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
Tonsils which remain permanently enlarged and show signs of disease
and debilitation--filled crypts--may be removed as early as the fourth
or fifth year, if necessary. If proper treatment does not improve the
tonsils as the child grows older, their removal should seriously be
considered. The tonsils may serve some special secretory or defensive
function during the first few years of life and we think best,
therefore, not to advise their removal--except in extreme cases--until
the child is at least four or five years old.
When it is necessary to attack the tonsils, they should be thoroughly
dissected out--not merely burned or clipped off. If they are properly
removed, the danger of heart trouble, rheumatism, and many other
infections may be considered as greatly lessened.
After five years of age the normal tonsils should begin to shrink, and
at about the beginning of adolescence they should be no larger than a
small lima bean, hidden almost completely out of sight behind the
pillars of the throat. While healthy tonsils may serve some useful
purpose even in the adult, it is almost universally conceded that the
thoroughly bad and diseased tonsil is utterly useless to the
body--only an open gateway for the entrance of infection.
BRONCHITIS
A very common disorder of early infancy and childhood is
bronchitis--an inflammation of the bronchial tubes--accompanied by
severe coughing. Its tendency to pass into pneumonia renders it a
disease for skilled hands to treat--a disorder hardly safe for even
the well-meaning mother to undertake to manage without medical advice
and help. And since bronchitis is usually accompanied by alarming
symptoms of high fever, weakened heart, embarrassed breathing, mottled
or blue skin, green stools, troublesome cough, disturbed sleep,
"stopped up nose," and "choked up throat," it is of utmost importance
not only to seek medical aid early, but also that the mother, herself,
should have definite ideas concerning the proper manner of doing the
following things in the line of treatment:
1. Making and applying a mustard paste.
2. The fashioning of an oil-silk jacket.
3. Improvising a steam tent.
4. Flushing out the colon, and a score of other things which
the watchful doctor may want given any moment.
_Mustard Pastes_ are prepared by mixing one part of mustard and six
parts of flour in warm water and applying to the chest between two
pieces of thin muslin. It is left on just seven minutes and then
talcum powder is thickly sprinkled on the moist, reddened skin; this
powder quickly absorbs all the moisture and leaves the skin in a good
condition--ready for another paste in three hours if it is so ordered.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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