In view of the alarming prevalence of scarlet fever in many parts of
the country, the following hints by the _British Medical Journal_ are
wholesome warnings: "There are three common ways by means of which
infectious diseases may be very widely spread. It is a very usual
practice for parents to take children suffering from scarlet fever,
measles, etc., to a public dispensary, in order to obtain advice and
medicines. It is little less than crime to expose, in the streets of a
town and in the crowded waiting room of a dispensary, children
afflicted with such complaints. Again, persons who are recovering from
infectious disorders borrow books out of the lending departments of
public libraries; these books, on their reissue to fresh borrowers,
are sources of very great danger. In all libraries, notices should be
posted up informing borrowers that no books will be lent out to
persons who are suffering from diseases of an infectious character;
and that any person so suffering will be prosecuted if he borrow
during the time of his illness. Lastly, disease is spread by tract
distributors. It is the habit for such well meaning people to call at
a house where a person is ill and to leave him a tract. In a week or
so the tract is called for again, another left in its place, and the
old one is left with another person. It needs not much imagination to
know with what result to health such a practice will lead if the first
person be in scarlet fever or smallpox."
Dr. Hutton offers "a warning on the reckless manner in which parents
allow their healthy children to run into the houses of acquaintances
who have members of their families suffering from scarlatina, etc.,
and states that he has seen the infection thus carried from the
patient, and several families attacked."
* * * * *