Searchlights on Health-The Science of Eugenics Part 49

_HOME TREATMENT OF DIPHTHERIA._

DEFINITION.--Acute, specific, const.i.tutional disease, with local manifestations in the throat, mouth, nose, larynx, wind-pipe, and glands of the neck. The disease is infectious but not very contagious under the proper precautions. It is a disease of childhood, though adults sometimes contract it. Many of the best physicians of the day consider true or membranous croup to be due to this diphtheritic membranous disease thus located in the larynx or trachea.

SYMPTOMS.--Symptoms vary according to the severity of the attack.

Chills, fever, headache, languor, loss of appet.i.te, stiffness of neck, with tenderness about the angles of the jaw, soreness of the throat, pain in the ear, aching of the limbs, loss of strength, coated tongue, swelling of the neck, and offensive breath; lymphatic glands on side of neck enlarged and tender. The throat is first to be seen red and swollen, then covered with grayish white patches, which spread, and a false membrane is found on the mucous membrane. If the nose is attacked, there will be an offensive discharge, and the child will breathe through the mouth. If the larynx or throat are involved, the voice will become hoa.r.s.e, and a croupy cough, with difficult breathing, shows that the air pa.s.sage to the lungs is being obstructed by the false membrane.

HOME TREATMENT.--Isolate the patient, to prevent the spread of the disease. Diet should be of the most nutritious character, as milk, eggs, broths, and oysters. Give at intervals of every two or three hours. If patient refuses to swallow, from the pain caused by the effort, a nutrition injection must be resorted to. Inhalations of steam and hot water, and allowing the patient to suck pellets of ice, will give relief. Sponges dipped in hot water, and applied to the angles of the jaw, are beneficial. Inhalations of lime, made by slaking freshly burnt lime in a vessel, and directing the vapor to the child's mouth, by means of a newspaper, or similar contrivance. Flour of sulphur, blown into the back of the mouth and throat by means of a goose quill, has been highly recommended. Frequent gargling of the throat and mouth, with a solution of lactic acid, strong enough to taste sour, will help to keep the parts clean, and correct the foul breath. If there is great prostration, with the nasal pa.s.sage affected, or hoa.r.s.eness and difficult breathing, a physician should be called at once.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

DISEASES OF WOMEN.

_DISORDERS OF THE MENSES._

1. SUPPRESSION OF, OR SCANTY MENSES.

HOME TREATMENT.--Attention to the diet, and exercise in the open air to promote the general health. Some bitter tonic, taken with fifteen grains of dialyzed iron, well diluted, after meals, if patient is pale and debilitated. A hot foot bath is often all that is necessary.

2. PROFUSE MENSTRUATION.

HOME TREATMENT.--Avoid highly seasoned food, and the use of spirituous liquors; also excessive fatigue, either physical or mental. To check the flow, patient should be kept quiet, and allowed to sip cinnamon tea during the period.

3. PAINFUL MENSTRUATION.

HOME TREATMENT.--Often brought on by colds. Treat by warm hip baths, hot drinks (avoiding spirituous liquors), and heat applied to the back and extremities. A teaspoonful of the fluid extract of viburnum will sometimes act like a charm.

_HOW TO CURE SWELLED AND SORE b.r.e.a.s.t.s._

Take and boil a quant.i.ty of chamomile, and apply the hot fomentations.

This dissolves the knot, and reduces the swelling and soreness.

_LEUCORRHEA OR WHITES._

HOME TREATMENT.--This disorder, if not arising from some abnormal condition of the pelvic organs, can easily be cured by patient taking the proper amount of exercise and good nutritious food, avoiding tea and coffee. An injection every evening of one teaspoonful of Pond's Extract in a cup of hot water, after first cleansing the v.a.g.i.n.a well with a quart of warm water, is a simple but effective remedy.

_INFLAMMATION OF THE WOMB._

HOME TREATMENT.--When in the acute form this disease is ushered in by a chill, followed by fever, and pain in the region of the womb.

Patient should be placed in bed, and a brisk purgative given, hot poultices applied to the abdomen, and the feet and hands kept warm. If the symptoms do not subside, a physician should be consulted.

_HYSTERIA._

DEFINITION.--A functional disorder of the nervous system of which it is impossible to speak definitely; characterized by disturbance of the reason, will, imagination, and emotions, with sometimes convulsive attacks that resemble epilepsy.

SYMPTOMS.--Fits of laughter, and tears without apparent cause; emotions easily excited; mind often melancholy and depressed; tenderness along the spine; disturbances, of digestion, with hysterical convulsions, and other nervous phenomena.

HOME TREATMENT.--Some healthy and pleasant employment should be urged upon women afflicted with this disease. Men are also subject to it, though not so frequently. Avoid excessive fatigue and mental worry; also stimulants and opiates. Plenty of good food and fresh air will do more good than drugs.

FALLING OF THE WOMB.

