A hand-book of nursing for family and general use.

Date:
[1878], ©1878
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A hand-book of nursing for family and general use. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    It need not be supposed that elaborate bathing arrange- ments are necessary. The child or man needs simply a basin of water, a rough wash-cloth,—not a sponge,—a rubber-cloth to stand on, or bit of old carpet or blanket with which to protect the floor, soap and towels. Let him then take off all his clothes and briskly rub himself from head to foot with soap and water, and then with the dry towel. The back can always be reached with a small wet towel thrown over the shoulders, and rubbed back and forth. This answers well when there is no plunge-bath at hand. Clothing. In a climate like ours children's clothing should always cover the chest. A large proportion of diseases of the lungs begin in the part just below the collar-bone, that being the weakest part of the chest. A common blunder in children's clothing is in the narrowness across the chest. Across the shoulders, and perhaps round the waist, there will be room enough, but sufficient space for the rapidly-developing chest is seldom or never allowed. Always make the back of the waist a snug fit, to support the shoulders, and give more room across the chest than seems to you necessary. What are known as dart seams should be put into the waists worn by little girls as soon as they cease to be babies. The ability to draw a full deep breath without any obstruction from tight bands, arm-holes, and straps, is essential for the lungs, that the changes may take place in the blood which fit it for nutrition of the body. Tight and heavy clothing, pinching the ribs and draggirg upon the hips, crowds and presses upon all the organs,— heart, lungs, liver, and stomach,—and impedes every function of the body. Cover the body from head to foot with sufficiently warm clothing, the weight of which: