CHAPTER XIV.

SECTION I.

CHOLERA INFANTUM VERSUS STARVATION.

If cholera of infants can be reckoned as a distinct disease, then can

starvation. Whether starvation causes two-thirds of all the infantile

mortalities, during the latter part of summer and the first part of

autumn, or not, the symptoms indicate much the same treatment as in

cholera. This statement can only be proved by close unbiased

observations; books can never do it.

We will first notice some of the symptoms of starvation which may be

present in real consumptive babes, also the signs of starvation that may

develop in cholera; after which I shall endeavor to describe the

symptoms of cholera as viewed in the light of a disease.

Starvation of a child is seldom detected by friends who may be

constantly caring for it, but the eye of a practitioner cannot fail to

do so at once, assisted by the required information. Notwithstanding, a

physician may permit doubts to enter the mind, or through over

cautiousness conceal the real opinion.

SIGNS OF STARVATION.

A child may be apparently well and hearty at birth, may thrive even at

the breast for a few months; then all at once seem to fail. It may be

fed on whatever is ordered if not at the breast from the first; yet

barely live on for months, whining, drooping, and struggling, as it

were, to live. Such patients lay awake, listen, and watch the motion of

passing objects; when spoken to, will try to indicate something, look

pitiful, act intelligent concerning wearing apparel or toys. In fact

such a child is termed cross. It will cry after everything it sees, and

that it don’t see; will slap things, such as cake or crackers, out of

your hand. Nothing offered is welcomed as a relish. The bowels are

generally loose, the urine copious; yet in many cases the water is

voided in large quantities, while the bowels are dry. The eyes retain

their brightness, as if to invite attention to the fact, “I would thrive

if I had what I need.” The patient may drink half a gallon a day without

the least sign of satisfaction.

Starvation may begin with the fœtal development either from lack of

nourishment from the system of the parent, or by reason of repeated

attempts at abortion; either of which is sufficient to blunt the

vitality of the germ. Such children are likely to “hang on,” perhaps

till the period of youth, and with good care may arrive to manhood or

womanhood. The most doubtful cases are those that have a dry cough, eat

a great deal, yet are never content, bloat at certain times, and grow

more stupid; the body becoming a mere skeleton, and with difficulty kept

warm. The new being is dependent upon the state of the parent’s blood

from the moment of conception till weaned from the breast. If the food

upon which a child is fed is the cause of the trouble, it should be

changed as soon as possible. If from other causes there are medicines

which can in a measure supply the needed basis. But generally the real

cause is not known or even suspected until too late to repair the

injury, and the patient dies after having exhibited all signs of

consumption. Children born of consumptive parents may come out quite

bright in some branches of thought, yet be quite delicate, seldom

passing the flower of youth in life.

I feel incompetent to decide whether a consumptive mother had better

nurse her child, and thus fasten the germ of disease upon it, with a

view to prolonging her own life; or whether it is best for her to yield

to her fate, and substitute some different food for the chance of her

child’s life.

SECTION II.

SYMPTOMS OF EMPTINESS OR STARVATION, WHICH MAY LEAD TO CHOLERA.

If, as heretofore mentioned, the solid or nutritive principle of the

milk has been withheld from the babe by adulteration in any way, the

blood becomes watery, the fat cells cannot develop, the tissues that

hold the fluid with which to moisten the parts dries away, and the flesh

becomes soft or skinny. The milk may be nutritive, too, and yet for some

reason fail to mix with the juices in the stomach so as to insure

healthy blood.

These facts, however, are seldom found out by a casual medical attendant

until the powers of digestion are too weak to derive much benefit from

another kind of diet. Besides, the expense of the articles mostly

ordered by physicians renders a trial almost out of the question. There

are, however, many articles of nourishment obtainable, which, if

perseveringly administered, will do much to assist in building up the

little frame.

The most marked of the signs that may end in cholera are vomiting,

dulness of the eyes, rolling the head, as if to rock, spitefully crying

when taken up to be changed, and begging for everything, as they say;

also crying, if old enough, for the very things no one thinks it should

have. If a child could have some of what it smells and craves, at such

times, no doubt but that recovery would commence. But a general

languidness of the whole system, and a loathing of the sight of a bottle

or its accustomed food, shows signs of certain destruction. In the last

stage the child screams faintly, starts at the sound of almost anything;

sometimes the breathing is scarcely perceptible. The discharges from the

bowels are seldom white and frothy, as in the last stage of acute

cholera; owing, perhaps, to the fact that the diet has been continued in

the former, whereas in the latter all food is generally suspended during

treatment, except it be fluids of the mildest nature; unlike in the last

stage of consumption, when the little sufferer seems to watch every

movement of its nearest friend, sometimes rising half way up to look

about, then falling back exhausted, it now lies quiet.

It may be remarked just here that infants affected with inanition or

starvation, consumption and cholera, most invariably retain to the last

hour their instinct to suck, whether it be of the bottle or of the

breast. It is a well-known fact that infants who were nearly destroyed

by starvation from being fed on poor milk by hand, have been

successfully raised by being put on breast-milk.

SECTION III.

CHOLERA INFANTUM.—INFANTILE CHOLERA.

We will now consider that much-dreaded disease termed “cholera

infantum.” I have seen babes attacked with it from two weeks old and

upwards. A child may be nursing at the breast or feeding from a bottle,

when all of a sudden it leaves off, and looks languidly about in a

comparatively stupid and pitiful manner; the eyes lose their lustre, are

rolled about as if not noticing any particular object. Fluids are thrown

up as soon as swallowed; passages from the bowels are frequent, though

many times but a speck in the centre of a wet napkin, most of the report

being wind. The matter discharged at first is likely to show in some

measure the cause of the irritation.

After the acidity has been corrected by medicines, unlike a simple

looseness, the purging and vomiting of infantile cholera still continue,

showing conclusively the inactivity of the internal organs of digestion.

In some cases the remedies that are scientifically administered pass out

into the napkin unchanged; in others, they seem to lodge somewhere and

dry up. The chances are always considered favorable to recovery if the

remedies have a desirable action.

A child may drool or throw up its food at any time, yet be quite

healthy. If a babe is sucking, and the mother indulges in a mixed or

meat and vegetable diet too early, the first passages after it is taken

sick will show signs of heat, fermentation and inflammation; they will

either be of a deep yellow, or more or less green, and slimy. In such

instances it is always advisable to take the infant from the breast for

a while and feed it on arrow-root boiled in water, till the acidity is

corrected; then in milk, no sugar being added, alternating with

gum-arabic water. The mother, or wet-nurse, having been put under strict

diet for a week, might with propriety resume nursing. Robust, perfectly

developed children are apt to exhibit considerable vitality through the

different phases of the disease; but as far as my experience has been,

they succumb to the worst more quickly than the more delicate-appearing.

As the disease progresses the little sufferer will thrust its fingers in

its mouth, as if to intimate hunger or dryness, and gag, as though

something was sticking in the throat. The hands and arms are the most

active. The lower extremities are seldom moved from one position; and

when moved by any one, they are quickly reversed. Every movement of the

body, in bathing or changing, is followed by a discharge from the

bowels. These discharges vary in consistence even before any medicine

has been given. After the bowels have been purged, as is recommended by

most physicians to begin with, the discharges from the bowels may run

off frequently, and in small quantities, depositing in the napkin a

whitish, frothy fluid, which settles down to a chalky substance, giving

out the smell of lime. If such emissions continue, they will effect a

rapid destruction; or they may have the same appearance from the

beginning if the internal organs have been previously rendered weak from

starvation, or rather where the food has been but little better than

water sweetened; and, too, these frothy emissions greatly chafe the

parts if they are allowed to remain soiled.

The tongue is dry and stiff, as a general thing, throughout the disease.

The body, with the exception of the belly, is dry and cool. The mouth is

apt to be hot from the beginning, a sign remarked by mothers who have

suckled babes with cholera; in the last stage, the disposition to sleep,

but start at the least noise; the mouth lying half open, the intelligent

attempts to suck; the decrease of the discharges from the bowels; the

cessation of retching; the sinking in of the features; the nervous

grasping, as if to catch some passing object; jerking of the body, and

moaning, may be looked upon as unfavorable signs.

It is a great mistake to conclude that infants will have cholera if

weaned early, or if they are to be artificially nursed. The fear comes

from persons having been so educated within the last half century.

All kinds of preparations are advertised and eagerly sought for baby

diet; as if the internal organs of babes were entirely different from

what they were before, and must needs be supplied with something more

supernatural than those of the adult. The symptoms of cholera are by no

means uniform. For instance, they may be cut short, or aggravated by

overdosing, before the facts in the case are made known. Thus, if

paregoric, laudanum, or any alcoholic carminatives are habitually put in

the drink, the most marked signs will be the smell of the breath, the

presence of constipation, stupor and sinking in of the features more or

less, with very little vomiting. Such cases, no doubt, are seldom

admitted, the victims being dead, or nearly so, when medical aid is

called.

SECTION IV.

GENERAL TREATMENT OF CHOLERA INFANTUM, MEDICAL AND DOMESTIC.

Unfortunately for many children, it is usually in the last stage of the

disease that a physician is consulted. Probably any number of

palliatives have been given with good intentions and high hopes of

success. For one, the old cleaning-out remedy, so much thought of by old

ladies, and doctors not a few,—castor-oil. Whatever may be deemed as

proper treatment, it should be remembered that nothing short of the most

untiring vigilance on the part of the attendant, guided by Divine aid,

can bring success in raising a child on whom cholera has fastened its

blighting fangs. Yet what encouragement it is to know that by those

means it can be saved.

My course for the last fifteen years has been to first ascertain, if

possible, the cause of cholera, and have it removed; also particularly

to inquire how long it has been since the child has been noticed to fail

in the effort to suck; then as to the color and frequency of the

discharges. I have never known, through my observations of over

twenty-three years, any better corrector of acidity, sourness in the

human bowels, than calcined magnesia. After giving from two to three

grains every hour, or according to the degree of acidity, until it is

all apparently changed, then, as cautiously as needful, I proceed to

quiet the motion of the bowels, as in case of purging within the month,

by the use of mixture No. 1, which if put up by a regular chemist, and

given according to directions, can be no more objectionable because

inserted in this little book than thousands of other recipes scattered

over the community by tons in expensive books.

No. 1, R. Mixtura Creatæ, preperata, zj.—Chalk Mixture, Aquæ Cinnam.

zss.—Cinnamon Water. Add Opii Tinct. Gutta vj.—Laudanum.

Shake well before using. Dose—A small teaspoonful after each stool.

Increase the dose according to age of patient. Of course it is not

expected that the inexperienced would attempt to administer anything

other than domestic remedies, unless put up according to the rules of

art.

For a decided case of cholera, it is best to begin with half a

teaspoonful of the mixture; which, by the by, should be sucked down by

the patient very slowly, in order to have it remain on the stomach. No

time should be wasted listening to the old story of working off a bowel

complaint; few are the adults that ever have survived the experiment,

much less the weakly infant. Deaths from cholera cannot possibly be so

numerous in consequence of the discharges having been checked too soon,

for the usual precaution is not to arrest them; so they are let to go on

increasing, till all hopes of contracting the vessels are vain. It would

be well in all cases before administering Mixture No. 1, to fill a

flannel bag with hops, wring it out of warm, salt water and lay it over

the chest and belly, re-wetting every two hours; this done will alone

sometimes prove successful.

