The maternal management of children, in health and diseaseBull, Thomas
Science
The maternal management of children, in health and disease
Bull, Thomas
Child care
In conjunction with ventilation, fumigations by means of aromatic
substances kept slowly burning should be resorted to. A solution of the
chloride of lime too, a most powerful disinfectant, should be used to
purify the different apartments. This is best accomplished by steeping
in the solution pieces of linen, and hanging them about the rooms, as
also frequently and freely sprinkling the walls themselves; and as soon
as the invalid is removed, the chamber should be white-washed, the
various articles of furniture well scoured with soap and water, and the
room be well and freely ventilated prior to its being again occupied.
The clothes of the patient and the bed linen should be frequently
removed, and when taken away immediately immersed in boiling water, and
whilst hung up in the open air sprinkled occasionally with a weak
solution of the chloride of lime. If these directions are not observed,
and the clothes are closely wrapped up, they will retain and give out
the disease to others at a great distance of time.
Again: as the contagious property of smallpox hangs about the child as
long as any scabs remain (which indeed may be said to retain the poison
in its concentrated form), a parent must be most careful that the
invalid is not too early brought in contact with the healthy members of
the family.
An observance of these precautions is imperatively demanded; they not
only protect the healthy, but aid the infected.
Sect. VIII.--HOOPING-COUGH.
My chief inducement to notice the above disorder arises out of the
well-known fact, that there is no complaint of childhood more
frequently subjected to quackery and mismanagement than is this.
Indeed, there are few maladies against which a greater array and
variety of means have been recommended, than against hooping-cough.
I suppose from the circumstance of the simple and mild form of the
complaint being so tractable (provided it remain such) that the
simplest and mildest measures effect its cure, parents are tempted to
undertake its management in the more severe and complicated forms; and
the result is but too often the establishment of disease dangerous to
life, and sometimes fatal to it.
But although most imprudent for a parent to assume the office of the
physician, her aid is essentially necessary in carrying out the
measures prescribed. By her watchfulness and care the duration of the
disease may not only be abridged, but, what is of much greater
importance, a more serious and aggravated form of disease prevented;
for although hooping-cough in itself is not a dangerous disorder, still
the most simple and slight case, if neglected or mismanaged, may
quickly be converted into one both complicated and dangerous.
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