The Sick Room. Furnishing, care, and cleaning should be as for nursery. For a contagious disease, disinfect room before and after patient uses. Attendant should wear cotton dress. Street clothes should not be allowed in sick room. Discretion should be used regarding visitors; no one should enter in case of contagion. Use separate bed linen and clothing for night and day. Turn pillows frequently and change position of patient. Use ring of cotton cloth to lift head and prevent bedsores. Reduce room temperature by hanging up wet sheets. Open dishes of chloride of lime will absorb dampness. Charcoal, occasionally changed, will absorb odors. Keep all medicines, glasses, and food covered, room orderly and well ventilated. In contagious diseases, attendant should disinfect hands, gargle and rinse mouth with antiseptic before eating; and before leaving the room, wash face and hands with weak bichloride solution and remove dress, cap, and shoes; a cap should cover the hair.
Bathing and Dressing. The sick child should usually have a bath twice a day, temperature and method depending upon his condition. This removal of waste will add to his comfort and hasten recovery. A sponge bath is less fatiguing than the tub. A salt bath (one third cup per gallon of water) is a tonic. It should not be used if the skin is irritated. Bran, starch, or soda baths relieve chafing, inflamed skin, prickly heat, irritation in eruptive diseases. To one gallon water use half a cup of clean bran, tied in cheesecloth and previously soaked; or a cup of ordinary raw laundry starch, or a tablespoon of baking soda. Alcohol bath, using one fourth alcohol, is cooling and hardening. Pure alcohol reduces heat too rapidly. Oil rub with cocoa butter, or olive oil may be used for cleansing in cold weather, for emaciation, or after bath in eruptive diseases.
Rinse mouth and clean teeth after each feeding, using boric solution, weak soda water, mild listerine or 1% menthol solution. Disinfect brush in 70% alcohol after using. In contagious diseases, or great weakness, use a mouth swab, and clean teeth with antiseptic gauze on toothpick, instead of with brush.
Maternal Nursing and Hygiene. Constipation. Purgatives are never to be used, and enemas employed only as a last resort. If diet and exercise fail, cascara sagrada or compound licorice powder may be used.
Heartburn. (Acidity of the stomach.) Sometimes develops. It may be prevented by avoiding nervousness, by taking less fat at meals, and drinking a glass of rich milk half an hour before mealtime; if it develops after a meal, a soda mint tablet or a quarter of a teaspoonful of soda bicarbonate will relieve it. The nausea sometimes present in the first four months is probably due to auto-intoxication from lack of elimination of toxins. Preventive measures include careful attention to diet, daily baths, and exercise. If it occurs, a cup of hot water slightly salted, or a piece of dry, hard toast taken before rising, will usually overcome it. Peppermint, acid from grape fruit, salty food, whole cloves held in the mouth, or a cold cloth laid over the abdomen, are relief measures. It is rarely present in the last four months.
Varicose Veins. May be prevented by avoiding fatigue, long standing, and by lying down several times a day, especially after meals, for a quarter hour, with feet elevated higher than hips. Tight bandaging or elastic stockings must be used, if veins become varicose; in severe cases, rest in bed is necessary.
Hemorrhoids. May be prevented by avoiding constipation, heavy exercise, overfatigue, and by lying down a few minutes after a movement. May be corrected by local applications, either of cold or hot cloths.
Pruritus. Local applications of lukewarm bran water several times a day, followed by dusting powder made by combining one teaspoon salicylic acid with one cup cornstarch, will relieve itching.
Hemorrhage. Patient should be put to bed, hips and legs elevated, with local applications of cold cloths or styptic cotton. Doctor should be called immediately.
Urine. Decrease in quantity (less than one quart a day), high color, odor, or sediment, should be reported at once to physician.