If the case be severe, requiring a second opinion, never of your own accord call in a physician without first consulting and advising with your own medical man. It would be an act of great discourtesy to do so. Inattention to the foregoing advice has frequently caused injury to the patient, and heart-burnings and ill-will among doctors.
Speak, in the presence of your child, with respect and kindness of your medical man, so that the former may look upon the latter as a friend—as one who will strive, with God’s blessing, to relieve his pain and suffering. Remember the increased power of doing good the doctor will have if the child be induced to like, instead of dislike, him. Not only be careful that you yourself speak before your child respectfully and kindly of the medical man, but see that your domestics do so likewise; and take care that they are never allowed to frighten your child, as many silly servants do, by saying that they will send for the doctor, who will either give him nasty medicine, or will perform some cruel operation upon him. A nurse-maid should, then, never for one moment be permitted to make a doctor an object of terror or of dislike to a child.
Send, whenever it be practicable, for your doctor early in the morning, as he will then make his arrangements accordingly, and can by daylight better ascertain the nature of the complaint, more especially if it be a skin disease. It is utterly impossible for him to form a correct opinion of the nature of a “breaking-out” either by gas or by candle-light. If the illness come on at night, particularly if it be ushered in either with a severe shivering, or with any other urgent symptom, no time should be lost, be it night or day, in sending for him.
WARM BATHS.
275. Have the goodness to mention the complaints of a child for which warm baths are useful?
1. Convulsions; 2. Pains in the bowels, known by the child drawing up his legs, screaming violently, etc.; 3. Restlessness from teething; 4. Flatulence. The warm bath acts as a fomentation to the stomach and the bowels, and gives ease where the usual remedies do not rapidly relieve.
276. Will you mention the precautions and the rules to be observed in putting a child into a warm bath?
Carefully ascertain before he be immersed in the bath that the water be neither too hot nor too cold. Carelessness, or over-anxiety to put him in the water as quickly as possible, has frequently, from his being immersed in the bath when the water was too hot, caused him great pain and suffering. From 96 to 98 degrees of Fahrenheit is the proper temperature of a warm bath. If it be necessary to add fresh warm water, let him be either removed the while, or let it not be put in when very hot; for if boiling water be added to increase the heat of the bath, it naturally ascends, and may scald him. Again, let the fresh water be put in at as great a distance from him as possible. The usual time for him to remain in a bath is a quarter of an hour or twenty minutes. Let the chest and the bowels be rubbed with the hand while he is in the bath. Let him be immersed in the bath as high up as the neck, taking care that he be the while supported under the armpits, and that his head be also rested. As soon as he comes out of the bath he ought to be carefully but quickly rubbed dry; and, if it be necessary to keep up the action on the skin, he should be put to bed, between the blankets; or, if the desired relief has been obtained, between the sheets, which ought to have been previously warmed, where, most likely, he will fall into a sweet refreshing sleep.
WARM EXTERNAL APPLICATIONS.
277. In case of a child suffering pain either in his stomach or in his bowels, or in case he has a feverish cold, can you tell me of the best way of applying heat to them?