Page:Mrs Beeton's Book of Household Management.djvu/2069

Rh Cause.—Short or tight boots, high heels and pointed toes.

Treatment.—Rational boots with straight inside edge of sole from heel to toe, and fully large. Instruments and splints of many kinds, intended to keep the great toe in its proper position, have been devised. Inflammation to be treated with soothing fomentations and rest. Bad cases require operative treatment.

Carbuncle.—Apply belladonna, as recommended in the treatment of boils, or, better still, use hot fomentations till the core is discharged. Attend to the bowels, and give as good diet as the patient can digest.

Chapped Hands.—Rub them with lanoline or glycerine at bed-time, and put gloves on. If glycerine is used the hands should first be washed in warm water, partly dried on a warm soft towel, and the glycerine applied immediately. This saves much smarting.

Chilblains.—Paint them with tincture of iodine, or apply camphor ointment to them. See that the boots are water tight, and do not pinch the feet.

Chill may result in cold in the head, cold in the throat or windpipe, cold in the lungs (bronchitis) or cold in the stomach or bowels.

General Treatment of Chill.—A hot bath before getting into a warmed bed, followed by a hot drink of either gruel or wine and water. One or two grains of calomel or blue pill, followed by a seidlitz powder in the morning. If at all feverish the patient should stay in bed next day, when the effects of the chill will probably pass away.

Cold, of which catarrh is the most prominent symptom, is, perhaps, the most frequent malady in this country. Its causes are as numerous as its consequences, which vary from slight temporary inconvenience to speedy death. Colds are very frequently felt to date from some particular period, but frequently their onset is not noticed for a time.

Symptoms.—The preliminary symptoms are shivering and sneezing, with lassitude, pains in the back, loins and limbs, with tightness of the forehead, and an unnaturally dry state of the lips and nostrils. These are quickly followed by excessive acrid discharge from the nostrils, which later becomes mucous or even purulent. There is hoarseness and slight sore throat, watering of the eyes, feverishness, loss of appetite, furred tongue, thirst and quick pulse. Sometimes small vesicles, called herpes, appear on the lips or about the nose. These symptoms do not last long; they either pass away, or become aggravated if the inflammation passes onwards into the interior of the lungs.

Treatment.—Put the feet in hot water, and, if an adult, take 10 grains of Dover's powder, a cupful of gruel, and then go straight to bed. The following is also useful, and may be taken instead of the Dover's powder: Sweet spirits of nitre, 20 drops; Mindeterer's spirit (acetate of ammonia solution), a teaspoonful; camphor-water sufficient