Mother's Remedies, Thomas Jefferson Ritter [reading well .TXT] 📗

are held in the sputum; but when it is dry they are released and roam at will in the atmosphere and are inhaled. They are then ready to lodge themselves in suitable soil. Always keep the sputum (expectoration) moist, and then there is no danger.

Diet. Treatment.—The outlook in this disease depends upon the digestion. Nausea and loss of appetite are serious obstacles. Many patients loathe foods of all kinds. A change of air or a sea voyage may promptly restore the appetite. When this is not possible, rest the patient, keep in the open air nearly all day and feed regularly with small quantities either of buttermilk, milk, or kumiss, alternating if necessary with meat juice and egg albumin. Some cases which are disturbed by eggs and milk do well on kumiss. Raw eggs are very suitable for feeding, and may be taken between meals, beginning with one three times a day, and can be increased to two and three at a time. It is hard to give a regular diet. The patient should be under the care of a physician who will regulate the kind of diet, amount and change. When the digestion is good there is less trouble in feeding. Then the patient can eat meat, poultry, game, oysters, fish, animal broths, eggs. Nothing should be fried. Avoid pork, veal, hot bread, cakes, pies, sweet meats, rich gravies, crabs, lobsters.

[INFECTIOUS DISEASES 215]

Diet in Tuberculosis furnished us by a Hospital.—

May Take.—Soups.—Turtle or oyster soup, mutton, clam, or chicken broth, puree of barley, rice, peas, beans, cream of celery or tomatoes, whole beef tea; peptonized milk, gruel.

Fish.—All kinds of fresh fish boiled or broiled, oysters or clams, raw, roasted or broiled.

Meats.—Rare roast beef or mutton, lamb chops, ham, fat bacon. sweetbreads, poultry, game, tender steaks, hamburger steak rare.

Eggs.—Every way except fried.

Farinaceous.—Oatmeal, wheaten grits, mush, hominy, rice, whole wheat bread, corn bread, milk toast, biscuits, muffins, gems.

Vegetables.—Potatoes baked, boiled, or creamed, string beans, spinach, onions, asparagus, tomatoes, green peas, all well cooked, cresses, lettuce, plain or with oil dressing, celery.

Desserts.—Farina, sago, tapioca, apple or milk pudding, floating island, custards, baked or stewed apples with fresh cream, cooked fruits, rice with fresh cream.

Drinks.—Fresh milk, cool, warm, or peptonized, cocoa, chocolate, buttermilk, pure water, tea, coffee, panopepton.

Must Not Take.—Fried foods, salt fish, hashes, gravies, veal, pork, carrots, parsnips, cabbage, beets, turnips, cucumbers, macaroni, spaghetti, sweets, pies, pastry, sweet wines.

WHAT EVERY PERSON SHOULD KNOW ABOUT TUBERCULOSIS, WHETHER HE HAS THE DISEASE OR NOT.

Tuberculosis is caused by a germ.

Tuberculosis is communicable and preventable.

Consumption of the lungs is the most common form of tuberculosis.

Consumption of the bowels is the next most common form.

The germ causing tuberculosis leaves the body of the person who has the disease by means of the discharges; by the sputum coughed up from the lungs, by nasal discharge, by bowel excrement, by urine, by abscesses.

If the sputum of the consumptive is allowed to dry, its infected dust floats in the air, and is breathed into the lungs.

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Any person breathing such air is in danger of contracting tuberculosis. It is best not to stand near a person suffering with tuberculosis who is coughing, because in this act finely divided droplets of saliva are thrown from the mouth, and may be carried for a distance of three feet. These may contain large numbers of the bacilli. They are also sometimes thrown out in forcible speaking. The ordinary breath of a consumptive does not contain them.

If the bowels or other discharges from the tuberculous person are not disinfected, but are thrown into a sewer, privy, river or buried they are a source of danger, and may pollute a source of drinking water.

Impure milk, that is, milk from a tuberculous cow or milk exposed to infected dust is a common source of tuberculosis. Milk from suspected sources should be boiled. The all-important thing to do to prevent tuberculosis from spreading from one person to another, and from one part of the body to another, is immediately to destroy all discharges from the body of a person who has tuberculosis.

Destroy by fire or by disinfectant all sputum, all nasal discharges, all bowel excrement, all urine as soon as discharged. For such a purpose use a five per cent solution of carbolic acid (six and three-fourths ounces of carbolic acid to one gallon of water).

No person, well or sick, should spit in public places or where the sputum cannot be collected and destroyed.

Flies carry sputum and its infection to food, to your hands, your face, clothes, the baby's bottle, from which the germs are taken into the mouth, and thus gain access to the stomach or lungs.

Spitting on the sidewalk, on the floor, on the wall, on the grass, in the gutter, or even into a cuspidor containing no disinfectant is a very dangerous practice for a consumptive to indulge.

The person infected with tuberculosis should protect himself, his family, his associates and the public by not spitting in public places, and by promptly destroying all discharges.

The well person should defend himself by insisting that the tuberculous person shall destroy all discharges.

Well persons should set the example of restraint and themselves refrain from spitting promiscuously. A person may appear quite healthy and yet be developing tuberculosis without knowing it.

Such a person, if he spits where he pleases, may be depositing infected sputum where it can endanger the health and lives of other persons.

Do not sleep with a person who has tuberculosis, nor in the room occupied by a tuberculous person, until that room has been thoroughly disinfected.

[INFECTIOUS DISEASES 217]

Any person is liable to contract tuberculosis, whether he is well or not. Sickly persons, or those having bad colds, influenza bronchitis or pneumonia or any general weakness are much more liable to contract tuberculosis than a perfectly well or robust person. If you have a cough that hangs on consult at once a reliable physician who has ability to diagnose tuberculosis.

