Home doctoring : a guide to domestic medicine and surgery / by W.B. Kesteven.

  • William Bedford Kesteven
Date:
1889
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Home doctoring : a guide to domestic medicine and surgery / by W.B. Kesteven. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    Corns.—Repeated soaking of the feet in hot water, and paring down the corn with a sharp knife, then applying nitrate of silver, and after- wards paring off the hardened black skin. Corn-plasters, having a hole in the centre, give great relief also in wearing. Soft corns are relieved by soaking in warm water, and the subsequent application of nitrate of silver. A thick plaster, to take off unequal pressure, is extremely serviceable. Cough.—See Bronchitis, Con- sumption, Catarrh, &c.; also List oe Medicines, Expectorants. Croup.—This is a disease which is alarming, from the suddenness of its attack and the rapidity with which it runs its fatal course if un- checked ; but, on the other hand, in the majority of cases, it is easily checked if treatment begins imme- diately it occurs. Symptoms.—The following is gen- erally the course of the disease:— A child is put to bed in its ordinary health, apparently, or it may have a slight cold, and a cough a trifle rough, but not enough to excite attention to it. After a variable time the child wakes up with a hoarse, ringing, rasping cough, and difficulty in breathing, and countenance ex- pressive of its trouble; each inspi- ration and expiration being attended with a rough metallic tubular sound, and the voice masked or obliterated by a harsh hoarse croaking vocaliza- tion. The cough is dry, harassing, and unattended with expectoration in the outset, but after a while some portions of membrane-like mucus may be coughed up. The pulse be- comes rapid, the skin hot, the coun- tenance more and more distressed, and if relief be not afforded, the patient becomes drowsy, the com- plexion becomes blue, and the little patient may die from suffocation within forty-eight hours. Happily, however, this is not the most com- mon course of the disease, if the treatment be prompt and active. The first thing to be done is to give a teaspoonful of ipecacuanha wine every ten minutes until vomit- ing occurs. Ipecacuanha wine is pre- ferable to antimonial wine, as the latter is too depressing. [N.B.—’Where children are subject to croup, ipecacuanha wine should always be at hand.] Meanwhile, a hot bath should be prepared, and used as quickly as possible; and while in the hot bath a wet sponge, sprinkled with mus- tard, should be held on the upper part of the chest and front of the neck for a few minutes. After the vomiting has subsided, small doses of the ipecacuanha wine (from five to fifteen drops, according to the age of the child) should be continued every three hours, until the hoarseness in the breathing and voice ceases and the cough becomes loose. The atmosphere of the bedroom should be kept warm and moist by steam from a pipe or spout of a kettle. The temperature should not be al- lowed to fall below 60°, if possible. The diet light and simple. If, however, within twelve hours there be not a decided improvement, small doses of calomel should be given also (see Table oe Doses), and the front of the neck should be painted with blistering liquid. (See Blistering.) As a last resource, supposing those remedies are not at hand or obtain- able, and the disease be making rapid strides, life may be saved by applying scalding water to the neck, holding it there on a sponge or flannel for a minute at least. This is a most extreme and violent means, but it is one by which the writer has seen a life saved. Croup, False. — This disease, which is sometimes also called “ Spasmodic Croup,” is wholly and c
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