When the mouth remains dry and hot, a little cool water, sucked slowly

from a spoon, does seem to revive the little sufferer, and I have no

reason to doubt its efficacy in abating the suffering, if not the

disease. Stimulant astringents are what is needed after the passages are

checked. The least mite of Nature’s stimulant—common salt—laid on the

back part of the tongue, will excite a flow of saliva, and greatly

assist in removing a sort of hair-worm which has been noticed to infest

the throat in some patients. When there is a continuance of vitality,

and the passages continue to be green, or tinged with blood, and

external cooling applications, as of flaxseed poultices, have been well

tried, an effort should be made to stimulate the liver; this is very

likely to be the case where the age and constitution of the child is

sufficient to permit the disease to run on for quite a while. Hydrargium

chloridum-calomel, is sometimes the most reliable drug that can be used

to correct that. This drug is unsafe in the hands of the inexperienced,

but quick and safe when under the guidance of medical skill. The dose

for a child six months old should never exceed one-sixteenth of a grain,

or one grain in sixteen hours, followed by a sip of warm milk.

The nourishment during this time should consist of the breast-milk, if

possible; if not, arrow-root boiled in milk and gum-water, fed from a

spoon twice a day, or oftener. But either should always be given about a

half hour after any medicine, unless otherwise directed. Cold water

should never be allowed to a patient while medicine is being

administered, the nature of which is unknown. Light, air, sponging the

body with warm salt water, a change of clothing or bedding, each tends

to stimulate the pores, quench thirst, and give tone to the whole

system. Thin flour-gruel acts as a pasty lining to the entrails. After

the irritation has ceased, great care is required to prevent a relapse;

therefore in all cases when the breast-milk cannot be obtained, the

various vegetable astringents should be relied on to build up the

muscles, the different grains, as corn-meal, starch and oatmeal, given

often but in small quantities, will build up the fat cells. If, after

the liver has been acted upon, the green stools do not cease, and there

seem to be a general weakness of the digestive organs, the juice of the

blackberry, raspberry, or whortleberry, will, in most cases, effect a

cure; also, the rinds of ripe peaches boiled in milk till well done,

strained, and given when cool—a teaspoonful five or six times during the

day, and about as often at night—is excellent. The effect of either of

these remedies should be closely watched, as by their astringent nature

they might induce constipation.

With a view to the comfort of the sick one, and the convenience of the

nurse, it is better to prepare a bed of some light material, on which

the patient can lie with its body flexed. Too often the little creature

is forced to lie in a narrow place, or more frequently on the lap, in

one position, till it would seem as if it would be paralyzed. There

should be two sets of bedding in order to expedite recovery. The

material should consist of goods that could be easily washed, and kept

clean. It is essential, too, that flannel be worn by the sick one; but

it is a sad mistake to imagine that flannel clothes do not need changing

as often as cotton ones.

When I have suggested a bed for sick infants, some grandmas have thought

me cruel. But in such critical cases as the one in question, a few

moments’ trotting and rolling on the lap might undo all that it had

taken weeks to do. Should the stomach become settled, but the lower

bowels remain rather weak and liable to looseness, and there is no fever

present, I think much of the burnt brandy in small doses. I prepare it

in the following manner: Take a wineglassful of the best brandy, one

tablespoonful of refined sugar, dissolve it well, then pour it in a

shallow dish and set fire to it with a lighted paper, not a match; when

the blue flame is off it is fit for use, and should be put in a clean

vial and labelled. Of this, I give to a child six weeks old and upward,

six drops in a little water, say about three times within twelve hours.

To one six months and upward, I give ten to fifteen drops twice a day.

This warms up the stomach and stimulates the digestive fluid glands to

action. After the brandy has had the desired effect, a speedy recovery

may be hoped for. The bathing, nourishing diet, quietness, and, above

all, patience, need to be continued with greater zeal when recovery is

apparent. The recovery from cholera is probable only when the

surroundings are favorable; it is doubtful where the locality is densely

inhabited, the disease prevalent, and where there is a lack of means to

provide ample care and nourishment. Patients recovering from a disease

like cholera, which so undermines the nervous system, require a deal of

determination to prevent the undoing of what has been done by catering

to their whims.

CHAPTER XV.

THE CAUSES AND PREVENTION OF CHOLERA INFANTUM.

It has been argued, authoritatively, no doubt, that the causes of

cholera infantum are, poor milk, bad air arising from old water-soaked

cellars, of tenement houses, or when it affects those of all conditions

in life, the rich, the poor, the black and the white,—its cause is said

to be in some atmospherical phenomena. I think the last mentioned might

be reconsidered, since it appears, from noticing the health records,

that mortalities from this disease have increased in extremely warm

weather only in proportion to the influx of emigrants.

If poor or adulterated milk were the cause, there should be an entire

absence of the disease at present, since such stringent efforts are now

put forth to punish the wretch who dares adulterate the milk he sells.

Quite enough has been published of late concerning the adulteration of

milk by putting in saltpetre, chalk, glucose, anotta, and other

ingredients for the purpose of increasing the density, while water is

added to increase the quantity. Admitting these shameful facts, have

they not been practised long enough for the news to have reached the

ears of every housewife in America? Why, I have been hearing those

reports at different times for forty years. With these facts, then, so

generally known, why do people water the milk they buy, and depend on it

for the support and nourishment of infants? There is trouble somewhere.

Children have been successfully raised on milk from animals, both in

city and country, at all seasons of the year, in hot or cold climates;

and many thousands of aged mothers to-day, could doubtless advise young

women in the matter of baby raising, did they not settle down in the

thought that the young people are getting all such knowledge along with

their great facilities for education. Oh, how sadly mistaken have many

thousands gone to their long home!

The management of cholera infantum is not to be coveted; the best of all

is to know how to prevent it. I sincerely believe that the greater

number of cases of cholera are induced by the unnatural custom of

preparing a bottle of food, and putting the child in a position to sleep

while it sucks from it. Where is the woman or man who can sleep and eat

at the same time? The mode of preparing it is generally putting a little

milk with a quantity of water, and a little sugar, into a half-pint

bottle—if the babe is only a few days old—and this is kept close to its

warm body for hours, or what is just as bad, re-warmed every time it is

suspected that the baby is hungry.

Pure milk needs no watering; it is simply converted into slops by so

doing. It contains naturally sugar, butter, lime, and all that is

required for the nourishment of the young.

The saliva of the glands of the mouth and the juices of the stomach are

as fully able to dilute and separate the life principles of milk for a

babe, as they are to prepare solid food for the maintenance of the

adult. We eat a beefsteak in its purity, risking the after effects; were

there more ventures in administering pure food to helpless infants, no

doubt but there would soon appear a change in the physique of our young

men and women.

To insure a healthy meal, an infant should invariably be fed with care

before laying it down from the very first day of its attempt to suck

from a bottle, for the following reasons:—

As the babe dozes, its breath goes down the tube; the heat and churning

motion together separate the butter globules from the fluid so that they

cannot get through the holes, unless, as is often the case, the holes

are made too large, for some selfish convenience. And by this latter

means the danger of strangulation becomes more imminent if the child is

left alone. Scores of times have I seen the infant tugging away between

naps, for hours, trying to get what it should have finished in less than

twenty or thirty minutes, and been sleeping soundly.

Numbers of them cry half the night, or are pacified by having the rubber

nipple of a filthy-smelling sucking-bottle continually stuck in the

mouth. Thus some babes are literally worn out sucking, trying to get a

bare subsistence. Even if an infant nurses from the breast, it is wrong

to put off suckling it till the powers are almost overcome by sleep.

While we are aware that its breath cannot go into the mamma, the

liability to strangulation is none the less apparent.

There can be no more important duties to perform in the capacity of

housekeeping than that of caring for the helpless babe. Women doctors,

or, more properly speaking, doctresses of medicine, although usually

treated with less courtesy by doctors, are, nevertheless, by them

considered to be in their proper sphere in the confinement-room and

nursery. While I feel under no obligations to them for their charity, I

must admit their honesty and truthfulness in the matter; for surely

woman cannot fill a single position in the world so freighted with

material, out of which the moral and physical condition of humanity can

be affected either for good or evil.

CHAPTER XVI.

CONVENIENT METHODS FOR RAISING INFANTS WITHOUT THE BREAST.

A small bottle holding an ounce, for the first, should be in readiness;

a smooth round hole made in the cork, through which to put a quill; the

whole to be well covered with a strong soft linen, the edges of which

should be hemmed and securely tied under the lip of the bottle. This

constituted a sucking-bottle of fifty years ago. The modern rubber tube

and nipple, if composed of healthy material, removed from the mouth and

washed as soon as possible after using, may do as well. If a child is

allowed to sleep all it naturally inclines to, four ounces of milk or

two of cream will suffice it during the day, say from seven or eight

o’clock in the morning until six in the evening. From that time until

bed-time, say nine or ten o’clock, half as much. After ten, the feeding

should be as seldom as will allow of comfort. In this way, one pint of

milk or half a pint of pure cream will be sufficient to last a babe of

from one to four weeks old, a whole day, allowing the cream to be

increased to nearly a pint by watering. The quantity should be increased

gradually, while the number of meals during the night should decrease.

By these means a babe will soon cease to be any trouble after bed hours.

Only remember that it has nerves, through which it is supplied with

feelings.

A small bottle insures renewal of the food, for positively the same milk

that a child has tried to draw from a bottle for any length of time is

not fit to be re-warmed or offered to it again; and if persisted in,

will act as a slow poison, which may develop into cholera at any period

of infantile existence. Again, if milk flows evenly, the butter globules

do not form in the bottle. If the milk flows too fast into the child’s

mouth, the healthful benefits of a meal is lost.

I have often seen mothers force, with apparent anger, great spoonfuls

down the throats of their babes; perhaps such would think this cruel if

done by a nurse or overburdened servant-girl.

If a child has cold in the head, so that the nostrils are stopped, means

should be used at once to clear them. No one can swallow properly with

the nostrils stopped up. To remove the cause daily will prevent those

sickening accumulations. A strict attention to cleanliness, and frequent

applications of sweet oil, or lard, or goose oil, with a feather, is all

that is wanting to prevent so many cases of sore noses, terminating in

the entire loss of smell, and not unfrequently the destruction of the

soft bones of the nose, or even the cause of cancer. Feeding during the

night should be discontinued as soon as possible, as it is then that

mistakes of giving the food too hot or too cold are liable to occur.

Night feeding may only be avoided by encouraging babes to keep awake

during the evening. But if they must be put to sleep early in the

evening, as a rule, to suit some one’s convenience, it may be expected

that, as a rule, they will wake up just when other people are sleepy,

and desire some notice. Infants from three months old and upward will

thrive well on a pint and a half of milk a day, but will get on much

faster if fed with rolled compound cracker and milk during the day. It

is needful to give some babes fluids only, while others starve on them.

It is the continual emptiness that causes many children to fret and

whine; for whatever they smell, cooking excites their appetites more or

less as they grow in intelligence. And, too, children take appetites

from their parents in a marked degree. As a doctress, I never could feel

it justifiable to direct any woman to wean her babe on account of any

conceited inability on her part to suckle it.

