FOOTNOTES:
[G] To Make a Saturated Solution
Stir into a small amount of boiled water, all that can be dissolved.
CHAPTER XI
Two Boys Are Late
TWO boys were absent when the class met for the next lesson.
“How disappointed I am,” said Miss Helpem. “This is the first time anyone has missed a lesson.”
“Perhaps Tom and Jim will come late,” suggested Ibee Brave, and just as he spoke steps were heard.
Ibee opened the door and in came the two boys. Jim was holding a handkerchief to his nose, which was bleeding profusely.
“He didn’t want to come in,” explained Tom to the nurse, “but I told him you could make it stop. He said he didn’t believe so, for he’d tried everything. He kept saying he ought to lie down, and I kept saying he ought to sit up to keep the blood from flowing so easily.”
Tom stopped to take a breath. You see he had great confidence in Miss Helpem’s first-aid help ever since his experience with his “black eye.”
“You were right, Tom,” said Miss Helpem, showing Jim to a seat before the class. “If you do not mind, Jim, I will give the boys their lesson now on what to do for—
Nosebleed
(See [Reference List])
1. Sit patient upright.
2. Raise arm on bleeding side.
Jim Was Holding a Handkerchief to His Nose
3. Wrap neck and forehead with towels dipped in cold water.
4. Sniff ice water and salt up nostrils. One-half teaspoon salt to a glass of water.
5. Place a piece of ice under the upper lip. Hold ice, wrapped in cloth, on the bridge of the nose.
6. If bleeding still continues, use a small piece of absorbent cotton as a wedge or plug or cork. Fasten a thread to the cotton—to be used to remove it. Dip it into peroxide of hydrogen, and push gently into bleeding nostril with a pencil.
Shesa Brave brought the articles needed as Miss Helpem worked, and in a very few seconds after the nurse had used the cotton wedge, Jim’s nose stopped bleeding.
It was an excellent lesson for the boys, who didn’t realize that the next day they would only be dolls, whose noses may break, but not bleed. Still, if you can remember what to do, those dolls will never mind.
After Jim took his usual place Miss Helpem continued the lesson.
“Let me see,” she said, “I think, after nosebleed, perhaps the next most common complaints are earache and toothache and a few other little aches.
“Now, as to—
Earache
(See [Reference List])
This dreadful pain is generally caused by hardening of the wax in the ear from cold. To prevent wax from hardening, use a little common red (unbleached) vaseline in the ear.
Treatment:
Hold ear over a cloth wrung out of hot water on which is sprinkled some pure alcohol.
With a medicine dropper, drop into ear some warm olive oil; or saturate a small piece of absorbent cotton with the warm olive oil, and place in ear—cover with dry cotton.
(Mothers often use one drop of laudanum in the olive oil, but laudanum is too dreadful a poison for children to handle.)
For watery discharge after earache, it is best to see a doctor, but a sprinkling of boric acid in the ear will usually relieve the trouble.
If earache recurs often, see the doctor.