Articles

The disinfection of mail was not an occasional happening, like disaster mail resulting from the sinking of ships or the crash of an aircraft. It was rather the ‘logical’ outcome of a near-universal belief that infectious diseases could be brought into a healthy country by susceptible goods, including paper. This belief, which was still held by many countries until late in the 19th century, was unfounded, in so far as none of the diseases against which disinfection had been practised – plague,…

The D.M.S.C. was founded in London in 1973, with the blessing of the late Dr. K.F. Meyer, World Health Organization authority on plague, and editor of an incomplete pioneering work, Disinfected Mail, published in Kansas in 1962. It was Dr. Meyer’s wish that research into the topic should continue, which led to the publication by D.M.S.C. of authoritative articles and monographs on the practice of disinfection and quarantine in all parts of the world. Many countries, like Portugal, Spain, Egypt,…