I knew a lady whose infant of two weeks was taken suddenly ill while

nursing. A doctor was sent for, and when he was informed by the mother

that her milk was too rich for the babe, he at once advised her to wean

it. What more, think you, could have been expected with a diet of soft

boiled eggs for breakfast, custards for dinner, and wines or ales at

night? Surely if women ask no questions of the doctors, no answers can

be given. It does seem too bad to punish the child for the faults of the

parent. Eggs, like fish, may act like sure poison to the milk of a

nursing woman. The continued dry belly-ache or wind colic so much

fretted over by old ladies in the past, was but a sequence of the custom

of feeding lying-in women on wine custards. During the time of those

baby afflictions it seldom entered the mind of either nurse or doctor

what caused the almost universal three months’ “belly-ache” of infants.

Articles that may not perceptibly affect the mother or wet-nurse, as the

case may be, may prove certain death to the sucking babe.

Infants should never be obliged to lie over their accustomed hours of

rising. If necessity demands this, however, there can be far more gained

by taking up, cleaning, exercising, and giving them a fresh supply of

food. It is not that too much sleep may be enjoyed, but that the

condition in which it is taken should warrant the refreshment needed to

build up the new being.

Soft bones, enlarged joints, inverted feet, flattened back-heads,

sickening sores, dropsy, blindness, and numerous ills have befallen

infants from the thoughtless practice of letting them lie too much in

soiled clothes, and being insufficiently fed. In the matter of early

rising, the farmer’s child has the advantage of the city child. In the

country a babe is looked upon as one of the family, with rights that men

are bound to respect; but in the city it is, “Wait dear, till Johnny

comes home from school.”

There may appear small white scales or patches on the tongue and inner

surface of the mouth. This is commonly called “thrush.” It is usually

caused by too great heat, either of surroundings or diet. Sugar in large

quantities will create it in some babes. This complaint _may_ run on to

an alarming extent, but yields readily to mild treatment timely applied.

It not unfrequently happens that, during the presence of apthæ in the

mouth, the back passage becomes sore, or presents much the same

appearance. The thrush is then said by old ladies to have gone through

the child’s bowels. This can hardly be a fact, since the whole trouble

disappears readily upon removing the cause.

I have seen it upon the edges and under-surface of the eyelids, in babes

that are allowed to sleep where it is generally very close, with the

face covered over, or closely nestled to the breast of the mother. The

treatment should be cooling. Calcined magnesia in from three to

five-grain doses daily, for a week or two, and gently washing the scales

over once a day with sugar and water, will, if persisted in, effect a

cure. Giving “baby just a taste of everything mamma eats,” is no doubt a

frequent cause of this distressing complaint.

If the appetite fails in a child, and there is no perceptible cause, and

the mouth is dry and hot for a time, it will do no harm to touch the

front edge of the tongue with a mite of table-salt. One or two trials

will suffice to set the saliva flowing, then with a little coaxing and

proper food the appetite will return. I may have digressed somewhat, but

as apthæ is frequently accompanied by diarrhœa, I deem it well to guard

against fear and loss of hope that might ensue from its being mistaken

for cholera. In any case of vomiting or purging of infants, great

caution is required not to give all kinds of palliative suggested by

incomers; this is “going it blind,” so to speak. Cholera is a terrible

disease, and should be subdued as speedily as possible. At best it

leaves its merciless traces throughout the remainder of life; the victim

being frequently annoyed by choleric pains, indigestion, nervousness and

cough. To sum up all, the causes of cholera infantum are movable unless

fixed by some perceptible atmospherical pressure. The causes of cholera

are no doubt overlooked by the major portion of a community where its

ravages from time to time have been the greatest, and consequently no

efforts are put forth in a general way to prevent a repetition of its

visits. Even where the conditions of the atmosphere may give rise to

cholera, its force can be modified, and the number of fatalities

lessened. I have frequently been asked if cholera is contagious; in

answer, I can safely say, it is not, as a disease; but like causes will

produce like effects, in the same locality, and at the same time. In

regard to the fumes of carbolic acid, chloride of lime, sulphur, and the

like, as disinfectants, I believe that they are all decidedly

depressing, and against the speedy recovery of cholera patients if used

in immediate contact. The removal from a crowded district in time of an

apparent epidemic is decidedly commendable. It is well known that

poverty, wretchedness, and crime favor an increase of mortality from

this disease. Yet the prospects of thousands remain the same year after

year.

Strange ’tis, but true; in all this vast American domain, is there not

room for the welfare of God’s moving images? In the city of Richmond,

Va., the heat is much more constant in midsummer than in Boston, Mass.

Yet of the three hundred visits among the most forsaken poor of the

former city, infantile cholera is comparatively rare, and from July 15,

1877, to Oct. 30, of the same year, I found but one case of cholera from

starvation; that being a case where the parent had to be out all day,

while it fed from a bottle or sucked on something. Whatever saved many

others in like situation, it is beyond my power to tell. There would no

doubt be more numerous fatalities with children in warm climates if it

was the almost universal custom to feed them on slops; but on the

contrary, where they are not at the breast, among the laboring classes

at least, they are fed on what is convenient for the rest of the family;

and although many times the fare is decidedly objectionable, the Lord

crowns the efforts for good with success.

Going South, as I did, a teetotaller, I was pleasantly surprised to find

that the freed people were no more intemperate than any other would be

if placed in like circumstances; perhaps not so much so as many of those

who could better understand how, when freedom came, all of the

necessaries of life were speedily cut off from them, but where rum and

ruin were, they could find an open door. Instead of setting out a

decanter and glasses, as was the custom in the days of slavery

(according to all accounts), I noticed a delicacy, lest they might be

suspected of wrong-doing. In order to encourage the impression for

reform, whenever an opportunity offered, I would say that children have

grown weaker every generation in families that have indulged in the use

of rum and tobacco.

Frugality is advisable; looking to securing a home in the outer limits,

away from all objectionable odors, where rooms can be ventilated and

sunned in winter as well as in summer. Every room in a dwelling should

be swept and dusted once or twice a week, the beds aired, and bedding

changed. The general custom of housekeepers in our large and crowded

cities, of keeping their rooms dark, winter or summer, inoculates into

the system the germs of more diseases than could be enumerated and

prescribed for in a day. A cheerful home with a small tract of land in

the country, with wholesome food and water, is worth more to preserve

health and life, than a house in a crowded city with luxuries and twenty

rooms to let. That bad air is not the sole cause of infantile cholera, I

will mention an incident in proof. While travelling through some of the

thinly-settled districts of the British Provinces during the prevalence

of cholera in the autumn of 1865, I noticed that most of the children

suffering from the disease were those of parents whose circumstances

would not warrant the comforts of life. This was during the months of

September and October, when fish, oysters, milk and eggs are indulged in

to some extent. I thought the custom of advising the removal of such

patients to some elevated point near the salt sea air could avail but

little, since they were near the sea air and mostly in well-ventilated

houses, judging from the style of architecture. Also I noticed the same

uncertainty on the part of women as to the management of the complaint

as in the States. Herb teas, no matter what their nature, “catnip tea,

castor-oil and paregoric.” Every drink sweetened, as a rule. The visits

of the doctor few and far between; “so many cases he can’t possibly get

around to them all.” I had a little charge at the time whom I never left

an hour from the time it was taken ill till its recovery, three weeks

later. The family doctor called in occasionally, but the circumstances

of the young parents were such as to warrant the necessary aids to a

recovery which it was my good fortune to administer. This was in a

thickly-settled locality in the city of St. John, N. B., while in many

upland towns of Nova Scotia it generally proved fatal. May we not be too

willing to agree in charging our Heavenly Father with poisoning the air,

so that it destroys infants by the tens of thousands in less than a

quarter of a century?

Let the interested humanitarian visit those families where necessity

demands the absence of the parent a part or all of each day, to seek a

daily subsistence, leaving the youngest to the care of the eldest,

winter or summer, before deciding whether it is a want of stamina, the

depressions of the atmosphere, or indirect starvation which causes so

great infantile mortality at certain seasons of the year. It is a

mistake to suppose that cold milk given to a babe in excessive hot

weather will answer as well as if warmed. The human stomach is supplied

with heat from the blood and natural fluids, and when a quantity of

anything colder than the contents of the organ is poured into it, the

process needful to a healthy digestion cannot go on properly.

CHAPTER XVII.

SECTION I.

TEETHING MADE EASY.

As a general thing, children begin to get teeth from the ages of five to

seven months. The middle, or incisors, in the lower jaw, are the first

to appear, one in advance of the other; and, too, these may get through

almost unnoticed. It is a custom with many persons to begin poking into

a babe’s mouth just as soon as it shows restlessness, or signs of

getting teeth; and, perceiving that it bites, as naturally it should,

they at once introduce a rubber, or some kind of hard substance, for it

to bite upon, to assist the teeth through. This is unnatural, and liable

to increase the already feverish and fretful condition of the child. The

more artificial friction is applied, the more inflamed will the gums

become. Teaching babes to bite on the fingers, rings, dolls, and the

like, is but subjecting them to torture which they would gladly repel

could they speak.

There is really no set time at which babes should get teeth; some begin

much younger than others. There are instances recorded of children being

born with teeth; this, however, is of rare occurrence; but it is a

common thing to see the forms of well-developed teeth through the

delicate, transparent cover of the gums at birth. The development of

these little bones is really peculiar, and worthy of the most profound

study; but I shall only attempt to speak here in reference to the

maturing process, or their making ready to come through the gums,

hoping, by so doing, much of the seeming anxiety of young mothers and

nurses from this cause may be removed.

The term “critical period” is applied so much to the process of getting

teeth that it becomes fixed upon the heart of many mothers long before

its time of beginning. The most that must be guarded against is fatigue,

either from lying or sitting too long in one position, irregular habits

of feeding, and untidyness. The more a child slavers when getting teeth,

the better; yet this is not always a sign of coming teeth. The slaver,

nevertheless, keeps the mouth cool and moist, preventing dry or papular

eruptions. Cold water is advisable, given frequently from a spoon, while

the teeth are breaking through. If the child is at the breast, well; if

not, its food should consist of scalded milk; as it grows in strength,

oatmeal is a good addition. If hearty and craving in disposition, Graham

crackers crumbled in and fed to it with a spoon, about twice a day,

generally gives due satisfaction. If the passes from the bowels are

numerous, yet healthy, a drink of gum-arabic water two or three times a

day, together with flour added to the milk in place of oatmeal, will

generally regulate them. Over distention of the stomach by sweetened

drinks should be strictly avoided. The extreme fretfulness of the babe

at this time is caused by the pressure of the crown of the tooth against

the sore or swollen gum. When the teeth get through, the cause of the

distress will be removed. Should the gums continue painful, as is often

the case with the double teeth, a dentist or the family physician should

be consulted at once; and, if Nature has made ready the bony structure

to be bared, the least touch with the lancet will part the skin and

assist it through. I repeat that the gums in a healthy condition seldom

need lancing; they may be left to Nature. Admitting, however, that there

are numerous cases of daily occurrence where the lancet ought to be

applied, it is positively forbidden by some would-be friend. The surest

way to stop toothache in the adult is to extract the decayed member, and

so the surest way to cut short the sufferings of an innocent babe, whose

gums are swollen and painful, is to lance the gum, and let the tooth

come through. Children whose mouths are dry from being kept too hot,

eating highly-seasoned or salt food, or from some hereditary

disposition, are especially liable to be late getting teeth, and there

are many living evidences where none ever appeared.

