isolated. 
Those engaged in the production of milk or milk products, or in the 
cleansing or care of utensils used for this purpose, must be required 
to keep out of the sick room and entirely away from the infected 
individual until a certificate of recovery has been issued by the 
physician in charge, and a certificate of disinfection has been granted 
bv the Health Officer. 
When in the opinion of the attending physician the patient has re- 
covered, and with the expiration of the period of quarantine, the 
patient should be given a disinfecting bath under the direction of 
the physician, especial attention being paid to the disinfection of the 
hair and scalp. 
The antiseptic bath may be prepared by dissolving two 12) Bi- 
chloride of Mercury tablets in every gallon of hot water used. This 
should be followed by a plain soap and water bath. 
After bathing, the patient should be wrapped in a clean sheet 
handed from without, step into a non-infected room and dress in 
clothing which has been disinfected. 
As disinfecting agents are poisonous when taken internally, such 
drugs and solutions should always be plainly labelled and kept out 
of the reach of children. 
After the removal of the patient, the sick room and evervhing it 
contains MUST BE DTSTNFEOTED BY FORMALDEHYDE GAS. 
(This disinfection must be done by the Department’s Health Officer.) 
His certificate is required for re-entrance to school. The bed and 
body clothing should be disinfected by boiling or should be soaked 
for three hours in one of the antiseptic solutions alreadv described. 
Such articles as are not of great value should be burned; for instance, 
inexpensive books and playthinars. 
The wage earner is allowed, under modified quarantine, to continue 
work provided he at no time comes in contact with the patient or 
those having the care of the patient, and that he has a room entirely 
separated from the patient and those attending the same, as provided 
in instructions on isolation. Tn permitting householders and wage 
earners to continue work when cases of Measles or German Measles 
appear upon the premises, the greatest care should be taken to pre- 
vent the carrying of the infection and such a person shall not be em- 
ployed in an establishment in which is conducted the production, sale 
or manufacture of fabrics, wearing apparel, upholstered furniture, 
bedding, food stuffs, cigars, cigarettes, candy, etc. If so employed 4 
he should leave the premises after taking an antiseptic bath and hav- 
ing his clothing disinfected and thereafter remain away from the 
premises up to the time of the recover of the last patient and the 
disinfection of the household. (The Health Officer will issue permit 
cards to wage earners and adults from the household under the above 
conditions.) 
The period of quarantine in cases of measles or German measles 
shall be twenty-one days from the date of onset, but no case shall be 
released from quarantine until the physician has certified in writing 
that the patient is well and that nasal irritation and ear discharges 
have healed. 
The Act of May 14, 1909, requires health authorities to place a 
warning placard, in a conspicuous place, on all premises where 
Measles or German Measles exists. 
SAMUEL G. DIXON, 
Commissioner of Health. 
Revised July 1, 1911. 
Section 6. No child or other person suffering from Measles or German Measles or 
residing in the same premises with any person suffering therefrom shall be permitted 
to attend any public, private, parochial, Sunday or other school, and the principals, 
superintendents and teachers or other persons in charge of private, parochial, Sun- 
day or other similar schools are hereby required to exclude any and all such children 
or persons from said schools, such exclusion to continue during a quarantine period 
of twenty-one days and until the said quarantine is removed and the premises disin- 
fected, provided, however, that any child or person who may have been exposed to 
said disease, owing to an outbreak thereof in the premises in which he or she resides 
but who shall not have developed the same shall be allowed, after taking a disinfect- 
ing bath and putting on disinfected clothing, to remove therefrom and take up his or 
her residence in other premises occupied exclusively by adults, and may after four- 
teen days from such removal be admitted into any of said schools. 
Section 24. Any person who shall remove, deface, cover up, or destroy, or cause 
to be removed, defaced, covered up, or destroyed, any placard relating to any of 
the diseases mentioned in Section Two of this Act, shall, for any such offense, upon 
conviction thereof in a summary proceeding before any magistrate or justice of the 
peace of the county wherein such offense was committed, be sentenced to pay a fine 
of not less than ten ($10) dollars, or more than one hundred ($100) dollars, to be 
paid to the use of said county, or to be imprisoned in the county jail for a period of 
not less than ten days or more than thirty days, or both, at the discretion of the 
court: and any person who shall violate any of the quarantine restrictions imposed 
by this Act, the rules and regulations of the health authorities of any city, borough 
or township of the first class, or of the State Department of Health, or who shall 
interfere with the said health authorities or agents thereof in the discharge of his or 
their duties as provided for in this Act, shall for every such offense, upon conviction 
thereof in a summary proceeding before any magistrate or justice of the peace of the 
county wherein such offense was committed, be sentenced to pay a fine of. not less 
than fifty ($50) dollars, or more than one hundred ($100) dollars, to he paid to the 
use of the said county, or to he imprisoned in the county jail for a period of not less 
than ten or more than thirty days, or both, at the discretion of the court. 
ACT OF MAY 14, 1909.