We are told also that this disease is not generally communicable from one person to another, because it is frequently taken to a place, and does not spread there; the answer to that is perfectly clear, - in those places precautions are taken to remove matters containing the poison. Smallpox, scarlet fever, and typhus fever, do not spread if proper precautions are taken, and that is why typhus fever does not spread in the West End of London, although it is taken there over and over again.

We can also bring forward arguments of another kind; we can point to places where filth has been accumulating for years, places, you would say, most suitable for cholera and enteric fever, if the poisons of these diseases are developed in decomposing animal matters, and yet these diseases have not been there for years; the answer to that is, that all the conditions are not present Now, on a certain day a person conies to one of these places ill with enteric fever, they do not know what is the matter with him, and he is attended, perhaps, for a week or two. As soon as they have found out what is the matter with him, a score or so of persons have already become infected with the fever, and it spreads over the place like wildfire. This shows you that the place was in an admirable condition for the poison of that disease to spread if it could have originated there, and though you may come to the conclusion that the disease was not there before because there was some missing condition, you must admit that the person who came there ill brought the poison.

I will now tell you a few practical methods to prevent the spread of these diseases.

The first method is by separating persons who are sick from the healthy community; that is the method pointed out by Moses in the 13th and 14th chapters of Leviticus, two of the most admirable sanitary chapters that have ever been written. One form of leprosy was undoubtedly an infectious disease, which some people have said was smallpox.

The sick people are to be separated, and so it is necessary to have fever hospitals. Mind these diseases do not spread from fever hospitals. There is no instance known of any of these diseases having spread from the London fever hospitals to houses in the neighbourhood, yet it is true that sometimes these diseases are found in some of the houses in the neighbourhood, and especially in public-houses where they have been conveyed by the attendants; but there is, at any rate, not sufficient need to have the great amount of fear that people seem to have on this subject.

In London the different vestries and district boards are the sanitary authorities, and each of them is empowered to provide hospitals for infectious diseases when they exist.

But as a matter of fact the great fever hospitals, under the control of the Metropolitan Asylums Board, and intended for paupers only, are made use of by almost all classes. Many persons object to go to these hospitals because they are pauper hospitals, but I think when such a serious thing is concerned the matter ought to be separated from connection with pauperism. A person affected with an infectious disease ought to be taken to an infectious hospital whether he can afford to pay for it or not, but he ought not to be made a pauper of by that fact. (An Act since passed has accomplished this.)

I say, then, isolation is the first thing; the next is disinfection; by this I mean the destruction of the poison. We are perfectly certain now, by direct experiment, that the poisons of some of these diseases can be destroyed by certain agents. There are a good many agents that have been long in use as disinfectants. The first is dry heat; this is capable of destroying such of these poisons as have been experimented on, and it has been practically shown that heat is capable of destroying the poisons of all of these diseases. Practically the baking of clothes in a disinfecting oven, raising the heat to about 240° Fahr., a temperature which will cot singe the clothes, is sufficient. I do not mean to say, however, that burning the clothes would not be the safer and better plan of getting rid of infected articles if you can spare them, but when you consider the amount of clothing that would have to be destroyed during an epidemic of smallpox, you will see that this is often a practical impossibility.

I maintain, further, that it is a thing which need not bo carried out. I have never known an instance where clothes, that have been disinfected in a hot oven, have been the means of spreading disease.

It has been shown that sulphurous acid gas, nitrons acid, and chlorine, are all agents that may be used for disinfecting purposes. Sulphurous acid is an agent that can be relied upon. For disinfecting masses of matters, both liquid and semi-solid, such as discharges from the intestinal canal, green copperas or sulphate of iron, in the form of a solution of a pound of green copperas to a gallon of water, is very effective. Strong carbolic acid is likewise good, and, under certain circumstances, chloride of lime.

When a person is suffering from one of these infectious diseases, the first thing to do is to change the air of the room as often as possible without causing any draught; that is best done by having a small fire in the room and the windows open in the house.

All articles, especially woollen drapery and curtains, should be removed from the room as soon as the person is put into it, and they will not be infected if removed at once.