CAUSES.--The displacement of the womb usually is the result of too much childbearing, miscarriages, abortions, or the taking of strong medicines to bring about menstruation. It may also be the result in getting up too quickly from the childbed. There are, however, other causes, such as a general breaking down of the health.

SYMPTOMS.--If the womb has fallen forward it presses against the bladder, causing the patient to urinate frequently. If the womb has fallen back, it presses against the r.e.c.t.u.m, and constipation is the result with often severe pain at stool. If the womb descends into the v.a.g.i.n.a there is a feeling of heaviness. All forms of displacement produce pain in the back, with an irregular and scanty menstrual flow and a dull and exhausted feeling.

HOME TREATMENT.--Improve the general health. Take some preparation of cod-liver oil, hot injections (of a teaspoonful of powdered alum with a pint of water), a daily sitz-bath, and a regular morning bath three times a week will be found very beneficial. There, however, can be no remedy unless the womb is first replaced to the proper position.

This must be done by a competent physician who should frequently be consulted.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

MENSTRUATION.

1. ITS IMPORTANCE.--Menstruation plays a momentous part in the female economy; indeed, unless it be in every way properly and duly performed, it is neither possible that a lady can be well, nor is it at all probable that she will conceive. The large number of barren, of delicate, and of hysterical women there are in America arises mainly from menstruation not being duly and properly performed.

2. THE BOUNDARY-LINE.--Menstruation--"the periods"--the appearance of the catamenia or the menses--is then one of the most important epochs in a girl's life. It is the boundary-line, the landmark between childhood and womanhood; it is the threshold, so to speak, of a woman's life. Her body now develops and expands, and her mental capacity enlarges and improves.

3. THE COMMENCEMENT OF MENSTRUATION.--A good beginning at this time is peculiarly necessary, or a girl's health is sure to suffer and different organs of the body--her lungs, for instance, may become imperiled. A healthy continuation, at regular periods, is also much needed, or conception, when she is married, may not occur. Great attention and skillful management is required to ward off many formidable diseases, which at the close of menstruation--at "the change of life"--are more likely than at any time to be developed. If she marry when very young, marriage weakens her system, and prevents a full development of her body. Moreover, such an one is, during the progress of her labor, p.r.o.ne to convulsions--which is a very serious childbed complication.

4. EARLY MARRIAGES.--Statistics prove that twenty per cent--20 in every 100--of females who marry are under age, and that such early marriages are often followed by serious, and sometimes even by fatal consequences to mother, to progeny, or to both. Parents ought, therefore, to persuade their daughters not to marry until they are of age--twenty-one; they should point out to them the risk and danger likely to ensue if their advice be not followed; they should Impress upon their minds the old adage:

"Early wed, Early dead."

5. TIME TO MARRY.--Parents who have the real interest and happiness of their daughters at heart, ought, in consonance with the laws of physiology, to discountenance marriage before twenty; and the nearer the girls arrive at the age of twenty-five before the consummation of this important rite, the greater the probability that, physically and morally, they will be protected against those risks which precocious marriages bring in their train.

6. FEEBLE PARENTS.--Feeble parents have generally feeble children; diseased parents, diseased children; nervous parents, nervous children;--"like begets like." It is sad to reflect, that the innocent have to suffer, not only for the guilty, but for the thoughtless and inconsiderate. Disease and debility are thus propagated from one generation to another and the American race becomes woefully deteriorated.

7. TIME.--Menstruation in this country usually commences at the ages of from thirteen to sixteen, sometimes earlier; occasionally as early as eleven or twelve; at other times later, and not until a girl be seventeen or eighteen years of age. Menstruation in large towns is supposed to commence at an earlier period than in the country, and earlier in luxurious than in simple life.

8. CHARACTER.--The menstrual fluid is not exactly blood, although, both in appearance and properties, it much resembles it; yet it never in the healthy state clots as blood does. It is a secretion of the womb, and, when healthy, ought to be of a bright red color in appearance very much like the blood from a recently cut finger. The menstrual fluid ought not, as before observed, clot. If it does, a lady, during "her periods," suffers intense pain; moreover, she seldom conceives until the clotting has ceased.

9. MENSTRUATION DURING NURSING.--Some ladies, though comparatively few, menstruate during nursing; when they do, it may be considered not as the rule, but as the exception. It is said in such instances, that they are more likely to conceive; and no doubt they are, as menstruation is an indication of a p.r.o.neness to conception. Many persons have an idea that when a woman, during lactation, menstruates, her milk is both sweeter and purer. Such is an error. Menstruation during nursing is more likely to weaken the mother, and consequently to deteriorate her milk, and thus make it less sweet and less pure.

10. VIOLENT EXERCISE.--During "the monthly periods" violent exercise is injurious; iced drinks and acid beverages are improper; and bathing in the sea, and bathing the feet in cold water, and cold baths are dangerous; indeed, at such times as these, no risks should be run, and no experiments should, for the moment, be permitted, otherwise serious consequences will, in all probability, ensue.