Regimen, &c. The regimen should be light and properly seasoned; the air dry and clear. Exercise and motion should be encouraged, and bandages, as well as instruments, contrived to keep the limbs in a proper situation; but care should be taken that they be so formed as not to put the child to pain, or restrain it too much. Cold sea-bathing is of infinite use; after which friction should be used, and the child placed between two blankets, so as to encourage perspiration. The back should be well rubbed with opodeldoc, or good old rum, every night. A few grains of ipecacuanha or calomel may occasionally be proper, and chalybeates are also very serviceable. A decoction of Peruvian bark is also good with red wine: and should be used with moderation in the forenoon and after dinner DISTORTION OF THE SPINE. Examine the child's back-bone frequently and closely, and on the slightest trace of any distortion wash the same with brandy every morning and night, and pay the strictest attention to the child's keeping a straight posture; both sleeping and waking; and if it can be bathed from time to time, it will be advisable. RING WORM AND SCALD HEADS. It is well known that these disorders, which are in many respects similar, are contagious; therefore, no comb or hair-brush used by a child affected by them is to be used by another child, either in a school or in the same family. Nor should the hat or cap of such a child be worn by any other. Treatment. Let the hair be removed carefully with a razor, dipped frequently in olive oil; and afterwards apply the following lotion by means of fine linen, and cover the whole or part of the head with it. Take of liquor of acetated lead, 2 drams, distilled vinegar, 6 drams, sulphuric æther, 2 drams, rain water, 1 pint.-Mix. This lotion should be kept occasionally applied in the night as well as in the day, and an oil-silk cap should be fitted close to the head, and worn continually. Ointment for the same. Take of spermaceti ointment, 1 oz. tar ointment, 1 oz. powdered angustura bark, 3 drams. Rub the whole well in a marble mortar, and apply to the parts affected. Alterative Medicines. In six cases out of ten, this disease is aggravated by a scrofulous taint of the system; and, when this is the case, the following alterative medicine accelerates the cure. Take of oxide of zinc, precipitated sulphur of antimony, each 9 grains, resin of guaiacum, extract of bark ཝཱ extract of hemlock, each 2 scruples. Mix, and form into 20 pills. To Children from six to ten years of age, give one pill night and morning; under six years, half a pill night and morning, mixed in raspberry jam. Instead of the above, one grain of calomel may be given going to rest, and repeated every night; also the use of salt water externally and interually, as an alterative, has been found very useful. In all cases the bowels ought to be kept open, and the diet should consist of wholesome and nutritive food; avoiding fish and salt meats. Cleanliness, and an occasional use of the warm bath, will likewise be of service. HOOPING COUGH. In this complaint, next to occasional vomiting, the daily use of the warm bath is most useful. Bleeding may sometimes be useful, to prevent inflammation of the internal membranes, or cupping between the neck and shoulders. Gentle antimonial emetics should be given repeatedly, because the symptoms are always relieved when the child vomits. Parisian Remedy. Take of sulphuret of potass, tincture of fox-glove, each, 1 dram, guin arabic powder, 3 drams.-Mix. A dessert-spoonful to be given to a child from three to six years of age; a table-spoonful from six to ten; two dessert-spoonsful from ten to fifteen; and two table-spoonsful from fifteen to twenty; three times a day. Embrocation for Hooping Cough. Take of emetic tartar, 2 drams, boiling water, 2 oz. tincture of cantharides, 1 dram, A dessert-spoonful to be rubbed upon the chest every night and morning. Regimen, &c. A frequent change of air is exceedingly useful in hooping cough, particularly short voyages at sea; at the same time flannel is to be worn next the skin. Young children should lie with their heads and shoulders raised; and when the cough occurs, they ought to be placed on their feet and bent a little forward, to guard against suffocation. The diet should be light, and the drink warm aud mucilaginous. THE CROUP. The CROUP is a disease peculiar to children, and generally fatal, if care is not taken in the commencement. It commonly approaches with the usual signs of a catarrh, but sometimes the peculiar symptoms occur at the first onset; namely, a hoarseness, with a shrill ringing sound both in speaking and conghing, as if the noise came from a brazen tube. At the same time there is a sense of pain about the larynx, and some difficulty of respiration, with a whizzing sound in inspiration, as if the passage of air was diminished; which is actually the case. The cough is generally dry, but if any thing is spit up, it is a purulent matter, sometimes resembling small portions of a membrane. There are also a frequent pulse, restlessness, and an uneasy