The greater mischief is done to the whole nervous system by the

unnatural but ancient custom of pressing and rubbing the gum long

before, or at the time the teeth are making ready to come through. I

believe it possible to trace the cause of insanity to the pernicious

custom of rubbing the gums of infants. Once commenced, it, like all

applications that arouse the feelings, is looked for at a certain time,

rendering the child a burden rather than a pleasure to the family

circle. It is strange, but true, that the anxiety of some mothers to see

the much-mooted “critical period” culminates in a desire to bring it

about.

SECTION II.

THE ORDER IN WHICH THE TEETH COME.

The four cutters may appear in the upper jaw before the lower ones; two

may come close together, then the two lower ones. After a while, the

other cutters get through, making eight in all,—four up and four down.

Then comes the canine or dog teeth, of which there are four,—two upper

and two lower. About this time the stomach begins to be more or less

affected, according to the surroundings; the child is said to be

“cutting its eyeteeth.” Lastly come the grinders, of which there are

eight,—four upper and four lower,—twenty in all,—and are denominated

milk teeth. The following is the order in which they appear: Eight

incisors or cutting teeth; four canine or dog teeth; eight molars or

grinders.

Many babes keep their mouths firmly shut against rubbing intruders, and,

as if to surprise one, open the mouth to cry, and display quite a row of

pearly teeth. Healthy, well-developed children generally have all their

first teeth by the third year. Backward or rachitic children often have

none at that age. I am acquainted with several apparently robust persons

who never had all of their first teeth, and who are now probably past

the age to get them.

After the first teeth are through, precaution is necessary to preserve

them. They should be kindly looked after each day, any foreign particles

removed, and the teeth wiped with a wet cloth. No hot or exceedingly

cold, sour, hard, or brittle substances should be allowed to be bitten

on, as they are easily broken. A snagged-tooth child looks almost as

repulsive as a snagged-tooth man or woman. If people will let their

children go around, as in midsummer they frequently do, with bare feet

on the cold sidewalk, or with wet feet from having waded in every

accessible puddle of water, while getting their grinders, they should

not wonder at the great number of deaths under four years old. For thus,

many, besides suffering greatly with pain from teething, take cold,

which may develop in lung fever. Hardly any one says, “My child died

from exposure while teething.” Nay, but pneumonia sets in, and the

teething has to bear the blame. The primary cause is overshadowed by the

probable secondary cause of death. If the first teeth are well cared

for, all decaying ones removed in good season, the foundation of a

handsome, permanent set will be sure, there being no constitutional

diseases of the teeth themselves.

Loose, aching teeth are no less annoying to children than to adults, and

it is cruel to force them to endure the pain when a few cents paid out

to a dentist would remove it at once. Uneven, overlapped, inverted,

projecting, and anomalous teeth are nearly all occasioned by neglecting

to remove the milk teeth in proper time. Usually the application of the

dental forceps is no more dreaded than the linen thread.

It is a mistake to suppose that children must have sore ears, eyes,

mouth, nose, head, or some sickening eruption of the skin while

teething. On the contrary, it has been clearly proved that too much heat

and uncleanliness are the chief causes of these repulsive troubles. If

sores or pimples do appear at times, they can with propriety be washed

often with warm water, anointed with cold cream, till well; or, if there

are bleeding pimples, sprinkling the parts, after washing each day, with

calcined magnesia and elm flour, in equal quantities, will soon effect a

cure. Babes whose scalps are well cleaned at birth seldom, if ever, have

sore head. There is not the slightest danger of giving the child cold by

cleaning it off as fast as possible, when discovered. I have frequently

seen little three-year-old ones playing about with not only a sore patch

full of greasy dirt on their scalp, but a filthy-looking cap, called a

tar cap; in this way they have been kept till the hair-tubes were as

completely destroyed as if the head had been scalded. It is not very

encouraging to know that the great wisdom which prompts people to do, or

persist in having done, these mischievous things, is never sufficient to

find the remedy for the injury done. Whenever scurf does form on the

head, it may be removed by applying sweet oil; should there be

disposition to matter, a wash, made by boiling burdock root in

water,—say half an ounce to a pint,—applied once or twice a day, is

cleansing. To heal a healthy scalp sore, red oak bark, steeped in

water,—say half an ounce to a quart,—makes a good wash. Sometimes the

cure is very tedious; but, with due patience, all will be well.

When children get so that they can nibble, it is not a good plan to

begin putting candies and knick-knacks in their hands as a play-rule;

for this habit induces, to a certainty, all the unpleasant symptoms

attendant upon indigestion; the most marked of which, in children, is

unrest, fretfulness, loss of eye-sight, loss of teeth, and dwarfed

statures. I take pleasure in recommending the following as a healthy,

desirable kind of biscuit for children: Take one teacupful each of wheat

and Graham or Indian corn-meal; one half cup of brown sugar or molasses;

half teaspoonful of salt; mix with warm milk, knead well, cut into

medium size cracker form, and bake quickly. They are nice, and should be

eaten at regular meal times, dry, or crumbed in milk-and-water tea. Milk

should never be withheld from children on a pretext of being feverish.

CHAPTER XVIII.

COMPLICATIONS OF TEETHING WITH DISEASES.

Diarrhœa is the most common trouble during the teething period, and is

deserving of the most generous treatment. Should the food seem to

disturb the stomach and pass away undigested, or in pieces, with some

degree of sourness, the pulverized magnesia in from three to five-grain

doses, once or twice a day, will correct it; after which gum-water, or

milk, made like gruel, with flour, should be the chief diet till

relieved. No fresh fish or eggs should be allowed in time of diarrhœa.

Should the discharges continue, frequent drinks of a decoction of

blackberry or raspberry leaves, or what is just as well, the juice of

those ripe fruits, may be given in spoonful-doses. Also the fine lean

corned beef, rolled or pounded fine and fed slowly in small

quantities—say a tablespoonful during the day—will frequently arrest the

whole trouble; emptiness, it will be remembered, being an exciting cause

of diarrhœa as much as overfeeding. There will be emptiness if a

continual nibbling is allowed, with the smallest chance of ever getting

a substantial meal. Usually, in the diarrhœa of teething, there is great

thirst, which may best be abated by giving plentifully of thin, cool

gum-arabic water, no sugar. It is this everlasting sugar sweetening that

creates fermentation at such times. It is the over-indulgence in

objectionable food that causes much of the bowel complaint in teething,

rather than the teething itself. We are aware that the pain caused by a

coming tooth is annoying, yet this is no reason why children cannot be

kindly prohibited from grasping and tasting everything they seem to see

or cry for. Children are very sensitive to odors, therefore cooking and

eating should be done as remote from them as possible. In this matter,

however, many of the laboring classes and indigent are deserving of

sympathy; being either from choice, or ill-fortune, huddled together in

close tenements, where each can smell what the other is cooking. And it

is next to impossible for them to better the future condition or

prospects of their offspring while continuing to live so. It may not be

unprofitable to insert here what I have frequently suggested as a

sanitary measure: that is, for families to make it a rule not to occupy

the last room at the top of the house, even for storing goods; as

carpets, trunks, hanging garments or curtains, and bedding catch and

retain the odors ascending from below. Smoke, gases, dusts, breaths of

inmates, steam, the odors arising from old drains, or fever patients,

all go to the top of a building, and if there is no outlet it must stop

there and endanger the health of persons occupying it. By leaving one

room vacant, a window in it could be continually open and no one would

suffer from bad air. A skylight in the roof would answer the same

purpose, but these are scarcely ever opened.

WHOOPING-COUGH.

Frequently when whooping-cough intervenes during the time of teething,

the irritation of the gums somewhat abates. Some children have

whooping-cough and diarrhœa for some length of time, and upon recovery,

show quite a number of teeth. I am not all in favor of encouraging any

increased discharge from the bowels, but sometimes in congestive

whooping-cough a little looseness is beneficial. Cholera often sets in

just as the teeth have begun to break through the gums. The treatment,

however, should be the same as if not teething. Great caution should be

observed not to administer drugs containing laudanum; for by so doing,

air and mucus collect in the air or bronchial tubes, inducing a stoppage

in the breathing. Possibly suffocation and death have resulted from this

cause in numbers of cases. Whooping-cough, if gently treated, seldom, if

ever, proves fatal. I have had patients under my charge with it from

four weeks old, upwards. It would, nevertheless, be well to keep the

tender infant from exposure to whooping-cough for a while. It does seem

as if sooner or later in life we are to encounter these peculiar

complaints. The main thing to do to relieve the force of whooping-cough

is to keep the chest and air-tubes warm, and, most of the time, moist.

If there is danger of congestion, a warm poultice of flaxseed meal

spread over the chest and throat, and keeping clear of dust, smoke, or

smells of any kind, will aid much. By all means the nose should be kept

running, which may be done by sweating the forehead and nose. Bronchitis

or wheezing, like whooping-cough, is a disease that affects the

air-tubes in a greater or less degree, the inflammation sometimes

becoming very distressing. The treatment should be about the same as for

whooping-cough.

PNEUMONIA.

Pneumonia, which is lung fever, frequently sets in just about the time a

child is getting teeth. When there is known to be inflammation of the

substances of the lungs, active treatment is called for. To the nurse,

or mother, I will say that the surest signs of lung troubles are in the

manner of breathing. If the nostrils flare at every attempt to take

breath, or in other words, if they open and shut in quick succession,

there is little doubt as to the presence of lung fever well advanced. Of

course, there is great heat prostration and perceptible agony from pain,

even in the infant of three or four weeks. Thousands of babes die

annually from this disease, who have never looked out at a door or

window; how is it? Quick breathing may be occasioned by extreme pain,

but never flaring of the nostrils without some lung pressure. Active

measures to reduce the blood is the proper way to treat lung fever. The

flaxseed meal poultice over the entire chest, or wrapping the body up in

flannel cloths wrung out of hot water, and giving to drink, plentifully,

of cream of tartar and gum-arabic water,—one teaspoonful of each

dissolved in a pint of boiling water and a teaspoonful every hour to a

child one month old, and upwards, increasing the quantity according to

age,—all tend to reduce the fever.

Very young infants are liable to perish in the acute stage, yet where

the constitution is solid, in older babes there is a chance, with

proper, special treatment, of raising them. Patient watchfulness, pure

air, and absolute quiet, in all such trying afflictions, will more than

pay for the enduring.

SORE THROAT, OR TONSILITIS.

