DIPHTHERIA. 
Z BOARD OF HEALtel;' 
32 Pemberton Square, 
Boston, January, 1880. 
The following circular is issued for the purpose of more widely extending the knowledge of a few well 
attested facts concerning Diphtheria, and reminding all persons that greater care should be exercised to prevent 
the spread of this much-dreaded disease. 
Diphtheria is contagious and infectious, and may be easily communicated, either directly or indirectly, from 
person to person. 
It may be conveyed directly in the act of kissing, coughing, spitting, sneezing; or indirectly by infected 
articles used, as towels, napkins, handkerchiefs, etc. 
The poison clings with great tenacity to rooms, houses, articles of furniture and clothing, and may occasion 
the disease, even after the lapse of months. 
Diphtheria attacks all classes, at all ages, and at all seasons of the year. By preference it attacks children 
and those who are debilitated from exposure to filth, dampness, or foul air from whatever' source. 
When a case of Diphtheria occurs in any family, the sick person should be placed in a room apart from the 
other inmates of the house, and should be nursed, as far as possible, by one person only. 
The sick chamber should be well warmed, exposed to sunlight, and well aired; its furniture should be such 
as will permit of cleansing without injury, and all extra articles, such as window and table drapery, woolen 
carpets, upholstered furniture, and all hangings, should be removed from the room during the sickness. 
The physician and nurse, as a rule, should be the only persons admitted to the room. 
Visitors to the infected Jiouse should be warned of the presence of a dangerous disease therein, and children 
especially should not be admitted. 
All clothing removed from the patient or the bed should be at once placed in boiling water or in a tub of 
disinfecting fluid, (8 oz. sulphate zinc, 1 oz. carbolic acid, and 3 gallons water,) by the nurse before being car- 
ried through the house or handled by any other person. They may be soaked in this fluid for an hour and then 
placed in boiling water for boiling. 
It is better not to use handkerchiefs for cleansing the nostrils and mouth of the patient, but rather soft rags 
which should be immediately thereafter burned. 
All vessels for receiving the discharges of the patient should constantly contain some of the disinfecting fluid. 
Water closets and privies in the house should be disinfected daily with a solution of copperas,-two pounds 
to a gallon of water. 
Every kind and source of filth in and around the house should be thoroughly removed, and disinfectants 
freely used. Cleanliness tends both to prevent and mitigate the disease. 
Drains should be put in perfect order and ventilated by a 4 inch straight pipe extended above the highest 
point of the roof of the house in every instance, terminating at a distance from any chimney or other ventilator. 
Children in the family should not attend school or mingle with other children until the patient has wholly 
recovered, and all infected articles have been disinfected. 
On the recovery or death of the patient the most thorough disinfection should follow. The room and all 
articles in it should be at once subjected to the fumes of burning sulphur as follows : Close the room tightly and 
burn 2J pounds of sulphur to each thousand cubic feet of space. 
After four or six hours open the room and expose it to the air and sunlight for a week. Anything that can 
be boiled without injuring may be so treated. The walls and ceilings should be dry rubbed or lime washed, and 
the floors washed with soap and water to which may be added a little carbolic acid. 
When death occurs the body should be immediately placed in the coffin, with disinfectants, and the coffin 
tightly and finally closed. 
No public funeral should ever take place at the house where the patient died, nor elsewhere, unless the coffin 
remains hermetically sealed. 
By direction of the Board of Health. 
C. E. DAVIS, Jr., 
Cleric.