HEAD COLDS.
Young infants are very liable to take cold when being washed, or carried about the house into rooms and passages of different temperatures. This cold often shows itself by sneezing and “snuffles” in the nose. In a short time a discharge from the nostrils appears, the eyes become watery, and the voice sounds “through the nose.” The skin is hotter than natural, and the infant cross. If the child be able to talk, it will complain of headache, some soreness in the limbs and back, and of a burning, uncomfortable feeling in the nose. These symptoms last for three or four days, when in mild ordinary cases they begin to disappear. After one or more attacks of this kind the child is very liable to a return on every slight exposure to cold.
The treatment required in these cases is mild and simple, but must not be neglected. A warm bath should be taken at bed-time for a number of days; the patient should be kept in an even temperature and out of draughts. The best relief to the distress in the nose, from which the child suffers, is afforded by dipping a hollow sponge in hot water, squeezing it nearly dry, and applying it over the nose and forehead. The common domestic practice of greasing the nose is also beneficial. The wearing of a flannel cap until the disease is cured is a remedy strongly recommended by the late Dr. Meigs. A flannel cap will also often prevent the recurrence of the complaint in those very subject to it.
FITS.
Infants and young children are much more liable to fits and convulsions than adults. The causes which excite them are numerous, and should be generally known, that they may be as far as possible avoided.
Many infants are born with a tendency to fits. The children of feeble parents, or of those who have married very early or very late in life, are apt to be afflicted with a predisposition to them. Great fright or severe shock received by the mother during the latter months of her pregnancy may give rise to convulsions in the child soon after birth.
Pale, badly nourished, soft, flabby children, and those of a sensitive, nervous temperament, are more liable to fits than those who are ruddy and hardy. Hence we find convulsions more common and fatal among the poor and miserable than among the 'well-to-do' and comfortable. City children are more subject to the complaint than the country born and bred.
Fits are very frequent among infants while teething. In such cases lancing the gum secures immediate relief. Another cause of fits, and one which every mother should know, is the giving of meat to the child before its teeth are cut. In such cases the attack is sudden, and often very severe. Children most affected in this way by animal food are those with water on the brain, and those of a very delicate constitution. The juice or broth of meat is in some such instances sufficient to produce fits. The remedy consists in the institution of a milk diet. In all doubtful cases avoid a meat diet in any form, and watch the result.
Strong mental emotions, such as fright, shame, or anger, may cause a fit in a child. A nurse in England threatened to throw a child out of the window if he did not stop crying; the little boy fell at once into convulsions, from which he died.
Among other known causes of fits are confinement to heated, badly ventilated rooms, tight bandaging, and sudden exposure to severe cold or heat.