Yellow fever: its nature, diagnosis, treatment and prophylaxis, and quarantine regulations relating thereto / by Officers of the US Marine-Hospital Service, together with an abstraction of the report of the medical officers detailed as a commission to investigate the cause of yellow fever.

  • United States. Public Health Service.
Date:
1889
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Yellow fever: its nature, diagnosis, treatment and prophylaxis, and quarantine regulations relating thereto / by Officers of the US Marine-Hospital Service, together with an abstraction of the report of the medical officers detailed as a commission to investigate the cause of yellow fever. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service. The original may be consulted at London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service.

    193/202 (page 11)
    REASONS FOR PROHIBITING PACKINGS. The materials excepted against are of such a nature that they are more liable than other merchandise to be exposed to infection, and as they are, or may be, culture media, any exposure to infection, even a slight one, might well make them dangerous out of proportion to other articles of merchandise. It is judged, then, that the risk of passing these excepted articles is in excess of the loss from their exclusion. They are therefore excluded. The special precautions to avoid exposure are to use clean, newly received excelsior, etc., and breaking bulk only when it is to be used in the uninfected packing house. CONTAMINATION BY INFECTED HANDS. As long as the wholesale district is not infected, the risk from ordi- nary freight shipped therefrom is practically nil. The chance of con- tamination of the above classes by the hands of people who have been in infected houses while theoretically possible is not to be considered. Most microorganisms live but a short time on an exposed surface of the body, and ordinary freight is not a culture medium, and even if thus exposed would not preserve infection. The employees at quar- antine stations do not disinfect their hands to take out the newly steril- ized clothing, although they have just handled that to be disinfected and have done so for twenty years at all stations with no bad results. As long, then, as the wholesale district is not infected there need be no bar to the shipment of any ordinary merchandise, new, clean, and dry, which has been only in this district and is not a culture medium. Even dry goods and woolen goods, from some reason held to be especially dangerous, may pass. GOODS MADE UP IN A CITY. It must be noted, however, that goods (clothings, etc.) made up in a city are frequently made up at residences and others are to certain extent household goods. They are, of course, barred shipment. TO DETERMINE IP HOUSEHOLD DISTRICT IS INFECTED. To determine just when any part of the wholesale district becomes infected IS not always possible; still, as long as the infection is not fhrwl n? «f tl^e town, it is fair to assume that the wholesale district is free from infection in the sense of presenting lit le chance of infecting ordinary freight shipped therefrom ^ It, m addition, a pretty close watch be kept on this district which is ™t'rc';nr to hive work mg in It we can be reasonably sure when there is doubt of its cleanli ness, and ^chen there is douM it nay no longer U counteTZT SURFACES NOT LIABLE TO CONVEY INFECTION. i^lZ^ ^^T Wholesale district being free from infection we have a further, and can make a sufficiently safe, guard