Searchlights on Health: Light on Dark Corners Part 43

_CLEAN HOUSES._

6. Keep your house clean and cool and well aired night and day. Your cellars cleared of all rubbish and whitewashed every spring, your drains cleaned with strong solution of copperas or chloride of lime, poured down them once a week. Keep your gutters and yards clean and insist upon your neighbors doing the same.

_EVACUATIONS OF A CHILD._

The healthy motion varies from light orange yellow to greenish yellow, in number, two to four times daily. Smell should never be offensive. Slimy mucous-like jelly pa.s.sages indicate worms. Pale green, offensive, acrid motions indicate disordered stomach. Dark green indicate acid secretions and a more serious trouble.

Fetid dark brown stools are present in chronic diarrhoea. Putty-like pasty pa.s.sages are due to acidity curdling the milk or to torpid liver. {323}

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_BREAST MILK._

7. Breast milk is the only proper food for infants, until after the second summer. If the supply is small keep what you have and feed the child in connection with it, for if the babe is ill this breast milk may be all that will save its life.

_STERILIZED MILK._

8. Milk is the best food. Goat's milk best, cows milk next. If the child thrives on this _nothing else_ should be given during the hot weather, until the front teeth are cut. Get fresh cow's milk twice a day if the child requires food in the night, pour it into a gla.s.s fruit jar with one-third pure water for a child under three months old, afterwards the proportion of water may be less and less, also a trifle of sugar may be added.

Then place the jar in a kettle or pan of cold water, like the bottom of an oatmeal kettle. Leave the cover of the jar loose. Place it on the stove and let the water come to a boil and boil ten minutes, screw down the cover tight and boil ten minutes more, then remove from the fire, and allow it to cool in the water slowly so as not to break the jar. When partly cool put on the ice or in a cool place, and keep tightly covered except when the milk is poured out for use. The gla.s.s jar must be kept perfectly clean and washed {324} and scalded carefully before use. A tablespoonful of lime water to a bottle of milk will aid indigestion. Discard the bottle as soon as possible and use a cup which you know is clean, whereas a bottle must be kept in water constantly when not in use, or the sour milk will make the child sick. Use no tube for it is exceedingly hard to keep it clean, and if pure milk cannot be had, condensed milk is admirable and does not need to be sterilized as the above.

_DIET._

9. Never give babies under two years old such food as grown persons eat.

Their chief diet should be milk, wheat bread and milk, oatmeal, possibly a little rare boiled egg, but always and chiefly milk. Germ wheat is also excellent.

_EXERCISE._

10. Children should have exercise in the house as well as outdoors, but should not be jolted and jumped and jarred in rough play, not rudely rocked in the cradle, nor carelessly trundled over b.u.mps in their carriages. They should not be held too much in the arms, but allowed to crawl and kick upon the floor and develop their limbs and muscles. A child should not be lifted by its arms, nor dragged along by one hand after it learns to take a few feeble steps, but when they do learn to walk steadily it is the best of all exercise, especially in the open air.

Let the children as they grow older romp and play in the open air all they wish, girls as well as boys. Give the girls an even chance for health, while they are young at least, and don't mind about their complexion.

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Infant Teething.

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1. REMARKABLE INSTANCES.--There are instances where babies have been born with teeth, and, on the other hand, there are cases of persons who have never had any teeth at all; and others that had double teeth all around in both upper and lower jaws, but these are rare instances, and may be termed as a sort of freaks of nature.

2. INFANT TEETHING.--The first teeth generally make their appearance after the third month, and during the period of teething the child is fretful and restless, causing sometimes const.i.tutional disturbances, such as diarrhoea, indigestion, etc. Usually, however, no serious results follow, and no unnecessary anxiety need be felt, unless the weather is extremely warm, then there is some danger of summer complaint setting in and seriously complicating matters.

3. THE NUMBER OF TEETH.--Teeth are generally cut in pairs and make their appearance first in the front and going backwards until all are complete.

