PHYSICIANS' TREATMENT for Whooping-Cough
Categories:
Infectious Diseases
The patient should be isolated
and sleep in a large, well ventilated room. In spring and summer weather,
the child is better in the open air all day. In the winter the child
should be warmly clothed. Pine wood and a fairly high altitude are
probably the best. The greatest care should be taken in all seasons to
keep from taking cold, or bad bronchitis or pneumonia may result. All
complications are serious, especially in nursin
children. There should be
no appreciable fever, and when the paroxysm of cough is over the child
should sleep or play quite well, until the next one returns. So if there
is much fever the case needs watching.
Medical Treatment. Medicines have little effect in controlling the
disease. The severity can be lessened. If the child is much disturbed at
night, the following is good:
1. Acetanelid 1/2 dram
Dover's Powder 1/2 dram
Mix thoroughly and make up into thirty powders; for one year old one-half
a powder every two hours while awake or restless.
2. Syrup of Dover's Powder 1 fluid dram
Tincture of Aconite 10 drops
Simple Syrup enough to make two ounces.
Mix and give one-half teaspoonful every two hours for a child one year
old. Shake bottle.
3. But the best treatment I know is the following: Go to any good drug
store and get a fifty-cent bottle of vapo-cresolene. Burn this, according
to the directions given on the bottle in the evening. Use a small granite
cup, put about one-third of an inch of the medicine in this, set cup on a
wire frame above a lamp, (can buy a regular lamp with the medicine) close
windows and let the child inhale the fumes. This will give the patient a
good night's sleep. I have used this for years, and know it is good and
effective. A tea made of chestnut leaves is said to be good, and is often
used as a home remedy. The leaves of the chestnut that we eat, not the
horse-chestnut.
Diet. This is an extremely important part of the treatment. As the child
vomits frequently, especially after eating, the food is generally vomited,
so there should be frequent feeding in small quantities. The food should
be digestible and nourishing. Milk is a good food for older children. In
nursing infants they should be nursed oftener, especially if they vomit
soon after nursing. In older children, you must not feed too heavy and
hearty foods; meat and potatoes should not be given to young children
having the disease. When vomiting is severe the food should be fluid and
given often. The child must be nourished. If this disease occurs in the
winter the person attacked, after he is seemingly well, must be careful
not to take cold. The condition of the mucous membrane of the air tube
after an attack of this disease, makes it very easy for the person to
contract inflammation of that part and have in consequence laryngitis,
bronchitis, or pneumonia. Thc cough in very many cases will last all
winter without any additional cold being added.