Thus it is demonstrated that measles is not to be lightly treated. Even if it is not in itself fatal, the results of the disease are so dangerous that the care of the nurse is especially necessary. The great trouble is that so often a nurse is not in attendance and the child suffers through ignorance of the mother.
Dietetic Treatment.—The dietetic treatment of measles is important. For infants milk is the exclusive diet, the formula for bottle-fed babies having to be weakened on account of the catarrhal condition of the gastro-intestinal tract. For older children it is necessary to confine the diet to fluids as long as the fever lasts, and at times longer if the stomach gives evidence of digestional disturbances. Milk is the chief food, with milk soups, buttermilk, and koumiss used to vary the diet. Orangeade and lemonade may be given to allay thirst. A return to normal diet must be made gradually, giving cereal gruels, milk toast, and broth before the more solid articles of diet suitable to the age of the child. When there are complications they must be treated, as in whooping cough, according to their symptoms.
SUMMARY
Gastro-intestinal Disturbances are responsible for much of the fever manifested during infancy and childhood.
Infectious Diseases are all more or less accompanied by an elevation of temperature.
Incipient Diseases, especially tuberculosis and scurvy, may likewise cause a rise of temperature. The relief of either disease or the fever depends largely upon how quickly the conditions are discovered and the means instituted to overcome them.
Metabolism in Febrile Conditions of children, as well as of adults, is rapidly increased, hence the energy output is greater, and for this reason the fluid intake must be augmented in order to eliminate the toxic substances produced as a result of the rapid breaking down of the body tissues.
The Kidneys are more or less strained to eliminate the products of the increased metabolism and for this reason it is especially necessary to adjust the diet in order to limit, as far as possible, the foods which add to the burden already imposed upon the organs of excretion.
The Skin is an organ of excretion which, under normal conditions, shares the work of the kidneys. In infectious conditions, accompanied by eruptions which more or less cover the entire surface of the body, this organ is temporarily out of commission, hence its work, as well as their own, must be accomplished by the kidneys.
Dietetic Treatment in the majority of infectious diseases may be divided into three periods: Starvation, Fluid Diet, and Convalescent Diet.