Woodwork. — 1. Wet with bichloride of mercury

1:1000 before fumigation.

2. After fumigation, wash as directed for furniture.

In several cities laws have been enacted requiring public libraries and conveyances to be disinfected, and in some cities barber shops are under inspection regarding their daily care.

TEACHER'S NOTE. -All schools should be provided with the circulars of information issued by the boards of health concerning the medical inspection of schools and the management of contagion. In the country, smaller cities, and towns, reprints of these circulars may be obtained for the use of schools.

QUARANTINE

Dr. Walter Wyman of the United States Marine Hospital Service defines quarantine as "the adoption of restrictive measures to prevent the introduction of diseases from one country or locality into another."

The term is broadly used, and by usage includes port, land, interstate, municipal, railroad, house, and room quarantine.

The necessity for restrictions in certain diseases has been recognized from the earliest times, leprosy probably being the first disease for which isolation in any sense was practiced.

The first maritime or port quarantine was established in 1403 in Venice, and all ships and persons coming from Egypt or other countries, suffering from the plague, were detained for forty days in quarantine; this practice gradually extended until it was realized that such wholesale arbitrary measures were unreasonable and imposed

so much injury upon commerce that more rational restrictions were gradually made.

The United States government maintains quarantine stations at twenty-eight seaports. "Maritime quarantine consists of the detention of the infected ship, the isolation of the sick in a special hospital at the quarantine station, the disinfection of the ship and its cargo as well as the clothing and bedding of the well, the detention of all well persons in barracks until after the period of incubation of the particular disease has elapsed and all danger of dissemination has been eliminated. The period of detention, the mode of disinfection, as well as all the other prophylactic measures employed, will depend entirely upon the character of the disease, its period of incubation, and the nature of the ship's cargo. The disinfecting agents commonly employed are superheated steam and formaldehyde." (Bergey.)

Inland quarantine is used in time of epidemics in certain localities, as in the case of yellow fever in the Southern States. When an epidemic extends over a number of states, the quarantine becomes interstate and is under the jurisdiction of the United States Treasury department, which obviates the confusion which might arise from conflicting laws in the various states.

House quarantine is employed against smallpox, scarlet fever, diphtheria, cholera, typhoid and typhus fevers, yellow fever, and leprosy.

The patient should be isolated from the rest of the family, and other persons residing in the house should be forbidden attending school or business, or entering any public assembly or conveyance.

None but those in charge of the patient should be

allowed to enter the house, and the board of health is required to placard the house, the placard to remain until the patient has recovered or died and the house has been disinfected.

The following table reproduced from the proceedings of the Michigan state board of health is convincing proof of the value of isolation and disinfection:

Each state has a right to quarantine, but the Federal government may assume control when the quarantine interferes with interstate commerce.

The board of health of each state not only enacts regulations for quarantine in case of infectious diseases, but for controlling all conditions which may be detrimental to the public health, such as the disposal of

garbage, sewage, the regulation of slaughterhouses, burial of the dead, and pollution of water by refuse from manufacturing.

The disposal of the dead is accomplished by burial or cremation, the laws varying little in the various states.