Advice to the people in general, with regard to their healthTissot, S. A. D. (Samuel Auguste David)
Science
Advice to the people in general, with regard to their health
Tissot, S. A. D. (Samuel Auguste David)
Hygiene -- Handbooks, manuals, etc. -- Early works to 1800; Medicine, Popular -- Early works to 1800
Sec. 385. But Care should be taken not to prevent, or, as it were to undo,
the Benefit this Washing procures them, by the bad Custom of keeping
them too hot. There is not a more pernicious one than this, nor one that
destroys more Children. They should be accustomed to light Cloathing by
Day, and light Covering by Night, to go with their Heads very thinly
covered, and not at all in the Day-time, after their attaining the Age
of two Years. They should avoid sleeping in Chambers that are too hot,
and should live in the open Air, both in Summer and Winter, as much as
possible. Children who have been kept too hot in such Respects, are very
often liable to Colds; they are weakly, pale, languishing, bloated and
melancholy. They are subject to hard knotty Swellings, a Consumption,
all Sorts of languid Disorders, and either die in their Infancy, or only
grow up into a miserable valetudinary Life; while those who are washed
or plunged into cold Water, and habitually exposed to the open Air, are
just in the opposite Circumstances.
Sec. 386. I must further add here, that Infancy is not the only Stage of
Life, in which cold Bathing is advantagious. I have advised it with
remarkable Success to Persons of every Age, even to that of seventy: and
there are two Kinds of Diseases, more frequent indeed in Cities than in
the Country, in which cold Baths succeed very greatly; that is, in
Debility, or Weakness of the Nerves; and when Perspiration is
disordered, when Persons are fearful of every Breath of Air, liable to
Defluxions or Colds, feeble and languishing, the cold Bath
re-establishes Perspiration; restores Strength to the Nerves; and by
that Means dispels all the Disorders, which arise from these two Causes,
in the animal Oeconomy. They should be used before Dinner. But in the
same Proportion that cold Bathing is beneficial, the habitual Use, or
rather Abuse, of warm Bathing is pernicious; they dispose the Persons
addicted to them to the Apoplexy; to the Dropsy; to Vapours, and to the
hypochondriacal Disease: and Cities, in which they are too frequently
used, become, in some Measure, desolate from such Distempers.
_Of the Cutting of the Teeth._
Sec. 387. Cutting of the Teeth is often very tormenting to Children, some
dying under the severe Symptoms attending it. If it proves very painful,
we should during that Period, 1, Keep their Bellies open by Glysters
consisting only of a simple Decoction of Mallows: but Glysters are not
necessary, if the Child, as it sometimes happens then, has a Purging.
2, Their ordinary Quantity of Food should be lessened for two Reasons;
first, because the Stomach is then weaker than usual; and next, because
a small Fever sometimes accompanies the Cutting.
3, Their usual Quantity of Drink should be increased a little; the best
for them certainly is an Infusion of the Leaves or Flowers, of the Lime
or Linden-tree, to which a little Milk may be added.
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