sense of heat. The inside of the mouth is sometimes without inflammation, but frequently a redness, and even a swelling exist. Sometimes there is an appearance of matter on them like that rejected by coughing. Remedies. As soon as possible a brisk emetic should be administered for the purpose of freeing the patient from the coagulable lymph which is already secreted. Topical bleeding, by means of leeches, should immediately succeed, and the discharge be encouraged. As soon as it diminishes, a blister, sufficiently large to cover the whole throat, should be applied, and suffered to lie on for thirty hours or longer. The steam of warm water should be inhaled, and the bowels should be evacuated by calomel. As soon as the emetic has operated sufficiently, opium may be administered, by which means the breathing will in general be soon relieved; but should it become more difficult in the course of a few hours, the emetic is to be again repeated, and after its operation the opium again employed. This practice is to be alternately used till the patient is out of danger, which will, in general, be in the course of three or four days. The child should be kept nearly upright in bed. Children, until the age of six years, are liable to be attacked by BILIOUS FEVER, which is gradually developed, by irregularity in the bowels, which are either too costive, or too much relaxed. On its first appearance, the child becomes peevish and fretful, his lips are dry, his hands hot, accompanied by shortness of breath, pains in the head, and quickness of pulse, which beats from 110 to 112 in a minute; he shows an unwillingness to stir or speak, starts in his sleep, and has a loathing for food. The stools have often a mucous and slimy appearance; some children are affected with delirium, others dull and stupid, and many are for a time speechless. Several slight accessions of fever take place in the course of the day, during which the child is usually drowsy; in the intervals of these paroxysms he appears tolerably well, though, at times, unusually peevish. These symptoms are more or less prevalent for eight or ten days, when suddenly a more violent paroxysm of fever will ensue, preceded by a shivering fit, and sometimes an incessant vomiting of bile. The pulse rises to 140; the cheeks are flushed, the child's drowsiness increases, and when awake, he resorts to picking at the skin of the nose, lips, and eyes, to a most painful degree. This species of fever is mild at the commencement, slow in its progress, and very uncertain in its event. The desire for food is destroyed, and the child will take neither aliment nor medicine. The stools are changed from their natural appearances, being sometimes black, and smelling like putrid mud; and at other times they are curdled, with shreds of coagulable lymph floating in a dark green fluid. Treatment. The first thing, is to cleanse the stomach by a few grains of ipecacuanha, and soon afterwards to administer some active purgative. For restoring the healthy secretions of the bowels, nothing is so efficacious as small and often repeated doses of calomel and scammony, († of a grain of the former to 14 of the latter,) followed up after some hours by a solution of Epsom salts in an infusion of senna, or by a dose of castor oil. When the stomach is very irritable, small quantities of chalk mixture, with a few drops of laudanum, are to be given alternately with the abovementioned purgatives. If the head is much affected, leeches should be applied to the temples, and if the stomach will not retain the medicine, from three to six leeches should be applied to the upper part of the belly, or right side; and after this a blister, if necessary. The warm bath will prove useful after the stomach and bowels are properly cleansed. Tonic Powder. To obviate debility, when the fever has abated, the following tonic powder is recommended. Mix together 2 drams of powder of cascarilla, 24 grains of rhubarb, and 1 scruple sub-carbonate of iron. Divide this into 24 papers, one to be taken morning and evening. Regimen and Diet. The child should likewise be sent into the country as soon as possible, and be allowed every reasonable amusement, to dissipate the peevishness which is an invariable consequence of a severe attack of this disease. The diet, for a time, should be light and nourishing; as jellies, isinglass and milk, veal broth, and beef tea. The drink may be whey, and toast and water. THE UNDER NURSE, Is chiefly engaged in attending to the senior children, and is entirely under the controul of the head nurse. She assists in getting them up in the morning, washing and dressing them; attends them at their meals and takes them out for air and exercise, and performs or assists in the performance of all the duties of the nursery, while the head nurse is chiefly engaged with the infant child.-Wages 10 to 12 guineas. THE NURSERY MAID. The Nursery Maid is generally a girl who does the household work of the nursery, and attends the children when they go out for the air, &c. carrying such of them as may be required.-Wages 6 to 10guineas. |