Health Lessons Part 18

You can always keep away smallpox by being vaccinated. The doctor can vaccinate you by putting on the freshly sc.r.a.ped skin of your arm some weak smallpox germs from a clean healthy calf which has been vaccinated. Your arm will in a few days get sore and you will not feel well for about one week, but you will be made safe from smallpox for several years.

Fifty nurses were vaccinated in Philadelphia and cared for many sick with the smallpox, staying with them day after day, but not one of the nurses took the disease. _Every one should be vaccinated when a year old and again at the age of ten or twelve years._

=Colds.=--Some colds are catching, but we generally take cold because we have weak bodies or have been careless. If you want to be free from colds, remember these six rules:--

Don't sit still in wet clothes or with wet feet.

Don't sit in a cold draft or in a cold room.

Don't sit on the damp ground or on the ice when you are resting from skating.

Don't cool off quickly after exercising.

Sleep in a room with the windows _wide_ open.

Take a cold bath every morning and draw fresh air to the bottom of the lungs many times every day.

=Tuberculosis or Consumption.=--This disease is so common and deadly that twenty persons die from it in our country every hour. It is caused by tiny germs (Fig. 63) which lodge in the lungs, glands, bones, or other parts of the body, where they give off poison and hurt the tissues. We take these germs into the body with dust or food, and also by putting to the lips a drinking cup or other things used by a consumptive. Generally the germs will not grow in a strong body, even when they have lodged there.

=Preventing Consumption.=--Living in poorly lighted houses without much fresh air, working in dusty rooms, using much strong drink and tobacco, eating poor food, losing sleep, neglecting a cough, and taking little or no outdoor exercise weaken the body so that the consumption germs can grow in it. Deep breathing, sitting and walking erect, living in rooms with suns.h.i.+ne, sleeping with the windows open eight or nine hours every night, and eating good food will prevent one from taking consumption and will often cure the disease. Persons with this sickness give out the germs in their spit, which should be caught in a cup and burned.

=The Hookworm Disease.=--This is a sickness affecting thousands of persons in the South. It is caused by tiny worms half as large as a pin hanging fast to the lining of the bowels. The worm is sometimes called the lazy germ because it destroys the red blood cells and makes the body feel weak and lazy. Children with these worms grow slowly, have a dry skin, and a swollen abdomen with a tender spot below the stomach.

The disease is easily cured by a physician, but it is better to prevent it by killing the germs in the waste from the bowels. For directions, address the Department of Health at the capital of your state. If the germs reach the ground they crawl around and may get into the well, and enter the body again with the drinking water.

Generally, however, the worms enter through the skin of those going barefooted, and are carried by the blood to the lungs. From here they go up the windpipe to the throat, and then down the gullet to the bowels. It is their entrance through the skin that causes ground itch or dew itch. Wearing shoes will help prevent the disease.

=A Strong Body Wins.=--n.o.body wants to be weak and sickly. Most all of us could keep well if we would try in the right way to keep the body strong.

To keep the body in health it must have plenty of sleep, enough good food well chewed, plenty of clean water, exercise every day, and an abundance of fresh air. The body is the temple of the soul. Don't hurt it with bad habits.

PRACTICAL QUESTIONS

1. How many people are sick to-day in our country?

2. How can much sickness be avoided?

3. What causes sickness?

4. What is a contagious disease?

5. Name some contagious diseases.

6. How do we get a catching sickness?

7. Why should we be careful with the slops from the sick room?

8. Tell how children in Buffalo caught scarlet fever.

9. What is the danger in using a cup from which others have drunk?

10. How can you prevent others from getting your sickness?

11. Name some animals which carry sickness.

12. How can we keep away smallpox?

13. Give six rules to keep away colds.

14. How may the body be kept strong?

CHAPTER XXIV

HELPING BEFORE THE DOCTOR COMES

=The Need of Quick Help.=--In many places in the country, or when out camping, it is impossible to get a doctor in less than two or three hours. Unless some one at hand can give aid before the doctor comes, much suffering and even death may result when a simple accident occurs. For this reason every one should know how to help in case of such accidents as burns, bleeding, choking, and sunstroke.

=Clothing on Fire.=--Children should never play about an open fire. A single spark lighting on a cotton dress may cause it to burst into a blaze so that within a few minutes the child is enveloped in flames.

The quickest way to put out such a fire is to wrap the child in a blanket, a piece of carpet, a coat, or any part of your clothing quickly removed. If nothing is at hand to wrap the sufferer in, roll him over and over in the dirt or weeds until the flames are smothered.

When your clothing is on fire, you must not run, because this fans the fire and makes it burn.

=Burns and Scalds.=--If there is clothing on the part burned, it should be taken off slowly so as not to tear the skin. If the clothing sticks, soak it in oil a few minutes until it gets loose. Cover the burned part as quickly as possible with vaseline or a clean cloth soaked in a quart of boiled water containing a cup of was.h.i.+ng soda.

Let nothing dirty touch the burned surface and keep it well wrapped.

=Bleeding.=--A person can lose a quart of blood without danger of death and may live after more than two quarts have been lost, but it is wise to try to stop any flow of blood as quickly as possible. Tying a clean cloth folded several times over the cut will in most cases stop the flow. This will help a clot to form and will also close the ends of the cut vessels if the bandage is twisted tight with a stick.

If the cut is on a limb and the blood comes out in spurts, a bandage tied about the limb between the cut and the body may be twisted tight with a stick so as to press upon the artery and close it. A piece of wood or folded cloth placed over the artery under the bandage before it is tightened is helpful.

=Nosebleed.=--Some persons are troubled frequently with bleeding from the nose. The least knock may cause it to bleed for more than an hour.

It may generally be stopped without sending for a doctor.

Sit up straight to keep the blood out of the head and press the middle part of the nose firmly between the fingers. Apply a cold wet cloth or a lump of ice wrapped in a cloth to the back of the neck. Put a bag of pounded ice on the root of the nose. If it does not stop in a half hour, wet a soft rag or a piece of cotton with cold tea or alum water and put it gently into the bleeding nostril so as to entirely close it. Do not blow the nose for several hours after the bleeding has stopped as this may start it again.

=Fainting.=--Fainting may be caused by bad air, an overheated room, by fear, or by some other excitement. A fainting person falls down and appears to be asleep. The lips are pale and there may be cold sweat on the forehead. There is too little blood in the brain, and the heart is weak.

A fainting person should be laid flat on the floor or on a couch, and all doors and windows opened wide. Loosen all tight clothing and apply to the forehead a cloth wet with cold water. A faint usually lasts only a few minutes.

=Sunstroke.=--A person with sunstroke becomes giddy, sick at the stomach, and weak. He then gets drowsy and may seem as if asleep, but he cannot be aroused. The skin is hot and dry instead of being cold and pale, as in fainting. The doctor should be sent for at once.

The first aid for sunstroke is to put the patient in a cool cellar or an icehouse, raise the head, and wet the head, neck, and back of the chest with cold water. As soon as he wakens put him in a cool room.

=Frostbite.=--When out in very cold weather, the end of the nose, the tips of the ears, and the toes and fingers are sometimes frozen. If a person comes into a warm room, these frozen parts will give much pain.

The parts should be rubbed with snow or ice water until a tingling sensation is felt.