The Mother and Her ChildSadler, William S. (William Samuel)
Science
The Mother and Her Child
Sadler, William S. (William Samuel)
Child care; Infants -- Care; Infants -- Health and hygiene; Pregnancy
_First Week Treatment._ During this week the child may feel quite
well, but he should be kept in bed and sustaining treatments
begun--such as wet-sheet packs and cold frictions to the skin (during
which time there should always be external heat to the feet). The diet
must be full and nourishing, but all pastries and "knicknacks" should
be avoided. Abundance of fresh fruit that has been well washed before
paring, eggs, pasteurized milk, baked potatoes, and toasted bread may
be taken at regular periods--with an interval of not less than five
hours between meals.
The bowels should be opened in the beginning of the disease with a
liberal dose of castor oil, after which daily colonic irrigations
should be employed. These enemas should be given at least once a day,
the temperature being about that of the body, with a smaller terminal
enema about five degrees cooler at the close of each bowel cleansing.
_Second Week Treatment._ The normal temperature at this time is no
longer 98.6, it is 101.5 F. This fever is essential to the curative
and defensive processes of the body; and while we do not care to have
the fever fall below 101.5, at the same time nothing is to be gained
by allowing the fever to go up much above 102.5 or 103 degrees F. And
so, during the second week, while the disease is at its height, we
make frequent use of the wet-sheet pack, always remembering that the
extremities must be kept warm and never permitting the skin to become
blue or mottled while the cold treatment is being administered. Since
the real disease is localized in the small intestine, we will now
describe a very important treatment for the diseased bowel--and one
which is also very useful in combating high temperature.
_The Cooling Enema._ The temperature of this enema begins one degree
higher than that of the body (supposing the body temperature to be
103, the temperature of the enema would start at 104 F.). This is
allowed to flow into the colon and out again, under low pressure,
without disturbing the patient, by means of a glass tube connection
(See Fig. 15). The temperature is quickly brought down to 100, then to
98, then to 90, usually finishing up at 80 or 85 F. The water is
allowed to enter the rectum slowly through a soft rubber catheter (not
a hard rectal point), and as it comes out it will be noted that the
water is very warm, sometimes registering 105, and it is needless to
add that if the water goes in at 80 and comes out at 105 F., much heat
has been taken from the body; and so, of all the treatments we have to
suggest for typhoid fever, the one just mentioned is possibly the most
important. When it is necessary to keep up this enema for an hour or
two, the cool water may cramp the bowels, but this may be entirely
obviated by applying hot compresses to the abdomen.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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