It is with the deepest regret that I have to say that, of late, nearly

every case of inflamed or sore throat is termed “diphtheria”—a name

which sends a severely depressing blow to the heart of many a true,

devoted mother. It is a pity that simple, curable diseases should be

given such long, technical names that parents get frightened out of all

common judgment, and give up all hope of successful efforts to save. I

frequently hear mothers say, “I lost my boy just as I had entered him in

school.” And rehearsing the causes, they are invariably these!—teething,

diphtheria, “pneumonia on the lungs,” one or all; “He couldn’t live,”

and explicit pains is taken to state that “the doctor said so.” I will

simply state here that the throat is very likely to be affected while

getting the first four grinders, or at the age of from sixteen to

twenty-four months; and the true condition of the membranes of the mouth

and throat cannot be guessed at. They should be examined by a skilled

practitioner, that the danger may be modified in the outset. An ordinary

sore throat may easily be converted into a malignant type by improper

treatment; as in case of the sore throat of scarlet fever, for instance,

the greatest danger arises from giving hot drinks, or applying some

severe irritant to the membranes of the throat. It is well in all cases

of sore throat to apply cooling treatment; this may be done by the

following means: Wring a cloth out of hot water, wrap it around the

throat, and cover with a dry flannel. Change every hour or two; give

plentifully of warm barley-water to drink. Anoint the glands of the

throat and ears once a day with goose or fish oil (no camphor), aiming

to keep the parts soft, thereby scattering the inflammation. The diet

should be nourishing, as of scalded milk, or, if the bowels are dry, raw

milk with oatmeal pudding. The throat and mouth should be swabbed out

frequently with a weak solution of bread soda; also common salt is good

to excite the glands on the back of the tongue, and assist Nature to

carry off the disease. By these, and various other domestic means, the

sequences of scarlatina, such as dimness of vision, deafness, and

glandular knots, may be avoided. Severe physic should never be given a

child if costive while teething. There are other methods which, if

applied, will be more lasting in effect; such as wringing a flannel

cloth out of hot water, and covering the bowels; giving a pretty warm

bath once a day. If injections are given, great care should be observed

not to injure the soft internal folds of the lower bowel, but they

should never be used if avoidable. Repeated but small doses of Epsom

salts, dissolved in warm sweetened water, are invaluable.

WORMS.

Children who are allowed to eat candies, and unripe fruit of all sorts,

are liable to be troubled with worms. Such children are constantly

thirsty, and almost as constantly desiring to go to the water-closet.

Young children that are fed on pure milk rarely have pin or

stomach-worms; but the irregular slop-feeding of children gives great

chance for their development. In nearly all cases where they are known

to exist, a few grains of salt given in water early in the morning will

drive them downward. Then three grains each of calcined magnesia and

pulverized rhubarb, mixed in cold milk just moist enough to be drunk,

should be given at bed-time. This continued for about one week, with

solid food at regular hours, will drive them out of the system. If

pin-worms appear in the back passage, the injections of salt water twice

a week, and giving a teaspoonful of salt water to drink every morning,

will generally give relief.

CHAPTER XIX.

GENERAL REMARKS.

We have, no doubt, learned, through the histories of the past, that war,

or any civil commotion, naturally interrupts the moral and physical

condition of the people in whose midst it is carried on. Not far from a

quarter of a century has elapsed since the close of our civil war, and

really the moral and physical condition of some of the people, the more

remote from the scenes of those terrible deprivations and conflicts, are

just beginning to develop the worst consequences.

It is my serious opinion that thousands of children die annually in the

city of Boston, under five years of age, from diseases brought on

through the excitement of expecting to go to school, the early change,

the exposures from actual compulsory attendance, while the system has

barely recovered from a lengthy prostration, and now needing fostering

at home with regular meals and plenty of toys for amusement.

Many are the little children of three and a half, four and a half, and

five years, that are still getting teeth, sent out in the streets to

saunter along in the chill air of our hill-streets to some school-house.

Heaven bless our schools, for they are invaluable; but may God change

the minds of the people as to such early exposures, being best for the

credit of our Commonwealth. In school at four and a half, and in the

grave at five; or in school at five, and in some State Reform School at

seven or eight! just when the mind is beginning to be formed. It is well

known that diphtheria, pneumonia, and various contagious diseases are

more prevalent where there has been some exciting cause. For instance,

during the warm days at the breaking up of winter, when the snow is

melting and the atmosphere is filled with vapors, one can see children

of all ages wading about in running water, dragging sleds, moving snow;

some heavily-clad feet well protected, while others are not supplied

even with wraps, but with rubber boots, it may be, minus the toes. In a

few days many deaths of this very class of children are reported in some

locality or other. Children will sit or stand around in places injurious

to the health, and will go into dangers where they seem really to be

admired by some adults. In the hurry and excitement to go in the street,

so much is lost of a chance to build a solid foundation either of health

or character. I know it is hard to restrain little ones after they have

tasted of so much freedom as is given them during the weakest period of

childhood, the teething period. This is why I feel so anxious to do or

say something that will assist parents to lighten their burdens in this

matter. In the first place, let me advise, with all due feelings of

respect, the entire abandonment of low, dark, bad-smelling, water-soaked

basement kitchens to work in, and the adoption of a rule to live more on

top of the ground, and less under the ground. The depression upon the

system of any one who has been permitted to exercise in open daylight,

is equal to that of being incarcerated. Some persons say they send

children to school to get them out of the way; a child soon begins to

know this, and gradually goes out of the way, until some aching tooth or

biting pain sends him crying to his friend.

If rooms are occupied all on the same floor, it is much better for the

health and comfort of all. Windows can be dropped from the top; or a

swinging pane, set in the top of a sash, is a very good way to ventilate

or let in fresh air. So few people that depend on their bodily strength

from day to day, stop to think that pure air is the all-essential

element, and that without light, air, and sun in their dwellings, the

poisonous gases cannot leave them, but they must sooner or later succumb

to them. Children need a great amount of rest while growing. Yet few

children are ever permitted to lay down during the day after entering

the primary school. “Oh,” said a mother, “children rest sitting in

school.” The probabilities are, that those little nerves are all on a

stretch for the first six months (if they last that long). And they

never rest except the meals are regular, the mind made happy, and the

sleep quiet and sweet. Not only so; the nervous system of children is,

in many instances, run down before entering school at all. Thus, through

a desire to humor or cater to its seeming wants, a child is permitted to

toddle about on foot, aided by some excitement, all day long, eat

whatever it should not, fret and fume till it is literally outdone. This

might be avoided by the exercise of a little early home rule, which

could be the better understood by the time the child is old enough to

enter a public school. If there are a dozen children in one family, each

one should be supplied with a chair, according to its age; so that when

the word is given to sit down, it may be understood and obeyed. If

children can conform to rules of order for strangers, they certainly

will for their dear parents and guardians. Would it not be well for

mothers and friends to withhold some of their indulgences from children

who are entirely too young to appreciate their endearing acts, and

bestow them more lavishly when the possibilities of experience will

insure a reward? Would not a little more kind persuasion bring sunshine

into the family circle? Would it not pay for every laboring man of a

family to reserve an empty room at the top of the house for a play-room

for his children? There is not the least doubt but that every mother

would be made to rejoice from the advantage; if not at the top of the

house, on the same floor with the sitting-room.

There is nothing particularly commendable in the habit of permitting

cats and dogs to be closely imprisoned with children, as little ones are

prone to put their mouths to everything; thus, there is a probability of

worms making from the hair of such animals when swallowed. By the close

observance of the different traits of mankind, I have been led to

believe that true philanthropy is ingrafted into the human heart only

through Divine agency. So that if belief in God and His attributes is

entertained by each, no sacrifice will be considered too great for the

sake of relieving the helpless ones within the family circle.

Philanthropy cannot dwell in the heart of an eye servant, it must be

inborn and unbiased in applications relative to human happiness. Too

often, it happens that mothers give up all hope just at the weakest

period in a child’s life, willing, on the slightest pretext, to abandon

the offspring of their body. Words are not adequate to portray the

lasting miseries that, in consequence, daily encircle the minds and

bodies of the youth of our land. With many parents, the beginning to

raise a family is novel and pleasing, but at the very time the most

particular care is required, patience and watchfulness flag, so that it

is no uncommon thing to hear mothers, in particular, declare their

inability to rule and rear their own children. Would it not be well for

mothers to make a little sacrifice for the sake of equipping the mind,

that they may be able to dispense the required rudiments of moral and

intellectual education at home, till a child is at least seven years

old? Let mothers awake to duty; let them seek to know the causes of so

many bleeding hearts and weeping eyes, and learn to compare effect with

means, and means with ends; then the pall that is ever ready to obscure

their sky of cheer, will rapidly disappear. We find, when comparing the

statistical reports of the death-rates of children under one year old,

that they are largest in those cities where the influx of immigration is

constant, and the women, either from choice or necessity, are so engaged

in other pursuits, that they do not take care of their young. Also that

the death-rate of children under six years old, is greater in those

cities where early home discipline is thwarted and early school

privileges are the rule. But a few months ago, a gentleman informed me

that he had lost his only daughter. “What caused her death?” I inquired.

“The doctor said she studied too hard; she was taken with a hemorrhage,

and died in a short time.” “Was she old enough to go to school?” I

asked. “Oh, yes,” was the answer. “She was five years and a half.” I

knew the child was delicate from birth, but, notwithstanding, her mother

had taught her the alphabet at home. No wonder, the doctor said she

“studied too hard.”

The “mind your own business” policy goes down too well with some women,

for when the doctor pronounces the sickness of their babe a hopeless

case, they seem at once to give up all hope, they have no alternative,

they are mute, and will not so much as direct a petition to Almighty

God, the great Physician for relief. Would it not strengthen the

advocacy of equal suffrage in a population of over three hundred and

sixty thousand, if every woman would cultivate a desire to know more

about the prevention of disease and the preservation of health?

Diminutive, sickly, half-dependent people, care little what party

governs, so long as they, themselves, barely exist. By real, earnest,

devoted measures, women may be enabled, within the next decade, to

exercise the right of franchise, and fill positions of honor outside of

the domestic circle. But the women that compose the domestic circle have

been, are, and ever will be in the majority; these are the women that

have the greatest work of reform before them, namely, that of nourishing

in infancy, ruling in childhood, and persuading in youth, the children

of their fireside, that their sons may not graduate from the highest

school of State penitentiaries, nor the bright future of their daughters

be blasted by reason of early abandonment to the mercy of State

charities. Parents should hold on to their children, and children should

stand by their parents until the last strand of the silken cord is

broken. It is natural to the childhood days to sport and play. All

cannot bear the early and long-continued expectations through adverse

circumstances and frequent unpleasantness of a finale. The vexations of

youth from these causes, often serve, no doubt, to embitter the mind

against further progress. We need in every community educated men, it is

true, but the foundation dependence is in healthy, moral men and women.

Children should not be asked if they like such and such things to eat,

with the privilege of choosing that which will give no nourishment to

the blood. You may as well ask a child if the new shoes hurt the feet,

if it is advanced enough to know that the old ones must be continued

till the new ones are changed. Too much is expected of little children

for their own good. All of the bones of our bodies, when broken, will

unite again; but if the enamel of the teeth gets cracked or broken off,

they soon decay, and will be destroyed if not cared for by the means of

art. From the age of seven months to twenty years, man is being supplied

with those thirty-two pearly bones with which to prepare the food for

entrance into the stomach, that it may be converted into milk, from

which blood, the life principle, is derived each day.

Headache and toothache, one or both, render the school days of many a

youth burdensome. This, too, may be caused as much from cold feet,

indigestion, and constipation, as from either arduous studies or

decaying teeth. Some parents would stand in amaze if their sons or

daughters were discovered perusing some work upon the anatomy and the

preservation of the human teeth in youth; while the same parents would

boast of the almost frenzied determination of their children to read

every available love-novel; that, too, while the new teeth are daily

pushing against decaying ones. The study of the science of Dentistry is

wise and commendable to all.

Pauperism, like familiarity, “breeds contempt”; therefore persons should

try with all their mind and might to avoid its conditions. Is it too

much for me to say that the excuse for a mother’s consigning her child

to some almshouse, while she goes free, can be but shallow?

