1. Isolate the patient from other members of the family to prevent the
spread of the disease.
2. Keep the patient in bed and give a fluid diet of milk gruel, beef tea,
etc., with plenty of cold water to drink.
3. Control the fever by sponging the body with tepid water, and relieve the
pain in the throat by cold compresses, applied externally.
4. As soon as the skin shows a tendency to become scaly, apply goose grease
or clean lard with a little boracic acid powder dusted in it, or better,
perhaps, carbolized vaseline to relieve the itching and prevent the scales
from being scattered about, and subjecting others to the contagion.
REGULAR TREATMENT.--A few drops of aconite every three hours to regulate
the pulse, and if the skin be pale and circulation feeble, with tardy
eruption, administer one to ten drops of tincture of belladonna, according
to the age of the patient. At the end of third week, if eyes look puffy and
feet swell, there is danger of Acute Bright's disease, and a physician
should be consulted. If the case does not progress well under the home
remedies suggested, a physician should be called at once.
_WHOOPING COUGH._
DEFINITION.--This is a contagious disease which is known by a peculiar
whooping sound in the cough. Considerable mucus is thrown off after each
attack of spasmodic coughing.
SYMPTOMS.--It usually commences with the symptoms of a common cold in the
head, some chilliness, feverishness, {334} restlessness, headache, a
feeling of tightness across the chest, violent paroxysms of coughing,
sometimes almost threatening suffocation, and accompanied with vomiting.
HOME TREATMENT.--Patient should eat plain food and avoid cold drafts and
damp air, but keep in the open air as much as possible. A strong tea made
of the tops of red clover is highly recommended. A strong tea made of
chestnut leaves, sweetened with sugar, is also very good.
1 teaspoonful of powdered alum.
1 teaspoonful of syrup.
Mix in a tumbler of water, and give the child one teaspoonful every two or
three hours. A kerosene lamp kept burning in the bed chamber at night is
said to lessen the cough and shorten the course of the disease.
_MUMPS._
DEFINITION.--This is a contagious disease causing the inflammation of the
salivary glands, and is generally a disease of childhood and youth.
SYMPTOMS.--A slight fever, stiffness of the neck and lower jaw, swelling
and soreness of the gland. It usually develops in four or five days and
then begins to disappear.
HOME TREATMENT.--Apply to the swelling a hot poultice of cornmeal and bread
and milk. A hop poultice is also excellent. Take a good dose of physic and
rest carefully. A warm general bath, or mustard foot bath, is very good.
Avoid exposure or cold drafts. If a bad cold is taken, serious results may
follow.
_MEASLES._
DEFINITION.--It is an eruptive, contagious disease, preceded by cough and
other catarrhal symptoms for about four or five days. The eruption comes
rapidly in small red spots, which are slightly raised.
SYMPTOMS.--A feeling of weakness, loss of appetite, some fever, cold in the
head, frequent sneezing, watery eyes, dry cough and a hot skin. The disease
takes effect nine or ten days after exposure. {335}
HOME TREATMENT.--Measles is not a dangerous disease in the child, but in an
adult it is often very serious. In childhood very little medicine is
necessary, but exposure must be carefully avoided, and the patient kept in
bed, in a moderately warm room. The diet should be light and nourishing.
Keep the room dark. If the eruption does not come out promptly, apply hot
baths.
COMMON TREATMENT.--Two teaspoonfuls of spirits of nitre, one teaspoonful
paregoric, one wineglassful of camphor water. Mix thoroughly, and give a
teaspoonful in half a tea-cupful of water every two hours. To relieve the
cough, if troublesome, flax seed tea, or infusion of slippery-elm bark,
with a little lemon juice to render more palatable, will be of benefit.
_CHICKEN POX._
DEFINITION.--This is a contagious, eruptive disease, which resembles to
some extent small-pox. The pointed vesicles or pimples have a depression in
the center in chicken-pox, and in small pox they do not.
SYMPTOMS.--Nine to seventeen days elapse after the exposure, before
symptoms appear. Slight fever, a sense of sickness, the appearance of
scattered pimples, some itching and heat. The pimples rapidly change into
little blisters, filled with a watery fluid. After five or six days they
disappear.
HOME TREATMENT.--Milk diet, and avoid all kinds of meat. Keep the bowels
open, and avoid all exposure to cold. Large vesicles on the face should be
punctured early, and irritation by rubbing should be avoided.
_HOME TREATMENT OF DIPHTHERIA._
DEFINITION.--Acute, specific, constitutional disease, with local
manifestations in the throat, mouth, nose, larynx, windpipe, and glands of
the neck. The disease is infectious, but not very contagious under the
proper precautions. It is a disease of childhood, though adults sometimes
contract it. Many of the best physicians of the day consider true or
membranous croup to be due to this diphtheritic membranous disease thus
located in the larynx or trachea. {336}
SYMPTOMS.--Symptoms vary according to the severity of the attack. Chills,
fever, headache, languor, loss of appetite, stiffness of neck, with
tenderness about the angles of the jaw, soreness of the throat, pain in the
ear, aching of the limbs, loss of strength, coated tongue, swelling of the
neck, and offensive breath; lymphatic glands on side of neck enlarged and
tender. The throat is first to be seen red and swollen, then covered with
grayish white patches, which spread, and a false membrane is found on the
mucous membrane. If the nose is attacked, there will be an offensive
discharge, and the child will breathe through the mouth. If the larynx or
throat are involved, the voice will become hoarse, and a croupy cough, with
difficult breathing, shows that the air passage to the lungs is being
obstructed by the false membrane.
HOME TREATMENT.--Isolate the patient, to prevent the spread of the disease.
Diet should be of the most nutritious character, as milk, eggs, broths, and
oysters. Give at intervals of every two or three hours. If patient refuses
to swallow, from the pain caused by the effort, a nutrition injection must
be resorted to. Inhalations of steam and hot water, and allowing the
patient to suck pellets of ice, will give relief. Sponges dipped in hot
water, and applied to the angles of the jaw, are beneficial. Inhalations of
lime, made by slaking freshly burnt lime in a vessel, and directing the
vapor to the child's mouth, by means of a newspaper, or similar
contrivance. Flour of sulphur, blown into the back of the mouth and throat
by means of a goose quill, has been highly recommended. Frequent gargling
of the throat and mouth, with a solution of lactic acid, strong enough to
taste sour, will help to keep the parts clean, and correct the foul breath.
If there is great prostration, with the nasal passage affected, or
hoarseness and difficult breathing, a physician should be called at once.
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