The Physical Training of ChildrenChavasse, Pye Henry
Science
The Physical Training of Children
Chavasse, Pye Henry
Child care; Children -- Health and hygiene
Now, with regard to food.—If the child be at the breast, keep him
entirely to it. If he be weaned, and under two years old, give him milk
and water, and cold water to drink. If he be older, give him toast and
water, and plain water from the pump, as much as he chooses; let it be
quite cold—the colder the better. Weak black tea, or thin gruel, may be
given, but not caring, unless he be an infant at the breast, if he take
nothing but _cold_ water. If the child be two years old and upwards,
roasted apples with sugar, and grapes will be very refreshing, and will
tend to cleanse both the mouth and the throat. Avoid broths and
stimulants of every kind.
When the appetite returns, you may consider the patient to be safe. The
diet ought now to be gradually improved. Bread and butter, milk and
water, and arrow-root made with equal parts of new milk and water,
should for the first two or three days be given. Then a light batter or
rice pudding may be added, and in a few days afterward, either a little
chicken or a mutton-chop.
The essential remedies, then, in scarlet fever, are, for the first few
days—(1) plenty of fresh air and ventilation, (2) plenty of cold water
to drink, (3) barm poultices to the throat, and (4) the acidulated
infusion of roses’ mixture as a medicine.
Now, then, comes very important advice. After the first few days,
probably five or six, sometimes as early as the fourth day, _watch
carefully and warily, and note the time, the skin will suddenly become
cool_, the child will say that he feels chilly; then is the time you
must now change your tactics—_instantly close the windows, and put extra
clothing_, a blanket or two on his bed. A flannel night-gown should,
until the dead skin has peeled off, be now worn next to the skin, when
the flannel night-gown should be discontinued. The patient ought ever
after to wear, in the daytime, a flannel waistcoat. On the importance,
the vital importance, of the wearing of flannel next to the skin, see
Flannel Waistcoats. His drinks must now be given with the chill off; he
ought to have a warm cup of tea, and gradually his diet should, as I
have previously recommended, be improved.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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