In every house there should be a remedy cupboard. We do not mean the
ordinary medicine chest with innumerable bottles huddled together, but a
well-stocked emergency cupboard, easy of access, and containing simple
remedies for the many aches and pains of humanity. Such a medicine chest
is considered by some as one of the most important pieces of furniture
in the house. It should be more like a little cupboard than a chest. It
may be made of a rather shallow box, fitted with shelves, and there
should be a door which fastens with a lock and key. The key should be
kept by the mother, so that no one can go to the chest without
permission. It should be fastened rather high up against the wall. In
this chest should be kept everything that experience has proven to be
essential in the treatment of such emergency cases as most mothers have
to deal with.
No household is conducted without an occasional accident or bruise;
burns and ugly cuts are all of frequent occurrence where there are
children. If there is a place where one can always find some soft
medicated cotton, bandages of different widths, absorbent gauze and a
bottle of some antiseptic solution, it will prevent the frantic running
about when such articles are needed and save to the sufferer many throbs
of pain. To be thoroughly satisfactory the emergency cupboard must be
kept in perfect order and systematically arranged. For instance, in one
compartment keep the every-day remedies for coughs and colds, such as
quinine and listerine, croup kettle, atomizer and a compress and flannel
bandages.
There should be prepared mustard plasters, rolls of court plaster,
salves, liniments, lotions, laudanum, pills, porous plasters, castor
oil, sulphur, salts, camphor, and in fact everything that is needed
should be found here, and in this way many times the cost of the chest
will be saved in doctors’ bills. Everything should be carefully labeled
and so arranged that things can almost be found in the dark.