"in the morn and liquid dew of youth
Contagious blastments are most imminent."—Shakspeare.
227. Have you any further observations to offer on the precautions to be taken against the spread of Scarlet Fever?
Great care should be taken to separate the healthy from the infected. The nurses selected for attending scarlet fever patients should be those who have previously had scarlet fever themselves. Dirty linen should be removed at once, and be put into boiling water. Very little furniture should be in the room of a scarlet fever patient—the less the better—it only obstructs the circulation of the air, and harbours the scarlet fever poison. The most scrupulous attention to cleanliness should, in these cases, be observed. A patient who has recovered from scarlet fever, and before he mixes with healthy people, should, for three or four consecutive mornings, have a warm bath, and well wash himself, while in the bath, with soap; he will, by adopting this plan, get rid of the dead skin, and thus remove the infected particles of the disease. If scarlet fever should appear in a school, the school must for a time be broken up, in order that the disease might be stamped out There must be no half measures where such a fearful disease is in question. A house containing scarlet fever patients should, by parents, be avoided as the plague; it is a folly at any time to put one's head into the lion's mouth! Chloralum and carbolic acid, and chloride of lime, and Condy's fluid, are each and all good disinfectants; but not one is to be compared to perfect cleanliness and to an abundance of fresh and pure air—the last of which may truly par excellence be called God's disinfectant! Either a table-spoonful of chloralum, or two tea-spoonfuls of carbolic acid, or two tea-spoonfuls of Condy's fluid, or a tea-spoonful of chloride of lime in a pint of water, are useful to sprinkle the soiled handkerchiefs as soon as they be done with, and before the be washed, to put in the pot-de-chambre, and to keep in saucers about the room; but, remember, as I have said before, and cannot repeat too often, there is no preventative like the air of heaven, which should be allowed to permeate and circulate freely through the apartment and through the house: air, air, air is the best disinfectant, curative, and preventative of scarlet fever in the world!
I could only wish that my Treatment of Scarlet Fever were, in all its integrity, more generally adopted; if it were, I am quite sure that thousands of children would annually be saved from broken health and from death. Time still further convinces me that my treatment is based on truth as I have every year additional proofs of its value and of its success; but error and prejudice are unfortunately ever at work, striving all they can to defeat truth and common sense. One of my principal remedies in the treatment of scarlet fever is an abundance of fresh air; but many people prefer their own miserable complicated inventions to God's grand and yet simple remedies—they pretend that they know better than the Mighty Framer of the universe!
228. Will you describe the symptoms of Chicken pox?
It is occasionally, but not always, ushered in with a slight shivering fit; the eruption shows itself in about twenty-four hours from the child first appearing poorly. It is a vesicular [Footnote: Vesicles. Small elevations of the cuticle, covering a fluid which is generally clear and colourless at first, but afterwards whitish and opaque, or pearly.—Watson.] disease. The eruption comes out in the form of small pimples, and principally attacks the scalp, the neck, the back, the chest, and the shoulders, but rarely the face; while in small-pox the face is generally the part most affected. The next day these pimples fill with water, and thus become vesicles; on the third day they are at maturity. The vesicles are quite separate and distinct from each other. There is a slight redness around each of them. Fresh ones, whilst the others are dying away, make their appearance. Chicken-pox is usually attended with a slight itching of the skin; when the vesicles are scratched the fluid escapes, and leaves hard pearl-like substances, which, in a few days, disappear. Chicken-pox never leaves pit marks behind. It is a child's complaint; adults scarcely, if ever, have it.
229. Is there any danger in Chicken-pox; and what treatment do you advise?
It is not at all a dangerous, but, on the contrary, a trivial complaint. It lasts only a few days, and requires but little medicine. The patient ought, for three or four days, to keep the house, and should abstain from animal food. On the sixth day, but not until then, a dose or two of a mild aperient is all that will be required.
230. Is Chicken-pox infectious?
There is a diversity of opinion on this head, but one thing is certain—it cannot be communicated by inoculation.