How to nurse a child, or, The management of children and their diseases / by Alexander Milne.

  • Milne, Alexander
Date:
1880
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: How to nurse a child, or, The management of children and their diseases / by Alexander Milne. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    27/256 page 7
    of the cliild. This is, of course, done when the infant is newly bom. Wlien it is washed and dried, we are always in the habit of using a second string or liga- ture, afterwards neatly enfolding the cord in a double bit of soft linen, four inches wide and six inches long, because the cord shrinks, and in doing so may permit of serious or dangerous haemorrhage. Nurses might, and do, watch for this; but often they neglect it, and only when they see blood staining the binder are they aroused to a proper sense of duty and of action. Some- times they will send a hurried message for the doctor after he has been, it may be, some time in bed. A proper and skilled nurse wiU put on a fresh string or ligature, and will not dream of sending for the medical man. We may add that a very small escape of blood makes a great show on the linen. A caution must also be here interponed:—let not the nurse interfere much with the string for several days : they are by far too much given to meddling with it—they even tug away at it the tliird day. Now, as it takes com- monly five days to drop (sometimes as many as ten), this needless daily meddling with it is apt to cause separation before the proper time, and consequent bleeding, which may prove serious. Another evil may be ulceration of the part; or a red growth, like proud- flesh, which may require the application of caustic. Another consequence of unnecessary interference is a navel rupture, which may necessitate long, if not per- manent bandaging; nay, ultimately a surgical opera- tion. Let it be emphatically impressed, then, on the
    digitised image 1
    digitised image 2
    digitised image 3