It generally takes about {326} two years for a temporary set of children's teeth. A child two or three years old should have twenty teeth. After the age of seven they generally begin to loosen and fall out and permanent teeth take their place.

4. LANCING THE GUMS.--This is very rarely necessary. There are extreme cases when the condition of the mouth and health of the child demand a physician's lance but this should not be resorted to, unless it is absolutely necessary. When the gums are very much swollen and the tooth is nearly through, the pains may be relieved by the mother taking a thimble and pressing it down upon the tooth, the sharp edges of the tooth will cut through the swollen flesh, and instant relief will follow. A child in a few hours or a day will be perfectly happy after a very severe and trying time of sickness.

5. PERMANENT TEETH.--The teeth are firmly inserted in sockets of the upper and lower jaw. The permanent teeth which follow the temporary teeth, when complete, are sixteen in each jaw, or thirty-two in all.

6. NAMES OF TEETH.--There are four incisors (front teeth), four cuspids (eye teeth), four bicuspids (grinders), and four molars (large grinders), in each jaw. Each tooth is divided into the crown, body, and root. The crown is the grinding surface; the body--the part projecting from the jaw--is the seat of sensation and nutrition; the root is that portion of the tooth which is inserted in the alveolus. The teeth are composed of dentine (ivory) and enamel. The ivory forms the greater portion of the body and root, while the enamel covers the exposed surface. The small white cords communicating with the teeth are the nerves.

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HOME TREATMENT FOR THE DISEASES OF INFANTS AND CHILDREN.

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1. Out of the 984,000 persons that died during the year of 1890, 227,264 did not reach one year of age, and 400,647 died under five years of age.

What a fearful responsibility therefore rests upon the parents who permit these hundreds of thousands of children to die annually. This terrible mortality among children is undoubtedly largely the result of ignorance as regarding to the proper care and treatment of sick children.

2. For very small children it is always best to use h.o.m.oeopathic remedies.

_COLIC._

1. Babies often suffer severely with colic. It is not considered dangerous, but causes considerable suffering.

2. Severe colic is usually the result of derangement of the liver in the mother, or of her insufficient or improper nourishment, and it occurs more frequently when the child is from two to five months old. {328}

3. Let the mother eat chiefly barley, wheat and bread, rolled wheat, graham bread, fish, milk, eggs and fruit. The latter may be freely eaten, avoiding that which is very sour.

4. A rubber bag or bottle filled with hot water put into a crib, will keep the child, once quieted, asleep for hours. If a child is suffering from colic, it should be thoroughly warmed and kept warm.

5. Avoid giving opiates of any kind, such as cordials, Mrs. Winslow's Soothing Syrup, "Mother's Friend," and various other patent medicines. They injure the stomach and health of the child, instead of benefiting it.

6. REMEDIES.--A few tablespoonfuls of hot water will often allay a severe attack of the colic. Catnip tea is also a good remedy.

A drop of essence of peppermint in 6 or 7 teaspoonfuls of hot water will give relief.

If the stools are green and the child is very restless, give chamomilla.

If the child is suffering from constipation, and undigested curds of milk appear in its faeces, and the child starts suddenly in its sleep, give nux vomica.

An injection of a few spoonfuls of hot water into the r.e.c.t.u.m with a little asafoetida is an effective remedy, and will be good for an adult.

_CONSTIPATION._

1. This is a very frequent ailment of infants. The first thing necessary is for the mother to regulate her diet.

2. If the child is nursed regularly and held out at the same time of each day, it will seldom be troubled with this complaint. Give plenty of _water_. Regularity of habit is the remedy. If this method fails, use a soap suppository. Make it by paring a piece of white castile soap round. It should be made about the size of a lead pencil, pointed at the end.

3. Avoid giving a baby drugs. Let the physician administer them if necessary. {329}

_DIARRHOEA._