Unfortunately, the “I can’t” finds many prompters, and gains the

precedence in many instances, where renewed and determined resolution

only is required to succeed in caring for the helpless, and governing

the passions of the youth, until they are old enough to hire out, or be

put to some trade. To labor is honorable. Mothers, before you forget the

tie which binds you to your child, and deliberately consign it to the

care of strangers, look into those dear little eyes. Remember, few ever

return, or are restored, as was Joseph of old.

Cast me not off, dear mother,

Oh, cast me not off, is my plea,

I have ears with which to catch the sounds

Of rejoicing or murmur from thee.

I’ve a look that ne’er has been given,

Which can only be given to thee;

I’ve a word that has never been spoken,

But yet can be spoken so free.

Yes, a token of gratitude ever

Shall dwell on my lips for thee;

I’ve a tear that has never yet glistened,

That some day may trickle for thee.

In the bleak and changeable climate of Massachusetts, in the city and

vicinity of Boston, for instance, there reside many families whose

ancestors were born in a more genial clime. Therefore, it is not natural

that they, themselves, should be able to endure exposures to hard fare,

even had they been early accustomed to it in a warm, native clime.

Our women work hard, seemingly, and many of them against a heavy tide;

nor does there ever seem to be an end to their toils. Especially do some

of the laboring women of my race appear to work under heavy

disadvantages; if the family is small, they are never through with their

work; if it is large, there is a double excuse for having no time to

rest; yet many real needful things are left undone. I have often

wondered if such housekeepers, whose own affairs are neglected, and in

whose homes things go to waste, while they take so much upon them of

other people’s work, never thought of the story of “filling a hogshead

at the spigot that had no stopper at the bung.”

So with our men who labor hard; they are anxious to keep the wolf from

the door, and they thoughtlessly rise in the morning, go to work,

perhaps, without breakfast, working for hours in a condition for odors,

contagious or otherwise, to affect the system. Thus the liabilities to

colds in the vital organs, which may go on for years, gradually

undermining the general health, or may, as frequently happens, develop

in lung fever, and consequent shattered constitution. The laboring men

of my race, generally speaking, take much better care of the horses

intrusted to their care than they do of their own health. Were men just

as particular about what they themselves eat and drink, and how they

dress and sleep, the deaths of young men of thirty and forty years would

not be so common. Those who are not careful of their health die early in

this climate, and their offspring _die earlier_.

It is not the blood we wish to keep hot, as some desire to do; this

induces disease and premature decay. It is the body that needs to be

kept warm while the blood is normal, or rather cool. This is just as

easily done with man as with the horse.

Frequent baths, wearing all-wool flannels next the skin in winter,

changing for thinner ones in hot weather, eating coarse dry food, taking

less medicine, desisting from the use of tobacco and “firewater,”—all

tend to lengthen the days of mankind on this beautiful earth. It is

authoritatively stated that the colored population decreases in Boston,

but it is not all the fault of the climate; for there have been native

Africans who lived to a great age here. It is the neglect, in a great

measure, to guard against the changes of the weather.

By seeking to get in possession of the comforts of life, and buying a

little home, our men can yet be enabled to live, and raise up children

who shall be an honor to that noble race with which we are identified,

in point of strength and longevity. The Lord gave the qualities, it is

for us to preserve and improve them for His final acceptance. Our

Heavenly Father has provided a healing balm for every disease that man

is liable to, and I am prepared to say that all diseases can be cured

without the use of alcoholic stimulants. We have access to a large and

varied field of remedies, both in the vegetable and mineral kingdoms,

the virtues of which unfold to man in proportion to his possession of

heavenly virtues.

Let me, in conclusion, appeal once more to the united efforts of mothers

and fathers. Do not try to be blind when you are not. Can you not cut

short the certain destruction that awaits your sons and daughters,

through the influence of impressions gained by the constant perusal of

fictitious, and, in many cases, corrupt library books? Will it not pay

to prohibit those under age, or at least under fourteen, from reading

even Sunday-School story-papers? We are aware many of them are given for

the moral to be derived, but not more than one boy or girl in a hundred

ever cares a fig for the moral.

Does any one believe that the majority of the little children who

witness the farce of “Punch and Judy” on Boston Common every summer,

gain a moral, or feel that it is wrong to imitate beating a wife,

killing a baby, or hanging a black man? The popular adage, “No nigger,

no fun,” is why such schools are tolerated on our Public Parks. Are they

not a curse to our land? May not such shameful scenes prove to be the

primary lessons in pugilism, murder, and suicide? Possibly they best

serve to prolong the barbarous system of flogging, whether it be by

lashing to a post and applying the cat-o’-nine-tails, or otherwise. Then

will it not pay to endeavor to cultivate inborn morals early in life,

thereby shutting out a desire for vulgar and debasing sports?

Volumes might be written in which could be inserted plans, which, if

enforced, could not fail to prevent the adversities of life, the gloomy

foreshadowings and prolonged deficiencies in health. Some do not wish to

know about the human system, others cannot read, and more have no time

to read, or think how to live and be happy; seeming to forget that our

Heavenly Parent gave the earth, with all it contains, for man’s

inheritance. Many such are laboring day and night, and trying to educate

their children, yet do not always turn the abilities of their children

to good account. Books on the laws of health from the proper source

could never injure the mind and morals; but would, if read aloud in the

family circle half as often as trashy novels are thumbed over, prove a

blessing more lasting than gold. Let us strive to know more about

ourselves,—it is human, it is Christianlike to do so. Then will there be

minds from which to select students for the college, that may come forth

to the community graduates in Pharmacy, Surgery, Dentistry and Medicine.

It is well known that many noble-minded women have graced the chambers

of the sick with good service, in different conditions of need, too; but

at the present, women appear to shrink from any responsibilities

demanding patience and sacrifice, or rather seem not to rely on the

union of their strength with that of our great Creator, in time of need.

What we need to-day in every community, is, not a shrinking or flagging

of womanly usefulness in this field of labor, but renewed and courageous

readiness to do when and wherever duty calls.

PART SECOND.

MISCELLANEOUS INFORMATION.

All the objects in the material world are divided into organic and

inorganic. The principle of life is always associated with organic

bodies, examples of which are animals and plants. Quite a number of

inorganic substances go to make up the human body,—to wit: Water, air,

lime, magnesia, iron, potassium, sulphur, sodium, phosphorous, and many

more.

HUMAN LIFE.

Through the aid of scientific researches, we are informed that the

development of a being begins with a soft jelly-like substance. Later,

the parts intended for bone, become cartilage or gristle, progressing

with more or less uniformity from a few hours after conception, till

about the seventh month of pregnancy.

Anatomists nearly agree in stating that not more than six of the bones

are ossified at birth, the greater number being finished at different

periods of childhood. The lower portion of the vertebræ or backbone is

not usually completed until after the twenty-first year of adult life.

The bony framework of the adult man or woman is composed of about 246

bones, including the teeth. These are covered by about twice that number

of muscles or fleshy supports. The muscles, cords and ligaments, which

serve as so many bands for the support and protection of the body, are

generally much larger and firmer in men than in women. The custom of

suspending wearing apparel from the shoulders, conforms to the laws of

nature; as those muscles are so arranged as to admit of considerable

pressure without injury. Pressure upon the soft parts, as tying many

bands around the waist, or tight lacing, is apt to cramp the internal

organs of digestion, and crowd them out of their natural position,

thereby inducing headache, or other unpleasant feelings.

WOMANHOOD

Begins with the appearance of the monthly sickness, at which times all

undue exercise of the body should be avoided. Disobedience to the rules

of decorum and the laws of health at such times, may induce ovarian

inflammation, dropsy, consumption, and even barrenness.

It is a great mistake to administer brandy, gin, or any alcoholic or

narcotic stimulant to girls for the relief of pain, when the periods are

coming on. Opiates may destroy the functions, while alcoholic drugs can

only relieve by blunting the sense of feeling, through the deceptive

influence of intoxication.

Hot water foments, applied perseveringly, will bring more certain and

permanent relief.

Menstruation begins much earlier in some girls than in others, yet is

natural from the 11th to the 18th year, depending upon the state of the

health, also, climate.

MORAL RESTRAINTS.

An enema should never be given to infants in the presence of older

children. Little girls have been lacerated, and thus injured for life,

through accidents growing out of imitating mother, or “playing sick,”

and giving injections. A young girl should be subject to the advice and

protection of her mother or guardian, till sufficiently able to care for

herself. Poverty, with chastity, is an enviable condition.

INTERNAL ORGANS OF WOMAN.

The internal organs consists of the heart, lungs, liver, stomach,

spleen, kidneys, bladder, intestines, or guts; the uterus, or womb, and

ovaries, or eggs.

The heart is in the centre of the breast, pointing toward the left

nipple; the lungs are on each side; the stomach lies below the true

ribs, in the left side; the liver, with the gall-bladder attached, is

situated below the true ribs, on the right side, reaching across toward

the left side.

The spleen, a spongy melt-like viscus, is attached to the stomach and

liver somewhat, but situated under the left side of the stomach; the

kidneys are situated on each side of the spine or backbone, just above

the waist; the bladder, into which the urine drops, is situated in

front, just below the umbilicus, or navel; the uterus, or womb, is

situated just behind the bladder; the ovaries are situated on each side,

and a little behind the womb. Their office appears to be to secrete the

menstrual flow, and also to supply whatever is needful in the formation

of a new being. The womb is to receive and protect the impregnated germ,

together with the vessels through which it is nourished from the mother,

till the ninth month, or time of labor, at which time it is dangerous to

drink stimulants unless directed by a physician.

The large intestine arises on the right side of the abdomen, extends up

and across in front, just above the navel, then descends, terminating in

the rectum, or straight outlet, just behind the womb.

In case of dry colic in men and the aged, rubbing with the hand, and

steaming with hot cloths over the right side and down the spine, will

sometimes induce an operation of the bowels when other means have

failed.

Blood, in all animals, is the life fluid; in man it is obtained through

the mastication and digestion of his daily food and pure air. The blood

is considered to be pure when we feel well, that is, can eat with

pleasure, pursue vocations of livelihood, and enjoy refreshing sleep,

but impure when the reverse. Physic can act beneficial only by hunting

out and removing the obstructions to a natural flow of the digestive

juices; but it does not, nor cannot purify blood. Blood medicines is a

name used in reference to those which are employed to supply a principle

wanting in the blood, but they do not make blood. Therefore, blood is

supplied, and can be maintained without the intervention of art. There

is scarcely a principle natural to the blood, but that can be obtained

from something upon which we daily subsist.

A person may have pure blood, and yet suffer from obstruction in its

circulation.

INFLAMMATION OF THE OVARIES.

The ovaries are liable to affections from cold; the most frequent of

which is acute or dumb aching pains, accompanied with great heat,

depression of spirits, and thirst. It often seizes one while sweeping,

or otherwise exercising. It not unfrequently comes on while asleep in

bed, having the character of cramp, particularly after having wet or

cold feet, as it is through the feet such sensations travel rapidly to

those organs.

_Treatment._—A pad made of hops or any soothing herbs, wet in hot

vinegar, and laid over the lower part of the bowels and over the

kidneys. Internally, one and a half teaspoonfuls of Epsom salts, and

one-eighth as much of pulverized cinnamon, dissolved in a little warm

sweetened water, observing absolute quiet, will, in most cases, give

speedy relief. Opiate treatment should always be left to the discretion

of a physician. It is the collections from repeated attacks of ovarian

inflammation that give rise to tumors. They, too, can be cured if taken

in time, but it requires total abstinence from all kinds of fish or

stimulating food, or drinks, and very regular bowels.

