CHAPTER XVIII.

COMPLICATIONS OF TEETHING WITH DISEASES.

Diarrhœa is the most common trouble during the teething period, and is deserving of the most generous treatment. Should the food seem to disturb the stomach and pass away undigested, or in pieces, with some degree of sourness, the pulverized magnesia in from three to five-grain doses, once or twice a day, will correct it; after which gum-water, or milk, made like gruel, with flour, should be the chief diet till relieved. No fresh fish or eggs should be allowed in time of diarrhœa. Should the discharges continue, frequent drinks of a decoction of blackberry or raspberry leaves, or what is just as well, the juice of those ripe fruits, may be given in spoonful-doses. Also the fine lean corned beef, rolled or pounded fine and fed slowly in small quantities—say a tablespoonful during the day—will frequently arrest the whole trouble; emptiness, it will be remembered, being an exciting cause of diarrhœa as much as overfeeding. There will be emptiness if a continual nibbling is allowed, with the smallest chance of ever getting a substantial meal. Usually, in the diarrhœa of teething, there is great thirst, which may best be abated by giving plentifully of thin, cool gum-arabic water, no sugar. It is this everlasting sugar sweetening that creates fermentation at such times. It is the over-indulgence in objectionable food that causes much of the bowel complaint in teething, rather than the teething itself. We are aware that the pain caused by a coming tooth is annoying, yet this is no reason why children cannot be kindly prohibited from grasping and tasting everything they seem to see or cry for. Children are very sensitive to odors, therefore cooking and eating should be done as remote from them as possible. In this matter, however, many of the laboring classes and indigent are deserving of sympathy; being either from choice, or ill-fortune, huddled together in close tenements, where each can smell what the other is cooking. And it is next to impossible for them to better the future condition or prospects of their offspring while continuing to live so. It may not be unprofitable to insert here what I have frequently suggested as a sanitary measure: that is, for families to make it a rule not to occupy the last room at the top of the house, even for storing goods; as carpets, trunks, hanging garments or curtains, and bedding catch and retain the odors ascending from below. Smoke, gases, dusts, breaths of inmates, steam, the odors arising from old drains, or fever patients, all go to the top of a building, and if there is no outlet it must stop there and endanger the health of persons occupying it. By leaving one room vacant, a window in it could be continually open and no one would suffer from bad air. A skylight in the roof would answer the same purpose, but these are scarcely ever opened.

WHOOPING-COUGH.

Frequently when whooping-cough intervenes during the time of teething, the irritation of the gums somewhat abates. Some children have whooping-cough and diarrhœa for some length of time, and upon recovery, show quite a number of teeth. I am not all in favor of encouraging any increased discharge from the bowels, but sometimes in congestive whooping-cough a little looseness is beneficial. Cholera often sets in just as the teeth have begun to break through the gums. The treatment, however, should be the same as if not teething. Great caution should be observed not to administer drugs containing laudanum; for by so doing, air and mucus collect in the air or bronchial tubes, inducing a stoppage in the breathing. Possibly suffocation and death have resulted from this cause in numbers of cases. Whooping-cough, if gently treated, seldom, if ever, proves fatal. I have had patients under my charge with it from four weeks old, upwards. It would, nevertheless, be well to keep the tender infant from exposure to whooping-cough for a while. It does seem as if sooner or later in life we are to encounter these peculiar complaints. The main thing to do to relieve the force of whooping-cough is to keep the chest and air-tubes warm, and, most of the time, moist. If there is danger of congestion, a warm poultice of flaxseed meal spread over the chest and throat, and keeping clear of dust, smoke, or smells of any kind, will aid much. By all means the nose should be kept running, which may be done by sweating the forehead and nose. Bronchitis or wheezing, like whooping-cough, is a disease that affects the air-tubes in a greater or less degree, the inflammation sometimes becoming very distressing. The treatment should be about the same as for whooping-cough.

PNEUMONIA.

