If you are the patient, the health officer will say that you must be put in a room where there is just enough furniture to make you comfortable, and that no one except the nurse and the doctor is to go into that room. He will say that the nurse must stay in your room all the time, or that she must at least not go into any other room in the house; that your meals must be left outside your door, and that the person who brings them must go away before the door is opened by the nurse. Furthermore, as everything in the room that cannot be boiled, or otherwise disinfected, will have to be burned when you are well, your pet books and toys had better not be taken in. Finally, nothing is to be carried from the room until it has been put into a solution that will kill the germs, and this means not only dishes, bedding, and clothing, but even books and letters. The nurse must see that all discharges from the throat and nose are received on little cloths, which are to be burned immediately. [Sidenote: How quarantine rules are broken] These are the things that the health officer will tell your parents must be done. Now let us see what sometimes happens. Your mother will want to see her little child so much that she cannot wait until you are well, so she will slip into your room, kiss your forehead, and hold you tight against her. When a little later she kisses your baby brother, and is so thankful that he is not sick too, she does not realize that she is kissing the very same disease into his little throat. Or, perhaps your mother is the nurse, and in the night she hears your little brother crying; she thinks, "Surely I can slip out and just cover him up; it will not hurt him just for once," and she does so. What happens? In a few days your doctor tells you that your little brother will have to come in and stay with you. Perhaps your father grows anxious to see you, and one morning he says he cannot stand it another minute, so he slips in for a few moments before going to business. In a few days one of his clerks fails to come to work. Your father sends a messenger to see what the trouble is, and the word comes back, "He has diphtheria." Then your father says, "What are these health officers doing that they do not stop this thing?" He is very indignant, but it never occurs to him that he himself has spread the disease by doing just what he promised the health officer he would not do. [Sidenote: How dogs and cats carry disease germs]