Advice to a Mother on the Management of Her Children

by Pye Henry Chavasse

In the earlier editions of this work I did not give the treatment of any serious diseases, however urgent. In the eight last editions, I have been induced, for reasons I will presently state, to give the treatment of some of the more urgent serious diseases, when a medical man cannot instantly be procured, and where delay might be death.

Sir CHARLES LOCOCK, who has taken a kind interest in this little work, has given me valid reasons why a mother should be so enlightened. The following extracts are from a letter which I received from Sir CHARLES on the subject, and which he has courteously allowed me to publish. He says,—"As an old physician of some experience in complaints of infants and children, I may perhaps be allowed to suggest that in a future edition you should add a few words on the actual treatment of some of the more urgent infantile diseases. It is very right to caution parents against superseding the doctor, and attempting to manage serious illness themselves, but your advice, with very small exceptions, always being 'to lose no tune in sending for a medical man,' much valuable and often irremediable time may be lost when a medical man is not to be had. Take, for instance, a case of croup there are no directions given at all, except to send for a medical man, and always to keep medicines in the house which he may have directed. But how can this apply to a first attack? You state that a first attack is generally the worst. But why is it so? Simply because it often occurs when the parents do not recognise it, and it is allowed to get a worse point than in subsequent attacks, when they are thoroughly alive to it. As the very best remedy, and often the only essential one, if given early, is a full emetic, surely it is better that you should give some directions as to this in a future edition, and I can speak from my own experience when I say that an emetic, given in time, and repeated to free vomiting, will cut short any case of croup. In nine cases out of ten the attack takes place in the evening or early night, and when vomiting is effected the dinner of that day is brought up nearly undigested, and the seventy of the symptoms at once cut short. Whenever any remedy is valuable, the more by its being administered in time, it is surely wiser to give directions as to its use, although, as a general rule, it is much better to advise the sending for medical advice."

The above reasons, coming from such a learned and experienced physician as Sir Charles Locock, are conclusive, and have decided me to comply with his advice, to enlighten a mother on the treatment of some of the more urgent diseases of infants and of children. In a subsequent letter addressed to myself, Sir Charles has given me the names of those urgent diseases, which he considers may be treated by a mother "where a medical man cannot be procured quickly, or not at all." They are Croup: Inflammation of the Lungs; Diptheria; Dysentry; Diarrhoea; Hooping Cough, in its various stages; and Shivering Fit. Sir Charles sums up his letter to me by saying, "Such a book ought to be made as complete as possible, and the objections to medical treatment being so explained as to induce mothers to try to avoid medical men is not so serious as that of leaving them without any guide in those instances where every delay is dangerous, and yet where medical assistance is not to be obtained or not to be had quickly."

In addition to the above I shall give you the treatment of Bronchitis, Measles, and Scarlet Fever. Bronchitis is one of the most common diseases incidental to childhood, and, with judicious treatment, is, in the absence of the medical man, readily managed by a sensible mother. Measles is very submissive to treatment. Scarlet Fever, if it be not malignant, and, if it be not complicated with diphtheric-croup, and if certain rules be strictly followed, is also equally amenable to treatment.

I have been fortunate in treating Scarlet Fever, and I therefore think it desirable to enter fully into the treatment of a disease which is looked upon by many parents, and, according to the usual mode of treatment, with just cause, with great consternation and dread. By giving my plan of treatment, fully and simply, and without the slightest reservation, I am fully persuaded, through God's blessing, that I may be the humble means of saving the lives of numbers of children.

The diseases that might be treated by a mother, in the absence of a medical man, will form the subject of future Conversations.

I think it right to promise that in all the prescriptions for a child I have for the use of a mother given, I have endeavoured to make them as simple as possible, and have, whenever practicable, avoided to recommend powerful drugs. Complicated prescriptions and powerful medicines might, as a rule, to be seldom given; and when they are, should only be administered by a judicious medical man: a child requiring much more care and gentleness in his treatment than an adult: indeed, I often think it would be better to leave a child to nature rather than to give him powerful and large doses of medicines. A remedy—calomel, for instance—has frequently done more mischief than the disease itself; and the misfortune of it is, the mischief from that drug has oftentimes been permanent, while the complaint might, if left alone, have only been temporary.

199. At what age does Water in the Brain usually occur, and how is a mother to know that her child is about to labour under that disease?

Water on the brain is, as a rule, a disease of childhood: after a child is seven years old it is comparatively rare. It more frequently attacks delicate children—children who have been dry nursed (especially if they have been improperly fed), or who have been suckled too long, or who have had consumptive mothers, or who have suffered severely from toothing, or who are naturally of a feeble constitution. Water on the brain sometimes follows an attack of inflammation of the lungs, more especially if depressing measures (such as excessive leeching and the administration of emetic tartar) have been adopted. It occasionally follows in the train of contagious eruptive diseases, such as either small-pox or scarlatina. We may divide the symptoms of water on the brain into two stages. The first—the premonitory stage—which lasts for or five days, in which medical aid might be of great avail: the second—the stage of drowsiness and of coma—which usually ends in death.

I shall dwell on the first—the premonitory stage—in order that a mother may see the importance without loss of time of calling in a medical man:—