Care and Keeping: Keep floors clean by wiping with cloths wrung out of hot water barely dashed with carbolic acid. The smell passes quickly—and is wholesome. Take off dust with damp cloths—litter must be prevented. Keep a waste basket handy, also a bigger basket for soiled things. Have them removed at once. Put half a cup of disinfectant in any vessel before using it, adding enough to cover discharges as soon as it has been used. Remove as quickly as possible. Do not keep such things in a closet. Rather ambush them behind a light screen set across a corner.
Have a table outside to receive trays, cups, glasses, uneaten food. Let nothing stand inside the room. The bigger table is for medicines, clean spoons and glasses, alcohol stove, and a supply of ice. Gas light fouls air so quickly, avoid it if possible. Electric light has the drawback of being hard to graduate. Oil lamps require the nicest care. Candles are better. Beware of lighting or extinguishing either inside the room. Strike no matches there if possible to avoid it. Even in lighting a fire, do it from a candle lighted outside. Keep filled candlesticks on the outer table with matches in plenty, and extinguishers handy. Take lamps there to put them out.
Ice: A nursery refrigerator is well worth its cost. Since it is not always to be had, here is a good substitute. Set a high wire trivet inside a deep agate pan, lay a lump of ice on it, then turn over it a clean flower pot. Plug the hole in the flower pot, and cover thickly with a folded blanket if in haste. Time permitting, make a cozy of cheesecloth thickly padded with cotton batting and big enough to come to the table outside the pan. Empty the pan several times a day. With an awl and a toy hammer slivers of ice can be broken as needed.
Contagion: Filth diseases—diphtheria, typhoid, etc.—spread through effluvia. Discharges of all sorts should be deluged with bichloride (see section Disinfectants). Even bath water needs a dose of it before emptying it. All manner of soiled things—towels, sheets, clothes—must be sunk in a tub of it as soon as taken off, and soaked several hours before washing. They need to be well boiled and dried in wind and sun. Eruptive ails—measles, smallpox, scarlet fever—have two periods of danger—in the fever stage before eruption, and when peeling. Measles and smallpox are most dangerous in fever; scarlet fever at the beginning of convalescence. Rub a patient in that stage well over with vaseline at least twice a day, bathing afterward with warm suds and putting on fresh clothes. Change bed linen the same; disinfect with extra thoroughness. Put bichloride in the water that wets the floor cloths, and be sure no dust is allowed to blow outside the room.
Disinfection: Wet everything well with bichloride solution, remove furniture, burn mattress and comforts, boil and sun blankets. Scrape walls and ceiling, wash well with bichloride, wash floor and woodwork likewise, then scour with carbolic soapsuds. Fill cracks of all sorts with fresh putty, shut doors and windows tight, and paste strips of paper around them. Take off closet doors, but leave inside. Tack a strip of tin on the door of egress so it will lie flat against the casing. Put three bricks in the middle of the floor, set an iron skillet on them, put into it a pound of flowers of sulphur, wet it with alcohol, stick in a short length of fuse, light it, go out quickly, close the door for a minute, look in—if the sulphur is burning, all is well. Shut the door and leave undisturbed for twenty-four hours. Sulphur fumes make an end of germs. They also bleach out colors of all sort.
Poultices, Hot Cloths, Mustard Plasters: Keep in stock bags of old linen or muslin, with drawstrings at top, for poultices. Fill them three parts, draw up, and flatten. If they must be hot, have three, keeping two in a steamer, with the water underneath barely simmering. Keep cloths likewise steam-heated, take out with a fork, wrap in a thick towel, and apply over thin flannel to prevent scalding. Wet mustard poultices with white of egg to prevent blistering. If severe burning is needed, wet with pepper vinegar. Make soft and lay thin net or muslin over the face of the poultice. For a slow, gentle burning mix the dry mustard one-half with flour.
A Bandage Jar: Tear old linen into strips two to four inches wide, lap ends two inches, and sew together. Make many lengths—half a yard to five. Pull away ravelings, roll smoothly, and fasten. Put a few clean pebbles in the bottom of a glass jar, lay paper over them, pack in rolled bandages till half full, then fill with absorbent cotton, and stand on a plate in a kettle of cold water, which is set over the fire. The water ought to reach the neck of the jar and be kept at a temperature of a hundred and eighty degrees for three hours or more. Take from fire then, screw on jar top, let cool in water, wipe, and set away.
Finger stalls in variety, with narrow tapes for tying, thus sterilized, are a help to mothers. Teach children to suck wounds or bites or stings instantly—it abates pain and takes out dirt and poison. Wash the hurt clean, unless a blood clot has formed—it is nature’s own remedy, respect it. Put on a stall, hold the hurt finger up, and pour upon it either arnica, witch hazel, or turpentine. Draw the edges of a cut together, clap on adhesive plaster, and hold until the plaster sets.
Stanching Blood: Blood spurting in bright-red jets means a severed artery—and great danger. A steady, dark-red stream means a cut vein. For either, knot two handkerchiefs hard together, trace the course of the blood vessel, put the biggest knot over it, thrust in a stick, and twist until the knot presses deep into the flesh. In case of an artery, put the knot between the hurt and the trunk. For a vein set it between the wound and the extremities. Work fast—a minute may mean life or death.
Clothes for Nursing: Wear nothing that cannot be washed; this is the first commandment. Wear nothing that rattles, rustles, or clings; this is the second, even greater. Light colors are refreshing to sick eyes, violent figures distressing. Have sleeves that can be pushed easily above the elbow, self collars, and trim fastenings. A single pin may scratch your patient. Eschew hard, starchy edges even on an apron. Wear a cap—a sweeping-cap is excellent—and change it daily. A long kimono apron slipping on over the head is useful for such work as bathing, giving alcohol spongings, or massage. One-piece frocks are imperative. The simpler and easier the better all round.