A Book of Medical Discourses, in Two PartsCrumpler, Rebecca Lee
Science
A Book of Medical Discourses, in Two Parts
Crumpler, Rebecca Lee
Child care; Children -- Health and hygiene; Infants -- Care; Infants -- Health and hygiene; Women -- Health and hygiene
Pneumonia, which is lung fever, frequently sets in just about the time a
child is getting teeth. When there is known to be inflammation of the
substances of the lungs, active treatment is called for. To the nurse,
or mother, I will say that the surest signs of lung troubles are in the
manner of breathing. If the nostrils flare at every attempt to take
breath, or in other words, if they open and shut in quick succession,
there is little doubt as to the presence of lung fever well advanced. Of
course, there is great heat prostration and perceptible agony from pain,
even in the infant of three or four weeks. Thousands of babes die
annually from this disease, who have never looked out at a door or
window; how is it? Quick breathing may be occasioned by extreme pain,
but never flaring of the nostrils without some lung pressure. Active
measures to reduce the blood is the proper way to treat lung fever. The
flaxseed meal poultice over the entire chest, or wrapping the body up in
flannel cloths wrung out of hot water, and giving to drink, plentifully,
of cream of tartar and gum-arabic water,—one teaspoonful of each
dissolved in a pint of boiling water and a teaspoonful every hour to a
child one month old, and upwards, increasing the quantity according to
age,—all tend to reduce the fever.
Very young infants are liable to perish in the acute stage, yet where
the constitution is solid, in older babes there is a chance, with
proper, special treatment, of raising them. Patient watchfulness, pure
air, and absolute quiet, in all such trying afflictions, will more than
pay for the enduring.
SORE THROAT, OR TONSILITIS.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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