Diet

Categories: TREATMENT OF SCARLET-FEVER.
Sources: Hydriatic Treatment Of Scarlet Fever In Its Different Forms

I have little to say with regard to _diet_, at least to physicians.

During great heat and high fever, the patient should eat little or

nothing; but he should drink a good deal. Substantial food must be

avoided entirely. When the fever abates, he can take more nourishment,

but it should be light. Meat and soup should only be given, when

desquamation has fairly begun. Stewed fruit (especially dried apples)

will be very a reeable to the patient. In great heat, a glass of

lemonade may be given occasionally; however, great care must be taken

not to spoil the patient's taste by sweets, or to allow him all sorts of

dainties, such as candies, preserves, &c., as it is the habit of weak

parents, who like to gratify their darlings' momentary desires at the

expense of their future welfare. In torpid cases, some beef-tea,

chicken-broth, and even a little wine with water, will raise the

reactive powers of the patient. During convalescence, meat may be

permitted to such patients as have been accustomed to eat it, and, in

general, the patients may be allowed to gradually resume their former

diet (provided it were a healthy one), with some restriction in regard

to quantity. In general, under water-treatment, the digestive organs

continuing in a tolerably good state, and the functions in better order,

we need not be quite so careful with respect to diet, as if the patient

were left to himself, or treated after any other method of the

drug-system. Let the food be plain, and the patient will scarcely ever

eat too much. To stimulate his appetite by constantly asking him whether

he would not like this or that, is sheer nonsense; and to satisfy his

whims, against our better conviction, is culpable weakness.



From this general outline, I shall now pass to the treatment adapted to

the different forms of scarlatina.