Sanitary Processing

Sanitary Processing, a term used in sanitary and anti-epidemic practice to denote disinfection processes carried out for preventive purposes on human contingents, and sometimes on various objects of the human environment in respect of which suspicion of their infection may arise. In the application to a living human being, the term 'personal disinfection' was more frequently used in former times, and this term should be considered a synonym for S. o. However, modern scientific data show that the main form of carrying the infectious agent by a living human being is its preservation inside the human organism; the transfer of infection by the surface of the body, on hair, clothing, etc., belongs to the greatest rarities, and then only in the application to the most resistant causative agents. Hence it is natural that disinfection in the proper sense of the word of the body surface, clothing, etc., of a person suspected of spreading infection does not achieve the goal of rendering the source of infection harmless, since the latter is located inside the infected organism and therefore remains inaccessible to any influence of disinfection procedures. The organ of the human body that plays a significant role in the transmission of infections is the hands, which, by virtue of their ability to constantly come into contact with diverse objects, often ensure such a rapid transfer of infectious agents to a favorable environment for them that the latter fully preserve their viability. The elimination of this negative role of the hands is easily achieved by means of frequent and thorough washing of them, which represents one of the simplest forms of S. o. There remains, however, a group of infections in which S. o. not only retains all its rights but is a very powerful means of their prevention. Such infections are the so-called 'parasitic typhuses' (epidemic typhus and relapsing typhus), which are transmitted by lice, parasites on the human body or, more correctly, on the inner side of clothing (underwear) facing the surface of the body. By subjecting S. o. people carrying lice, or in other words by carrying out disinsection (see) in respect of them, we confer exceptional resistance on this contingent to the spread of the aforementioned infections in its environment: in the absence of a natural carrier of the infectious agent, even the presence of cases of parasitic typhus brought from outside cannot be accompanied by the spread of infection. Such S. o. is undergone by patients with the aforementioned infections, as well as all healthy persons who have had any contact with them or simply were in a certain degree of territorial proximity to them. But in addition, S. o. is also applied for purely preventive purposes to any human contingents in the presence of lice in their environment or only the threat of such, even in the absence of any diseases. Patients with epidemic typhus and relapsing typhus undergo S. o. upon their hospitalization, for which infectious wards or departments are equipped with special passageways; surrounding persons undergo S. o. at appropriate disinfection institutions, sanitary passageways, bathhouses of the pass-through type, etc.; finally, S. o. for preventive purposes is carried out in respect of masses of organized population (workers of industrial enterprises, construction sites, state farms, etc., kolkhoz members, residents of dormitories, workers' barracks, pupils of closed-type children's institutions, schoolchildren, persons held in places of deprivation of liberty, etc.)_g as well as in respect of moving contingents (trains, settlers, seasonal workers, etc.); due to the multitude of some of these groups and the resulting technical impossibility to serve them with the network of the above-mentioned institutions, sanitary passageways (see Sanitary Passageway Point) or isolation-passageway points (see) serve for this purpose. Every institution carrying out S. o. of patients or healthy people, i.e., setting as its goal the freeing them of lice, must consist of a bathhouse of the pass-through type, where those undergoing S. o. subject their bodies to washing, and appropriate disinsection installations, where their clothing and underwear are processed simultaneously. The bathhouse of the pass-through type must be a shower, which best ensures the goals of S. o.; a hair-cutting (shaving) facility (see Barber Shops) must be organized at the bathhouse for the washed. Usually S. o. is also accompanied by a medical-sanitary examination of the persons undergoing it with all measures arising from the circumstances of the case (isolation of infectious patients, taking material for examination from suspects, observation and medical supervision, preventive vaccinations, etc.). As for the disinfection installation in operation during S. o., it must be borne in mind that its main purpose is disinsection, and therefore one should choose a system that ensures maximum speed and reliability of the disinsection effect with minimal damage to items. This requirement is best met by dry-heat installations, especially with moving hot air. Theoretically, some gas methods could satisfy this, but most of the latter, with all preparatory and subsequent processes, only fit with difficulty into the short exposure times permissible for disinsection of items during S. o. Only if one wishes to ensure disinfection as well as disinsection simultaneously is it necessary to resort to universal (vacuum-steam-formalin) installations, which in most cases for the purposes of S. o. appears unnecessary. S. o. also represents one of the measures provided for by the law on the protection of the borders of the USSR. With proper organization of S. o., the entire process requires from 1 to 1.5 hours of time, counting that within this term sorting of items, loading them into the chamber, preliminary heating and, if necessary, drying, the actual disinsection exposure, cooling (ventilation), unloading, dismantling and issuance, including also the processes of undressing and dressing, must be completed. The actual disinsection should not take more than 15-20 minutes. The pass-through nature of the shower bathhouse allows significantly rationalizing the movement of the washed persons themselves, which occurs only in one direction. With organized movement of the processed persons, economy in the consumption of water, fuel, etc., can be achieved. The amount of water required for S. o. of one person can be determined at 15-30 liters, the amount of soap at 25-50 grams. During S. o. of military units and pupils of closed institutions, the entire process can be accelerated by issuing clean items in place of the underwear and uniform handed over for disinsection. The obligation of S. o. for certain groups of the population, as well as the order of its implementation, are regulated by appropriate laws issued in individual union republics (for example, the decree of the SNK of the RSFSR of March 11, 1932 'On the sanitary service of settlers and workers moving to work in other localities'), instructions of the health commissariats of the union republics, and mandatory decrees issued by local authorities. As for S. o. of the dwelling, the items contained in it, and all household property, this is usually carried out with the aim of destroying domestic parasites, mainly bedbugs, but is often also added to S. o. of the people living in the premises for the more perfect liquidation of lice. S. o. of all household property appears very appropriate in cases of resettlement of people to new dwellings, when in order to prevent the infection of the latter by bedbugs and other dwelling parasites, all the property of the resettlers is subjected to preliminary disinsection treatment. For this purpose, gas disinsection chambers (cyanide, chloropicrin, etc.) are the most suitable type of chambers. The greatest completeness of S. o. is achieved when the entire process is also accompanied by washing of linen, for which the corresponding institutions are also equipped with mechanical laundry installations.