Advice to a Mother on the Management of Her ChildrenChavasse, Pye Henry
Science
Advice to a Mother on the Management of Her Children
Chavasse, Pye Henry
Child care; Children -- Health and hygiene; Infants -- Health and hygiene
_What NOT to do_--Do not, on any account, apply either leeches or a
blister. If the latter be applied, it is almost sure to be covered
with the membrane of diphtheria, similar to that inside of the mouth
and of the throat, which would be a serious complication. Do not give
either calomel or emetic tartar. Do not depress the system by
aperients, for diphtheria is an awfully depressing complaint of
itself, the patient, in point of fact, is labouring under the
depressing effects of poison, for the blood has been poisoned either
by the drinking water being contaminated by faecal matter from either a
privy or from a water-closet, by some horrid drain, by proximity to a
pig-sty, by an overflowing privy, especially if vegetable matter be
rotting at the same time in it, by bad ventilation, or by
contagion. Diphtheria may generally be traced either to the one or to
the other of the above causes, therefore let me urgently entreat you
to look well into all these matters, and thus to stay the pestilence!
Diphtheria might long remain in a neighbourhood if active measures be
not used to exterminate it.
212. _Have the goodness to describe the symptoms of Measles_?
Measles commences with symptoms of a common cold, the patient is at
first chilly, then hot and feverish, he has a running at the nose,
sneezing, watering, and redness of the eyes, headache, drowsiness, a
hoarse and peculiar ringing cough, which nurses call "measle-cough,"
and difficulty of breathing. These symptoms usually last three days
before the eruption appears, on the fourth it (the eruption) generally
makes its appearance, and continues for four days and then disappears,
lasting altogether, from the commencement of the symptoms of cold to
the decline of the eruption, seven days. It is important to bear in
mind that the eruption consists of _crescent-shaped--half
moon-shaped--patches_, that they usually appear first about the face
and the neck, in which places they are the best marked; then on the
body and on the arms; and, lastly, on the legs, and that they are
slightly raised above the surface of the skin. The face is swollen,
more especially the eye-lids which are sometimes for a few days
closed.
Well, then, remember, _the running at the nose, the, sneezing, the
peculiar hoarse cough, and the half-moon-shaped patches_, are the
leading features of the disease, and point out for a certainty that it
is measles.
213. _What constitutes the principal danger in Measles_?
The affection of the chest. The mucous or lining membrane of the
bronchial tubes is always more or less inflamed, and the lungs
themselves are sometimes affected.
214. _Do you recommend "surfeit water" and saffron tea to throw out
the eruption in Measles_?
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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