Prevention is possible; it is cheaper and easier than cure.

Any person having tuberculosis can recover from the disease if he takes the proper course in time.

Advanced cases of tuberculosis, that is, those cases where the disease is well developed, are the most dangerous to the public and the most difficult to cure.

Every advanced case of tuberculosis should be in a sanatorium.

Sanatoria offers the best chance, usually the only chance, of cure to an advanced case.

They also protect well citizens from danger of infection from advanced stages of tuberculosis. There are fewer deaths from tuberculosis in those localities where sanatoria are established for the care of tuberculous persons.

One person out of every seven who die, dies from tuberculosis.

One child out of every ten dies from tuberculosis.

Homes and school-houses greatly need more fresh air supplied to their occupants.

Day camps are city parks, vacant lots or abandoned farms where the tuberculous persons of a community may go and spend the entire day in rest, receiving instructions in proper hygiene and skillful treatment. Such camps are supplied with tents, hammocks, reclining chairs, one or more nurses, milk, eggs and other nourishment.

Dispensaries are centers of sanitary and medical instruction for local tuberculous persons.

Every locality should establish and maintain a dispensary for the benefit of tuberculous persons; for their instruction how to prevent the disease from spreading, and how to conduct themselves to insure relief and cure.

Householders are required by law to report a case within their households to the local health officers. The local health officer has certain duties to perform under the law, and co-operation with him by the householder and tuberculous person, works for the suppression of this disease.

Do not consider a tuberculous person an outcast, or one fit for the pesthouse. Your crusade is against tuberculosis, not against the person suffering from the disease.

Give the freedom of a well person to the tuberculous who is instructed and conscientious in the observance of necessary precautions. Be very much afraid of the tuberculous person who is ignorant or careless in the observance of necessary precautions.

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PNEUMONIA (Lobar) Lung Fever.—Inflammation of the lungs. This is an acute infectious disease characterized by an exudative inflammation of one or more lobes of the lungs, with constitutional symptoms due to the absorption of toxins (poison), the fever terminating by crisis (suddenly). In speaking of pneumonia you frequently hear the expression "the lungs are filling up." This is the real condition. The structures surrounding the air cells are inflamed and from the inflamed tissues a secretion exudate is poured out into the cells. This is expectorated, thrown out, by coughing; but it is poured out into the cells faster than it can be spit up and consequently it remains in some of the cells and fills them up.

The air does not get into such cells and they fill, with many others, and make that section solid. When the patient is improving he keeps on spitting this up, until all is out and the air cells resume their normal work. Sometimes they remain so and we have chronic pneumonia.

Causes of Pneumonia.—Pneumonia occurs frequently as a complication of other diseases, such as typhoid fever and measles. Yet the majority of cases occur spontaneously. Many times the disease seems to be induced by exposure to the cold, and there can be no doubt that such exposure does at least promote the development of this affection. It seems, however, probable that there is some special cause behind it without which the exposure to cold is not sufficient to induce this disease. Pneumonia may occur at any period of life, and is more common among males than females. It occurs over the entire United States, oftener in the southern and middle, than in the Northern States; it is more frequently met with during the winter and spring months than at other times in the year.

Symptoms.—The onset is usually abrupt with a severe chill and chills lasting from fifteen minutes to an hour, with the temperature suddenly rising and an active fever. There is usually intense pain in a few hours, generally in the lower part of the front of the chest, made worse by breathing and coughing. The patient lies on the affected side so as to give all chance for the other lung to work, cheeks are flushed, with anxious expression; the wings of the nostrils move in and out with each breath. The cough is short, dry and painful. Rapid, shallow, jerky breathing, increasing to difficult breathing. On the first day the characteristic expectoration mixed with blood appears (called rusty). Pulse runs from 100 to 116, full bounding, but may be feeble and small in serious cases. After three or four days the pain disappears, the temperature keeps to 104 or 105, but falls quickly the seventh, fifth, eighth, sixth and ninth day in this order of frequency. In a few hours, usually twelve, the temperature falls to normal or below, usually with profuse sweating and with quick relief to all symptoms. This relief from distressing symptoms is, of course, a time of rejoicing to both patient and friends and the patient and nurse may feel inclined to relax a little from the strict observance of rules followed up to this time. Do not, under any circumstances, yield to such folly. Keep patient properly covered, as he is weak from the strain and the pores are open.

[INFECTIOUS DISEASES 219]

Convalescence is usually rapid. A prolonged rise of temperature after the crisis may be regarded as a relapse. Death may occur at any time after the third day from sudden heart failure, or from complications such as pleurisy, nephritis, meningitis, pericarditis, endocarditis, gangrene of the lungs.

MOTHERS' REMEDIES.—1. Lungs, Salt Pork for Inflammation of.—"Salt pork dipped in hot water, then covered thick with black pepper. Heat in the oven and lay or bind on the throat and lungs."

2. Lungs, Raspberry Tincture for Inflammation of.—"Take one-half pound of honey, one cup water; let these boil; take off the scum; pour boiling hot upon one-half ounce lobelia herb and one-half ounce cloves; mix well, then strain and add one gill of raspberry vinegar. Take from one teaspoonful to a dessertspoonful four times a day. Pleasant to take."

3. Lungs, Herb Ointment for Congestion of.—

    "Oil of Turpentine 1/2 ounce
    Oil of Hemlock 1/2 ounce
    Oil of Peppermint 1/2 ounce
    Oil of Feverweed 1/2 ounce

Mix this with one cup warm lard."

Rub this ointment on throat or lungs and apply a flannel over