Mrs. Hale's Receipts for the Million: Containing Four Thousand Five Hundred and Forty-five Receipts, Facts, Directions, etc. in the Useful, Ornamental, and Domestic Arts
John Stuart Mill · en
For cleaning the mouth, take equal parts of borax and white sugar;
rub them together into a fine powder. Of this put a small quantity
into the child's mouth, which will be distributed to every part by
the motion of its tongue. Repeat this application three or four times
a day: if used early, it will keep the mouth free from white specks,
and remove the complaint in a few days.
If, on the contrary, it should be neglected, and suffered to extend
to the stomach and bowels, gentle emetics ought to be employed,
such as the following antimonial emetic: Take of antimonial wine,
forty drops; mint-water, two ounces. Mix them together. Dose, a
dessert-spoonful every half hour, until it excites vomiting.
This disease rarely occurs in children, who take no other food but
the milk of the mother, or foster-parent. It is so far contagious,
that if a healthy child be put to the breast of a woman, who is
suckling another child, having the thrush, it will contract this
complaint.
847. _Red Gum_ requires no farther attention than keeping the bowels
gently open, and avoiding an exposure to cold air. It is symptomatic
of healthy action, and ought not to be checked.
848. _Infantile Jaundice._--The skin of new-born infants is sometimes
tinged with bile, and gives the appearance of jaundice; by some it
has been named the yellow gum. It seems to be occasioned by the
sudden change in the circulation of the blood, immediately on the
birth, by which an increased flow of blood is conveyed to the liver,
and consequently an increased secretion of bile follows, which from
various causes may be prevented from passing off freely into the
intestines. It is attended with no danger, and is generally removed
by mild purgatives.
The hare-lip, frænum linguæ, or tongue-tied, requires surgical aid.
849. _Pain in the Bowels_ may happen with or without diarrhea, and
is often produced by improper food, or exposure to cold air. The
symptoms are frequent fits of crying, drawing up the knees towards
the bowels, which are hard and tense to the touch, accompanied
either with an obstinate costiveness, or thin, watery, and frequent
evacuations, slimy, sour, and of a green color. This complaint is
oftentimes relieved by the following powders: Take Turkey rhubarb,
in very fine powder, calcined magnesia, of each, twelve grains;
compound powder of ipecacuanha, four grains. Mix them well together,
and divide them into six doses: one to be given night and morning,
to a child under three months; above that age, the dose should be
increased.