The doctor at home and nurse's guidebook / edited by George Black.

Date:
1909
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: The doctor at home and nurse's guidebook / edited by George Black. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    AIRING A ROOM presence sets up precisely similar symptoms. When such an accident happens, a spectator should at once put his forefinger down the throat and try to seize the foreign body. If this is not successful, inversion of the body, combined with a shaking or jogging motion, or a smart slap between the shoulders, will some- times cause the offending article to fall from the larynx. Should re- spiration be still suspended, the doc- tor must be fetched instantly and, in the meanwhile, cold water should be flung on the chest to arouse breathing, and artificial respira- tion must be resorted to. The oper- ation of laryngotomy or tracheotomy may be needed in obstinate cases. AIRING A ROOM It is said that a room may be aired or ventilated—that is to say, the air in the room may be com- pletely changed and renewed—by swinging the door of the apartment rapidly to and fro. To make this effectual the window should be opened slightly at the top ; the motion of the door will expel the bad air from the room, and its place will be immediately supplied by fresh air entering through the opening at the top of the window. The air of most occupied rooms is quite unnecessarily impure. If people would only exercise the simplest precautions the air of an ordinary drawing-room need be little worse than the air outside. Heated air, as every one knows, is lighter than cold air, and the used- up air of the room tends, therefore to rise to the ceiling. The ordinary method of ventilating a room by opening a window at the top leads merely to the inrush of a current of cold air, which rushes directly to the fireplace, producing a dis- agreeable draught. In addition. therefore, to the window being open at the top, the lower sash should be raised some three or four inches at least, and a piece of wood should be employed to fill up the space be- tween the bottom of the sash and the window sill. A current of air thus enters the room between the bottom of the top sash and the top of the bottom sash, the current moving in an upward direction. ALBUMEN ^ i Albumen and fibrine are two constituents in the body and con- tain the four organic elements, oxygen, hydrogen, carbon, and nitrogen. Albumen differs from fibrine chemically but very slightly. It is, however, soluble in water, and easily separable from it by heat, alcohol, nitric and other mineral acids. It is found dissolved in the blood, where it exists in the propor- tion of about 4 per cent. It con- stitutes the chief compound of nerve matter, out of which the nerves are formed. It enters into the compo- sition of the eggs of all animals. Its property of coagulating when boiled, as in the white of egg, is well known. Fibrine is found in small quantities in the blood, but is principally distributed over the body of the muscular tissues of which it constitutes a large proportion. ALBUMINURIA See Kidneys, Bright's Disease. ALCOHOLIC BEVERAGES (French, alcohol, from the Arabic, al kohol, fine powder of antimony, used for painting the eyebrows. Later, the term was applied to highly rectified spirits, to which the Arabic term has really no application or reference). Alcohol is a colourless, limpid fluid, possessed of a faint but
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