RHEUMATISM.

Rheumatism, or nerve pain, of which there are several characters, is

nevertheless caused by taking cold, in some certain condition of the

system, at almost any time of life. Persons who get in cold or damp

beds, or sleep in cold, ill-ventilated rooms without night-clothes, or

otherwise neglect to comfortably prepare the body for the maintenance of

pure blood, are mostly liable to rheumatism in some form. It may last

for a few days only, then again, it may remain in the system for years.

It frequently attacks one part of the body and goes off, leaving a

lasting depression, remote from the seat of the attack. Ofttimes it

affects the nerves that control the organs of voice and speech; more

especially in those persons who use tobacco and “toddy.”

_Treatment._—In nearly all cases, in full habits, having been exposed to

great heat, alternating with cold, purging, sweating and extreme quiet,

will relieve. Anointing the parts with warm goose oil, or boiled olive

oil, is highly serviceable. In cases of long standing, with poor blood,

the opposite treatment is indicated, _i.e._, food or medicines that

create warmth, and supply principles wanting in the blood; such, for

instance, as beef-juice, rare-done beefsteak, lamb chop, corn bread,

pure wheat bread, milk, and stewed fruits.

Articular rheumatism, or that affecting the joints, long after the acute

or first attack, can generally be cured by feeding the joints, as it

were, from without. Ligaments and joints are not quickly affected by

what enters the circulation, but very much can be gained by wrapping the

joints with bandage, wet in some stimulating sedative of which hot water

takes first rank, pulverized opium and water next. Dissolve ten grains

in as much hot water as it will require to wet the bandages, apply and

cover with a dry flannel. Liniments should be used with caution, as they

tend to close up the pores of the skin.

Very much may be gained by taking a hot salt bath twice a week, not

necessarily going to the sea-side. In all cases of rheumatism, with

feelings of languor or loss of appetite, a tea of seneca, snake root and

valerian is advisable, and may be drank at pleasure, cold. Also, a cold

infusion of hoarhound and hops, made sweet with maple sugar, is good, if

continued for quite a while. Dose—a pint during the day.

SOFT BONES.

Soft bones, or a tendency to crooked limbs, in many families, may arise

from a taint of ill-humors, or rachitis in the parents, or even

grandparents; likewise, weak joints. The preventive means are, not to

keep the infant too hot, or closely bound, while asleep. Children born

free from any imperfection may develop distorted, if allowed to creep

around or sit on a cold or damp floor, be tossed into a bed between cold

sheets, when the nerves are excited and the blood is warm. It would

require but little outlay to provide close flannel drawers for children

to creep around in; besides, the nation would be blessed, in the future,

with men and women possessing firm muscles, with well-fed marrow in

their bones.

_Treatment._—Wholesome food, frequent warm salt baths, comfortable

clothing, sufficient sleep, and that in a comfortable place.

HEADACHE,

so frequently complained of by both sexes, generally denotes some

irregularity, either in the manner of eating or sleeping. For instance,

strong tea is binding in nature, but there are persons who “must have

it,” yet, nevertheless, are usually constipated or nervous. Eating a

lunch just before retiring will mostly insure headache, as will, also,

over-taxation of the mind or body.

HEMORRHOIDS.

Hemorrhoids, or Piles, may be brought on by whatever irritates the folds

of the rectum or back passage; as sudden cold, frequent attempts at

stool with dry bowels; frequent and severe physicking, or the passage of

fecal matter rendered acrid by the indulgence in highly-seasoned food,

alcoholic drinks, or late suppers.

_Cure._—Abstinence from heating food or medicines, bathing the lower

portion of the spine with warm water, applying simple goose oil, or the

simplest ointment, whether the sores extend to the opening or not. The

patient should take, as a cooling potion, a teaspoonful of Epsom salts

in warm water, two or three times a week. Nothing reduces the blood in

the parts more speedily; and there is not the least danger, as is

erroneously supposed by many, of taking cold by its use. There is a

thousand times more danger in numerous other drugs and potions given

under the cover of a great name, to cure the piles.

It is an error to suppose that certain remedies are only serviceable at

certain times and in certain places, at certain times of the year. Every

means possible should be put forth to reduce the piles before submitting

to an operation; a thing that is seldom needed, but nevertheless is

frequently done.

LEUCORRHŒA, OR WHITES.

This is a very common complaint among women of all ages and conditions

of life; but not more so, probably, than seminal weakness in men,—a

similar complaint, by the way. It frequently comes from taking cold,

after fatigue, which may run its course with some degree of fever,

languor and chill; during which time ulcers may form on the membranes of

the vagina, or entrance to the womb. These ulcers may remain quite a

while, and cause a continuance of the discharge, or they may come off,

and leave weak patches, even in virgins. This complaint is not

contagious, but if allowed to remain about the parts, may become

offensive and excoriating. It requires much the same treatment as

catarrh; hence frequently receives the name, catarrh of the womb. It may

come from getting up too soon after confinement.

_Treatment._—If ulcers are known to have formed, they should be removed

in the surest manner, that the introduction of the speculum may be

dispensed with as soon as possible. After their removal in that way, the

cure can be accomplished sooner, but ulcers can be removed without the

introduction of the speculum in very small women. If the evidence is

conclusive that ulcers have formed, the remedy for their removal can be

applied with less pain and displeasure with the vaginal syringe. No

astringent washes, such as alum, oak, bark, or lead, are in place while

ulcers remain. When there is no unhealthy discharge from the vagina,

there can be no need of using a syringe. Salt sea or home baths,

nourishing food and rest; applying a wet bandage, warm, during the hours

of rest, and keeping the bowels free without the use of severe physic;

avoiding laborious work for a while, will give great relief.

The constant use of preparations of iron is binding; and while, at the

same time, they may tone up the muscular fibre, they may but invite a

renewal of the discharges, by reason of pressure upon the vaginal walls

from the loaded rectum. It is a complaint which may at any time give

rise to evil imaginations, therefore should be cured as soon as

possible. It has been thought, that using the treadle sewing-machines

has increased the liabilities to leucorrhœa; but I have yet to conclude

whether it is from the use of the machines or the manner in which they

are used by most women.

In the first place, the operator sits too far from the machine, thereby

causing a motion of the whole body, while she leans too much forward;

secondly, operates too fast; thirdly, works too long at a time;

fourthly, allows herself but little time to eat or sleep. And, what is

more than all, frequently gets angry with the machine, unstrings it, and

gets it in as bad condition as she has her own nerves.

I would suggest, that weakly women use a sewing machine that is turned

by hand. Whatever causes a discharge, should be speedily removed, as the

first means of cure.

FALLING OF THE WOMB.

Numbers of women persist in saying their womb is down; I must admit that

there are many who suffer from a partial prolapsus, or protrusion of the

mouth of the womb; the causes of which are usually traceable to hasty

deliveries, miscarriages, over-lifting, pressure from a distended

bladder, or constipated bowels. But the most frequent cause of a bearing

down or a dragging sensation, is from weakness of the whole muscular

system. The walls of the canal that leads to the womb, partakes largely

of this weakness, which of course is increased by the retention of urine

or fecal accumulations in the lower bowels.

There are a variety of uterine difficulties that afflict women of all

classes and conditions of life. Yet it is somewhat encouraging to know

that the cure of each is possible when rightly understood.

_Treatment._—If the bowels are kept free by taking a teaspoonful of

Epsom salts, dissolved in warm water, about three times a week, bathing

frequently, and absolute rest observed, relief will be certain.

A pessary or ring should never be worn if avoidable. There are other

means to resort to less unpleasant and more certain to give permanent

relief. All misplacements of the womb should be rectified at once.

CHANGE OF LIFE.

The appearance of the menses in girls, denotes the beginning of

womanhood; but the irregularities which the periods sometimes exhibit

from the ages, of 35 to 50, have given rise to the term “change of

life.”

Women are considered to be in their prime at from 25 to 45, and if

careful of habit, may escape any perceptible irregularity save but a few

months before the entire cessation, or till after the fiftieth year of

their age.

What is needful for a pleasant and healthy cessation of the turns, is a

more strict observance of the rules of self-preservation. In some cases,

where the menses appear early, they leave early. Climate and the state

of the mind, and general health, very often influences the periodical

flow; the mere change of residence for a few hundred miles, causing them

to vary or disappear entirely, even in young girls. It is a great

mistake for young women, thus affected, to seek a doctor or doctress who

is considered an expert in “bringing the turns on again.” Probably any

amount of mischief has been done by neglecting to cultivate patience in

this matter.

In the decline of life, the cares become burdensome, and the system is

in a more irritable condition, therefore liable to cold. The ovaries

sometimes become enlarged, causing the abdomen to bloat, and sometimes

present the appearance of dropsy, or tumor; or a general enlargement may

take place. There may be periodical flooding of bright or dark, even

black blood, and large pieces of clot may cause great pain for days,

then pass away unattended by any serious change in the general health.

Very many women begin to notice the change by feelings of suffocation,

flashes as of hot steam, alternating with a slight chilly feeling. If at

any time perspiration is free, it should be encouraged rather than

suppressed. It is better to endure the hot feelings and save the lungs,

than to expose them by inhaling cold air through the tubes, or driving

the perspiration in on to them. Fanning, rushing into cold air, drinking

ice-water, all tends to throw the danger internally, inducing paralysis.

When the feeling of suffocation comes on, it is decidedly best to sit

quiet. When there is much fluttering of the heart, it is a good plan to

take one or two swallows of cool water, just as it is coming on; this

sometimes has the effect to retard it for weeks.

_Treatment._—Avoid over-heated rooms or exciting scenes; keep the bowels

free without severe physic. Use coarse plain food, drink very little of

fluids, avoid spices, stimulants, and secure cheerful exercise for the

mind, with an abundance of outdoor scenery; cultivate a love for the

gifts of our Heavenly Father, seek to do good for those who are worse

off than yourself, and all will come out right.

After the turns have ceased altogether, a woman may live to a good old

age, and fill many hours of usefulness to her sex.

Should the beats of the heart interrupt sleep very much, it is a good

plan to drink about a half-pint of hop tea, sweetened with brown or

maple sugar, at bed-time.

If the heart beats full and heavy, three grains of Bromide of Potassium

should be dissolved in cinnamon water, and drunk at noon and night, for

a week at the time, then left off to watch the result; and continued, if

needful. When there is great heat of the skin without perspiration, a

little mustard should be added to the daily baths for a while. Much

depends upon keeping the blood in a normal state at such times, and if

the luxuries of life are indulged in, the tendency is to fire the blood,

so to speak.

Meats, and sweets, or pastries, induce thirst, simply by their chemical

combination with the juices of the stomach; and the more water is drunk

to quench the thirst, the longer will the distress continue.

It is not at all improbable that the frequent sudden deaths of women

about the age of 36, is owing to taking cold through some imprudence, at

this time. Great care should be taken not to have the beatings of the

heart stopped too suddenly.

All women are not affected alike; many never experience any heart

trouble, whilst a great number are subject to it from early maiden life.

If there is much wind in the bowels, it is a good plan to take about

five grains of pulverized magnesia and three of pulverized cinnamon, in

a little sugar and water, every morning; it gives a gentle operation,

and may be repeated at will.

