Thread-worms give rise to restlessness and itching about the anus, especially in the evening after first falling asleep. Give with a child’s syringe a small injection of a tablespoonful of raw linseed oil. In some instances annointing externally with the oil or with cosmoline will give relief. Keep the parts well cleansed, using suds of carbolic soap. The round-worm is from six to fifteen inches long, resembling the common earth-worm, but of a paler color. It is supposed to feed on the chyle, and lives generally in the small intestines, but it sometimes passes upward into the stomach, and is expelled by vomiting, or downward, and is ejected with the evacuations.
The presence of the round-worm may be indicated by indigestion, swelling of the abdomen, restlessness, grinding of the teeth in sleep, convulsion, etc. It is the result of a mixed diet, and is rarely found when the child has been fed on the product of the grains.
Santonine, 1st.—Grain doses, three times a day for three days. Follow this on the fourth day by a copious enema, one pint of water, to which one tea-spoon of salt has been added. After three days, if the symptoms still continue, repeat treatment.
Incontinence of Urine.—This annoying ailment is common among children. Mothers and nurses often deal impatiently with the unfortunate child, believing it to be a habit, which may be easily overcome. It is more often a malady than a habit. In neither case is it ever cured by scolding. If a habit, a promised reward is more effective than harsh treatment. Give the child a light supper devoid of liquids. Take him up once or twice in the night to urinate. Bathe the spine at bedtime with equal parts of alcohol and ammonia, followed by hand friction.
Retention of Urine.—The child is restless, uneasy and unable to pass water, beyond perhaps a small quantity, though there is frequent urging. It may be caused by cold, injuries or acute disease. A full hot bath, or hot fomentations nearly always produce relief.
Aconitum, 3d.—Retention from cold, fever, or inflammation, hot, dry skin, thirst, etc.
Cantharis, 3d.—Frequent urging, with total suppression; or the discharge, with pain, of a few drops of bloody urine.
Croup is liable to attack a child any time from the age of one month, until nine or ten years old. The attacks occur most frequently when about two or three years of age. Nothing will more quickly make a mother’s heart stand still with alarm and terror than to hear the hoarse, whistling, sonorous breathing of croup. A few directions will be of service until medical attendance can be obtained.
Authors recognize two varieties, the spasmodic and membranous, and recently some speak of diphtheritic croup. In the first, the inflammation does not run so high, and the hoarseness may be simply nervous. It runs its course rapidly. Usually the child goes to bed all right and awakens about 11 or 12 o’clock with a loud ringing or rasping cough, and some difficulty of breathing. The attack relieved, will seem all right through the following day, unless an occasional cough. Usually recurs three or four successive nights, is seldom fatal.
In membranous croup, there may be a slight hoarseness and difficulty of breathing several days before the attack becomes severe. The mucus membrane of the throat becomes red and inflamed, with a thick ropy exudation that forms in a membrane, covering the entire fauces. Fever may or may not be present. Symptoms remain much the same, day and night. Duration of the disease from two to fourteen days.