Mother, Nurse and Infant / A Manual Especially Adapted for the Guidance of Mothers and Monthly Nurses, Comprising Full Instruction in Regard To Pregnancy, Preparation for Child-birth, and the Care of Mother and Child, and Designed to Impart so Much Knowledge of Anatomy, Physiology, Midwifery, and the Proper Use of Medicines as Will Serve Intelligently to Direct the Wife, Mother and Nurse in All Emergencies.

by S. P. Sackett

Dentition predisposes to sickness, if it does not cause it, and it may call into activity latent tendencies to disease. It may cause such symptoms as the following: redness, heat, and tenderness of the gums; an increase of saliva; starting as if in fright; restlessness, or interrupted sleep; eruptions on the head or body; derangement of the digestive organs, and sometimes convulsions. During the period of dentition, be especially careful that the child has its food and sleep regularly, and that it is restricted to suitable quantities of food at a time. Keep the head cool and the feet warm; wash the child daily in cold water, and allow it to be much in the open air. If a child is worrisome and irritable it will be necessary to cut the gums. Lance them at the elevated points, cutting them down to the teeth. At the same time, aconite can be given, and perhaps a warm bath; and if there is considerable fever give ordinary doses of veratrum. These remedies are so generally useful where there is fever, that I will venture to recommend them when either THRUSH, MEASLES, German measles, MUMPS, SCARLET FEVER, CHICKEN POX, or WHOOPING COUGH is coming on or suspected. Each of these diseases have a natural course which they must run before they terminate, and it is best, as in diphtheria, not to give medicines powerful enough to interfere with the natural course of the disease. Do not give physic. (F. 121, 122.)

So in OPTHALMIA it is better to have nothing but a little salt in the water than it is to use harsh things to bathe the child’s eyes. Do not rub the eyes; let a small stream of tepid water trickle onto them, and wipe the discharges away with a soft rag. Burn the rag, wash your own hands, and keep them away from your own eyes, on account of the danger from contagion. (F. 210, 211.)

Constipation cannot be treated in all cases without giving some aperient medicine. (F. 108, 109.) Oat meal gruel as a diet may be helpful; and fresh vegetables—cabbages, turnips, onions, ripe fruit; oatmeal porridge with molasses, and brown bread may be taken freely. Infants may be partly fed on corn starch, and older children may have cracked wheat (F. 35), or peas, beans, squashes, and other fresh vegetables and fruits in their season. A good draught of water on rising and retiring is advisable; and a teaspoonful of soda and molasses mixed together and taken daily for a week may cure a costive habit. A suppository of castile soap may induce a movement in a child, or it may be best to give an injection of tepid water, or soap and water.

For CHAFINGS bathe the parts well in tepid water, dry with soft cloths, and apply by means of a soft sponge, F. 212.

The following diseases are inflammatory, and demand at first mild treatment with aconite, veratrum, and warm baths:

In TONSILITIS (quinsy), use the blood root powder and bicarbonate of soda. The patient can apply the bicarbonate of soda to the inflamed tonsil with his finger, or it can be blown into his throat through a quill, or through a hollow roll of stiff paper that contains a few grains. For the chronic form of tonsilar enlargement use F. 213.

Coryza or snivels is an inflammatory affection of the mucous lining of the nose, attended with an abnormal secretion. Sometimes the child can only breathe through its mouth; in such cases you may draw the breast milk, and feed the child by means of a spoon. Give aconite, and as a local application the inside of the nose may be often smeared with vaseline, or cold cream, or carbolated cosmoline.

Bronchitis, pneumonia, pleurisy, and other inflammatory diseases, may not show their distinctive character in their incipient stage, but there will be at first sufficient fever to indicate the need of aconite, veratrum, and perhaps the warm bath. Accessary means may be used, such as the following: the patient should be placed in a warm room (about 65°) and have only light bed clothing; if the child is taken out of bed he must have on a warm wrapper, or be otherwise well covered; he should not lie flat in bed, but he should be somewhat propped up with pillows; and it may be best to keep on a continuous poultice to the chest in front and back. The patient should be kept very quiet, have mucilaginous drinks and farinaceous diet; and the air of the room should be moistened by steam or the evaporation of wafer; and the ventilation of the apartment must not be neglected. They must have frequent sips of cold water to allay thirst, besides marshmallow, slippery elm, or flaxseed tea, and revulsives must be used as well as poultices and fomentations.

By the aid of a CLINICAL THERMOMETER many diseases may be distinguished even in the incipient stage.

If a person without any premonitory symptoms is seized with a chill, followed by rapid breathing, a dull pain in the chest, cough, high fever, and comparatively slow pulse; if the thermometer indicates a temperature of 104° or 105°, and the pulse does not beat over 110 a minute, the case is one of ACUTE PNEUMONIA. Sometimes the temperature is below 90°; if it exceed 120° it is almost certain to be fatal.