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

For those who are troubled with EXCESSIVE SWEATING, tepid sponging of the neck, face, chest and hands with equal parts of vinegar and water at bedtime is useful and agreeable.

Convulsions may frequently be cut short by turning the patient on the left side; but as soon as possible put the feet in a basin of warm water in which is a little mustard, and apply a cloth saturated with cold water to the forehead.

A woman who suffers acute pain in the pelvic region a few days antecedent to the menstrual flux, should take a WARM SITZ BATH of fifteen minutes’ duration before retiring at night.

The ENEMA OF TEPID WATER may be useful in constipation, and in looseness of bowels, in spasmodic colic, and in painful menstruation; also for piles. The temperature of the enema should be agreeable to the patient.

The itching that accompanies many skin diseases is much reduced by a warm bath containing a handful of borax, and a handful of bicarbonate of soda, in about thirty gallons of water.

Those who practice daily bathing, and indulge freely in COLD WATER, are seldom troubled with a cold. Frequent bathing, the head being well dipped, will brace the system and render a person proof against draughts.

There are many obstinate affections of the head that have been known to give way to affusion of COLD WATER upon the part. For inflammation of the brain, headache, earache, drunkenness, delirium tremens, the delirium of fever, epilepsy, rheumatism of the head, diseases of the eye, deafness, loss of smell and taste, and in nose bleed this remedy may be brought to bear. One mode of taking the HEAD BATH is for the patient to lie down, placing the back of his head in a shallow dish filled only an inch or two with water.

The WET GIRDLE is a useful medical appliance to give tone and strength to certain parts. Two and a half or three yards of good toweling with tapes arranged at one end, the corners of which have been turned over so as to form a point, is a good girdle. It should pass about three times around the body; one-half having been wet and put on so as to have two thicknesses of the wet part upon the abdomen and one upon the back. The girdle may be worn every day, but the folded wet sheet is used for a time in febrile diseases, such as inflammation of the lungs, or of the bowels, colic, cholera morbus, &c. Fold a common coarse sheet four double; wet two thicknesses of this in cold water to come next the body; have the patient lie in bed with the four thicknesses around her, using warm bricks, bottles, &c., for the feet.

A table spoonful of CHARCOAL powdered, stirred into a glass of water and drank at once, is excellent in many cases of headache from SOUR STOMACH, FLATULENCE, &c.

Children who complain of choking sensations in the throat (caused by worms), may find relief from swallowing salt and water.