Irregularities of the menses, like the event of pregnancy, very

frequently occasions cramp in the stomach, for which many women boast of

drinking gin, or some equally volatile stimulant; this should never be

done. Putting on cloths wrung out of hot water, and sipping hot water

with a little mustard in it, will soon relieve. In case of pregnancy,

the cramps mostly cease with delivery.

CATARRH—COLD IN THE HEAD.

Catarrh is caused by exposure of the face and glands of the neck to

sudden draught, while the blood is quite warm. The mucus that drops from

the internal membranes of the head becomes dry, accumulates in flakes,

pieces of which gradually drop down on the soft palate and organs of the

voice, thus obstructing the air-passages. If it is permitted to go on,

it is apt to cause inflammation of the bronchial tubes.

Northeast, and easterly winds, favor its development much, but, with

timely aid, it may be cured.

BRONCHITIS, OR INFLAMMATION OF THE AIR-TUBES WHICH LEAD TO THE LUNGS.

_Treatment._—In all cases of catarrh or bronchitis, means should be used

to soften the glands and muscles of the neck. Warm steam should be

applied to the nostrils and inhaled into the lungs. Medicines taken into

the stomach, cannot reach the difficulty. Much may be gained by snuffing

a little warm salt water up through the nostrils. When there is great

distress from mucus in the air-tubes, about three grains of pulverized

ipecac should be added to about a gill of hot water, and the steam

inhaled into the lungs. All inhalants should be boiling hot, and used

repeatedly for an hour or more. Inhaling cold air after sitting in a

close atmosphere, will induce an attack of bronchial inflammation, or

thickening of the air-tubes, in persons of all classes and conditions.

Persons who are liable to frequent attacks of bronchitis, are apt to

imagine that their lungs are affected, since it prevents a free use of

the voice in singing or speaking audibly. I will repeat that this

complaint generally terminates with a loss of tone in the lung

substance, caused by the failure of the tubes to supply them with oxygen

or air; notwithstanding, one may live on for years with it. Sudden

changes of air, food or medicines that contract or depress muscular or

nervous vitality, may cause suffocation and death at any moment.

When there is much cough present in chronic cases, inhalations of tar,

pine bark, or roasted coffee, are beneficial. I never derived any

benefit from the use of preparations containing camphor, in the

treatment of diseases of the air-passages; but have always succeeded

with remedies that moisten, soothe, and warm.

BURNS AND SCALDS.

For ordinary burns or scalds, cover the parts well with molasses, and

give some internally. If blisters have not formed, this will prevent

them; and if they have formed, the water should be let out, and the

molasses well applied. It will keep out the air most effectually, and

draw out the fire in a short time. Also, chilblains, skin or scalp

sores, either on infants or adults. Corns, tetter, etc., may be cured by

covering the parts at night with molasses, and washing it off in the

morning with a weak solution of borax. In scalp sores of infants a

little sweet oil should be added to the molasses.

CORNS, OR CALLOUS.

Corns, or callous, whether on the feet of children or adults, come from

wearing shoes that are too short and too wide, or otherwise ill suited,

the friction of which, when walking, creates festers, the matter of

which dries and becomes a corn.

_Treatment._—Remove the cause, keep the feet clean, and comfortably

clad.

SORE THROAT.

This term is generally applied to all forms of throat troubles; but the

most frequent cause of difficulty in swallowing comes from cold attended

with swelling, and some degree of inflammation of the tonsils, hence

tonsilitis. The palate, or curtain-like arrangement over the root of the

tongue, usually partakes of the irritation. The uvula swells, or becomes

inflamed, and rests on the root of the tongue, creating a disagreeable

sensation in the attempt to swallow. The palate is then said to be

“down,” when, in fact, it is not down, but enlarged. Ulcers frequently

form on the tonsils, or almond-like glands, inducing extreme suffering

for weeks, when it could be cured in a few days.

_Treatment._—Apply with a quill, or hair pencil, a grain or two of bread

soda (carbonate of soda), and give one teaspoonful of Epsom salts

dissolved in warm water daily; at the same time, keep the neck moist

during hours of sleep by the application of cloths wrung out of hot

water, until relief is obtained. Epsom salts should be of the finest

quality, well dissolved, and sweetened with sugar, whenever

administered. The quantity should be reduced or increased to suit the

age and condition of the patient.

DIPHTHERIA.

This disease is usually ushered in by complete lassitude or loss of

strength. The patient appears to lose intelligence, has no disposition

to fret or laugh, the nervous powers seem to be blunted, with complete

loss of appetite.

The chances of recovery are more favorable when the disease is rightly

understood in the onset. This can seldom be the case, especially among

the indigent, for in those instances the true nature of the complaint is

overlooked, till it is too late to change the course of the malady.

_Treatment._—Medicines and external baths tending to reduce and brighten

the blood, are of great importance. Of the medicines, bromide of

potassium, given in from three to four grain doses, or two drachms

dissolved in four ounces of water, given by tablespoonful doses three or

four times a day for an adult. If the body is kept wrapped in a wet

blanket, and changed every twenty-four hours, having it warm when first

applied, it will greatly assist the recovery. Every means possible

should be employed to keep the throat open. As this dreadful disease

appears to arise from cold, irritation, and poisons in the blood,

affecting the whole system, it may be a question if whiskey and such

stimulants are beneficial in the first stage. Stimulants may be employed

throughout the disease externally with great satisfaction, alternating

with water baths, for if they are going to revive the powers at all,

they will do so more readily and permanently by absorption from without.

As yet the treatment of diphtheria appears to be undecided by the

medical faculty; an ailment must be well understood to insure decided

treatment.

SCROFULOUS OR GLANDULAR SWELLINGS

may develop by exposure to sudden atmospherical changes, but all

glandular enlargements are not a sign of scrofulous taint.

Nearly all of the ordinary swellings of the neck, or of any of the

glands, may be entirely removed by the continued application of salt

moistened with the pulp of apple. Hot salt-water baths are scattering,

as is also an occasional anointing with the ointment of helebore.

Should they fill out with pus, they should be carefully lanced and the

matter encouraged to flow out by applications of warm water or a

poultice of flaxseed meal; should it not run freely and appear firm, add

a little honey over the surface of the poultice for a short time. When

the wounds are healthy they may be healed over by the application of an

ointment prepared by melting white pine resin and tallow together. The

system must be kept open, and the blood well fed at the same time, as

poor living both propagates the disease and retards its cure. Scrofula

frequently terminates in consumption.

TUMOR. FALSE GROWTHS

May develop in or on any part of the body, in either sex; but in women,

most likely to form in the uterine regions. Some of the principal causes

have been mentioned in Part I. I will here advise the general

management:—Avoid eating fish, eggs, oysters, pork, vegetables of a

gaseous nature, or any stimulant drinks; also avoid anything that may

depress or excite the mind. As much of the distress which frequently

accompanies tumor is the result of wind and loaded bowels, it is best to

keep them free by small but repeated doses of warm Epsom salts; frequent

hot salt-water baths; anointing the entire body with ointment of

helebore, or goose oil. The dress should be of comfortable material.

Where there is much bloating, a decoction of water, pepper herb and

horse-radish root, maybe drank at will for months; likewise, hop

sweetened with brown sugar induces sleep. In this way one may live on

comfortably for years with tumor.

BRAIN FEVER.

In all cases where it is known there is a tendency of the blood to the

head, the patient should be placed in a cool, quiet room. The hair

should be shaved, or closely cut off; cloths wrung out of warm water may

be kept continually over the scalp and back part of the neck. The feet

and ankles as well as the wrists should also be kept moist during the

height of the fever. Small doses of Epsom salts, say one quarter of a

teaspoonful, dissolved in a little warm sweetened water, to a child from

one to five years old, will generally relieve the blood-vessels, if

given long enough to produce large passages from the bowels. The same

remedy should be increased for adults. Also the bromide of potassium,

administered as in case of diphtheria, is excellent.

It is usually some irregularity, over-work, or undue excitement, some

way or other, that induces the alarming symptoms of brain fever.

But, at all events, it shows that there is an overcharged condition of

the blood-vessels, which should be promptly relieved. Efforts to this

end should be both general and special. I have here inserted the general

course, which is to reduce the blood in density by keeping the system

open. Applications of ice, or ice-cold baths, over the head, after the

fever is at its height, does not always prove beneficial to the general

circulation. Ice may cause the blood to congeal in the parts, and thus

prevent a chance for the removal of the pressure, through the ascending

and descending blood-vessels. Cold water checks the flow of blood,

while, on the other hand, warm water assists it to flow. It is just this

assistance that is needed to free the system from all poisonous

irritants, and when timely and rightly applied it cannot fail to

relieve.

FORMULA FOR MAKING DOCTRESS CRUMPLER’S VEGETABLE ALTERATIVE.

Take of fresh Indian posy and water pepper herbs, each one ounce; white

pine bark, or tops, one half ounce; horehound herb, one fourth. Simmer

in two quarts of water in a covered vessel four or five hours. Have

three pints when strained; then add two and one half pounds of loaf

sugar. Boil briskly to a clear, thick syrup; pour out, and stir in while

hot, one teaspoonful of pulverized mandrake root. Strain again through a

fine cloth, and, when cold, bottle and keep in a cool, dark place. If

podophyllin, the concentrated mandrake is used—which I prefer—only one

half-teaspoonful is required to a quart of syrup. Dose for an adult,

from one half to two-thirds of a small wineglassful once a day while

resting. Dose for small children, in case of bloating, worms, cough,

from half to a whole teaspoonful at bed-time for a short while. Good to

remove old colds from continued exposures, morbid craving for tobacco,

alcoholic beverages or other blood poisoning idols, for which the dose

is one teaspoonful in a glass of cold water at every inclination to

drink, chew, or smoke.

Perseverance will insure success. No remedy should be continued after

relief is obtained; too much physicking impoverishes the blood.

NOTE.

In the paragraph on Sore Throat, page 102, I alluded to the danger of

giving hot drinks in scarlet fever: the same precautions were intended

for measles, or any of the skin diseases. But owing to a circumstance

which occurred with a young mother since the publication, I am

constrained to add some special advice for the management of measles.

This disease usually appears in the latter part of winter or the first

of spring. Children of various ages are liable to take it. This disease

comes on with some degree of sick headache, hot, dry skin, and not

unfrequently with cough and sore throat. A person may have it more than

once, it may be carried around in the clothes of visitors, or retained

for some time in the bedding, wall papers and carpets. It is very

dangerous to give hot drinks, to hasten the pimples to appear; they

usually do so about the fourth day after the fever begins, and if

nothing was given, unless the person was kept very cold indeed, they

would appear. It is this mistaken interference with Nature that causes

many fatal terminations of measles. The severe headache, heat, swollen

face and eyes, denote that the treatment should be rather cooling, in

order to mitigate the suffering. As a general thing measles need not be

considered to be any more than a cold; with a gentle purge, warm baths,

and drinks of warm water and lemonade, the patient will be all right in

about eight or ten days. But as the lungs are liable to be more or less

affected, a physician should be called in, that their true condition may

be known in the commencement.

ERRATA.

On page 16, line 7, for mama, read _mamma_.

On page 50, line 21, for panacea read _panada_.

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TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES

1. Corrected the Errata as noted

2. Archaic, non-standard, and uncertain spellings retained as printed.

3. Silently corrected typographical errors and variations in spelling.

4. Enclosed italics font in _underscores_.