WARM BATHS
281. Have the goodness to mention the complaints of a child for which warm baths are useful.
1. Convulsions; 2. Pains in the bowels, known by, the child drawing up his legs, screaming violently, etc.; 3. Restlessness from teething; 4. Flatulence. The warm bath acts as a fomentation to the stomach and the bowels, and gives ease where the usual remedies do not rapidly relieve.
282. Will you mention the precautions, and the rules to be observed in gutting a child info a warm bath?
Carefully ascertain before he be immersed in the bath that the water be neither too hot nor too cold. Carelessness, or over-anxiety to put him in the water as quickly as possible, has frequently, from his being immersed in the bath when the water was too hot, caused him great pain and suffering. From 96 to 98 degrees of Fahrenheit is the proper temperature of a warm bath. If it be necessary to add fresh warm water, let him be either removed the while, or let it not be put in when very hot; for if boiling water be added to increase the heat of the bath, it naturally ascends, and may scald him. Again, let the fresh water be put in at as great a distance from him as possible. The usual time for him to remain in a bath is a quarter of an hour or twenty minutes. Let the chest and the bowels be rubbed with the hand while he is in the bath. Let him be immersed in the bath as high up as the neck, taking care that he be the while supported under the armpits, and that his head be also rested. As soon as he comes out of the bath, he ought to be carefully but quickly rubbed dry; and if it be necessary to keep up the action on the skin, he should be put to bed, between the blankets; or if the desired relief has been obtained, between the sheets, which ought to have been previously warmed, where, most likely, he will fall into a sweet refreshing sleep.