Rensselaer Union, Volume 8, Number 19, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 27 January 1876 — The Scarlet Fever. [ARTICLE]

The Scarlet Fever.

It is as unnecessary for a child to die of scarlet fever as it is that it should be blind.with cataract. Let us see: At any time before the body has finished its ineffectual struggle we are able to help it, not by wonderful medicines but by the knowledge of anatomy and the application of common sense. We consult the sympathetic nerve and do what it commands us to do. We must give this child salt when it wants it; we must give it acid when it has fever—not vinegar but lemonjuice, because the first coagulates albumen and the latter does not, on account of the surplus of oxygen which it contains. To imitate the soothing mucous in the intestines, which is now wanting, and to give some respiratory food at the same time, we add some gum-arabic. To restore and relieve the injured nerve we apply moist warmth. In practice we can fulfill all this with the following simple manipulations: Undress the child and bring it to bed at the very nrst sign of sickness. Give it, if it has already fever, nothing but warm, sourish lemonade with some gumarabic in it. Then cover its abdomen with some diy flannel. Take a well-fold-ed bed-sheet and put it in boiling hot water; wring it out dry by means of dry towels and put this over the flannel on the child’s abdomen. Then cover the whole and wait. The hot cloths will perhaps require repeated heat. According to the severity of the case and its stage of progress perspiration will commence in the child in from ten minutes to two hours. The child then is saved; it soon falls to sleep. Boon after the child' awakes it shows slight symptoms of returning inclination for food; help its bowels if, necessary with 'injections of oil, soap and water; and its recovery will be as steady as the growth of a green-house plant if well treated. Of course if the child was already dying nothing could save it, or if it has effusions id the lining of the heart or brain it is much better that it should die. BUt if the above is applied in due time, under the eyes and direction of a competent physician, I will guarantee that not one in a hundred children will ever die of scarlet fever. I know this will startle some of my readers, especially those who have lost children already, but I shall go still further. I maintain that a child will never get scarlet fever if properly treated. If a child has correctly-mixed blood it will not catch the disorder if put in bed with a sick child. This is still more startling, but nothing is easier of proof,—Good Health.