Pneumonia, which is lung fever, frequently sets in just about the time a child is getting teeth. When there is known to be inflammation of the substances of the lungs, active treatment is called for. To the nurse, or mother, I will say that the surest signs of lung troubles are in the manner of breathing. If the nostrils flare at every attempt to take breath, or in other words, if they open and shut in quick succession, there is little doubt as to the presence of lung fever well advanced. Of course, there is great heat prostration and perceptible agony from pain, even in the infant of three or four weeks. Thousands of babes die annually from this disease, who have never looked out at a door or window; how is it? Quick breathing may be occasioned by extreme pain, but never flaring of the nostrils without some lung pressure. Active measures to reduce the blood is the proper way to treat lung fever. The flaxseed meal poultice over the entire chest, or wrapping the body up in flannel cloths wrung out of hot water, and giving to drink, plentifully, of cream of tartar and gum-arabic water,—one teaspoonful of each dissolved in a pint of boiling water and a teaspoonful every hour to a child one month old, and upwards, increasing the quantity according to age,—all tend to reduce the fever.

Very young infants are liable to perish in the acute stage, yet where the constitution is solid, in older babes there is a chance, with proper, special treatment, of raising them. Patient watchfulness, pure air, and absolute quiet, in all such trying afflictions, will more than pay for the enduring.

SORE THROAT, OR TONSILITIS.

It is with the deepest regret that I have to say that, of late, nearly every case of inflamed or sore throat is termed “diphtheria”—a name which sends a severely depressing blow to the heart of many a true, devoted mother. It is a pity that simple, curable diseases should be given such long, technical names that parents get frightened out of all common judgment, and give up all hope of successful efforts to save. I frequently hear mothers say, “I lost my boy just as I had entered him in school.” And rehearsing the causes, they are invariably these!—teething, diphtheria, “pneumonia on the lungs,” one or all; “He couldn’t live,” and explicit pains is taken to state that “the doctor said so.” I will simply state here that the throat is very likely to be affected while getting the first four grinders, or at the age of from sixteen to twenty-four months; and the true condition of the membranes of the mouth and throat cannot be guessed at. They should be examined by a skilled practitioner, that the danger may be modified in the outset. An ordinary sore throat may easily be converted into a malignant type by improper treatment; as in case of the sore throat of scarlet fever, for instance, the greatest danger arises from giving hot drinks, or applying some severe irritant to the membranes of the throat. It is well in all cases of sore throat to apply cooling treatment; this may be done by the following means: Wring a cloth out of hot water, wrap it around the throat, and cover with a dry flannel. Change every hour or two; give plentifully of warm barley-water to drink. Anoint the glands of the throat and ears once a day with goose or fish oil (no camphor), aiming to keep the parts soft, thereby scattering the inflammation. The diet should be nourishing, as of scalded milk, or, if the bowels are dry, raw milk with oatmeal pudding. The throat and mouth should be swabbed out frequently with a weak solution of bread soda; also common salt is good to excite the glands on the back of the tongue, and assist Nature to carry off the disease. By these, and various other domestic means, the sequences of scarlatina, such as dimness of vision, deafness, and glandular knots, may be avoided. Severe physic should never be given a child if costive while teething. There are other methods which, if applied, will be more lasting in effect; such as wringing a flannel cloth out of hot water, and covering the bowels; giving a pretty warm bath once a day. If injections are given, great care should be observed not to injure the soft internal folds of the lower bowel, but they should never be used if avoidable. Repeated but small doses of Epsom salts, dissolved in warm sweetened water, are invaluable.

WORMS.

Children who are allowed to eat candies, and unripe fruit of all sorts, are liable to be troubled with worms. Such children are constantly thirsty, and almost as constantly desiring to go to the water-closet. Young children that are fed on pure milk rarely have pin or stomach-worms; but the irregular slop-feeding of children gives great chance for their development. In nearly all cases where they are known to exist, a few grains of salt given in water early in the morning will drive them downward. Then three grains each of calcined magnesia and pulverized rhubarb, mixed in cold milk just moist enough to be drunk, should be given at bed-time. This continued for about one week, with solid food at regular hours, will drive them out of the system. If pin-worms appear in the back passage, the injections of salt water twice a week, and giving a teaspoonful of salt water to drink every morning, will generally give relief.