PNEUMONIA.
Pneumonia, which is lung fever, frequently sets in just about the time a child is getting teeth. When there is known to be inflammation of the substances of the lungs, active treatment is called for. To the nurse, or mother, I will say that the surest signs of lung troubles are in the manner of breathing. If the nostrils flare at every attempt to take breath, or in other words, if they open and shut in quick succession, there is little doubt as to the presence of lung fever well advanced. Of course, there is great heat prostration and perceptible agony from pain, even in the infant of three or four weeks. Thousands of babes die annually from this disease, who have never looked out at a door or window; how is it? Quick breathing may be occasioned by extreme pain, but never flaring of the nostrils without some lung pressure. Active measures to reduce the blood is the proper way to treat lung fever. The flaxseed meal poultice over the entire chest, or wrapping the body up in flannel cloths wrung out of hot water, and giving to drink, plentifully, of cream of tartar and gum-arabic water,—one teaspoonful of each dissolved in a pint of boiling water and a teaspoonful every hour to a child one month old, and upwards, increasing the quantity according to age,—all tend to reduce the fever.
Very young infants are liable to perish in the acute stage, yet where the constitution is solid, in older babes there is a chance, with proper, special treatment, of raising them. Patient watchfulness, pure air, and absolute quiet, in all such trying afflictions, will more than pay for the enduring.