Also popular for teething and other pain, were large doses of pure laudanum, or the application of leeches behind the ears. Fortunately by the 1890's; Light on Dark Corners offered more sound advice on dealing with childhood diseases and inflictions.
Symptoms: Child awakens suddenly at night with suspended respiration or very difficult breathing. After a few respirations it cries out then falls asleep quietly, or the attack may last an hour or so, when the face will become pale, veins in the neck become turgid and feet and hands contract spasmodically. In mild cases the attacks will only occur once during the night, but may recur on the following night.
with one of Her 11 Children
Symptoms: Usually there are symptoms of a cold for three or four days previous to the attack. Marked hoarseness is observed in the evening with a ringing metallic cough and some difficulty in breathing, which increases and becomes somewhat paroxysmal till the face which has at first been flushed becomes pallid and ashy in hue. The efforts at breathing become very great, and unless the child gets speedy relief it will die of suffocation.
Home Treatment: Patient should be kept in a moist warm atmosphere, and cold water applied to the neck early in the attack. As soon as the breathing seems difficult give a half to one teaspoonful of powdered alum in honey to produce vomiting and apply the remedies suggested in the treatment of diptheria (below), as the two diseases are thought by many to be identical. When the breathing becomes labored and face becomes pallid, the condition is very serious and a physician should be called without delay.
Symptoms: Chilly sensations or a decided chill, fever, headache, furred tongue, vomiting, sore throat, rapid pulse, hot dry skin and more or less stupor. In from six to eighteen hours a fine red rash appears about the ears, neck and shoulders, which rapidly spreads to the entire surface of the body. After a few days, a scurf or branny scales will begin to form on the skin. These scales are the principal sourse of contagion.
Home Treatment: 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 plently 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 releive 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 regualte 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 the third week, if eyes look puffy and feet swell; there is a 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 upon at once.
Symptoms: It usually commences with the symptoms of a common cold in the head, some chilliness, feverishness, restlessnes, 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 from 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 syrup
Mix in a tumbler of water, and give the child 1 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.
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.
Symptoms: A feeling of weakness, loss of appetite, some fever, cold in the head, frequent sneexing, watery eyes, dry cough and a hot skin. The disease takes effect nine or ten days after exposure.
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 needed, but exposure must be carefully avoided and the patient kept in bed in a moderately warm room. The diet should be light and noursihing. 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 wineglass of camphor water. Mix thoroughly and give a teaspoonful in half a teacupful of water every two hours. To relieve the cough, if troublesome, flaxseed tea or infusion of slippery-elm bark with a little lemon juice to render more palatable, will be of benefit.
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 vesticles on the face should be puntured early and irritation by rubbing should be avoided.
Symptoms: Symptoms vary according to the severity of the attack. Chills, fever, headache, langour, 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. 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.
Home Treatment: Isolate the patient to prevent the spread of the disease. Diet should be of the most nutricious 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 nutricious injection must be resorted to. Inhalation 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. Flower of sulpher 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 foul breath. If there is a great prostration, with the nasal passages affected, or hoarseness and difficult breathing, a physician should be called at once.
